MARK TWAIN ON WIFE-BEATING
When I was in London twenty-three years ago there was a new penalty in force for diminishing garroting and wife-beating – 25 lashes on the bare back with the cat-o’- nine-tails. It was said that this terrible punishment was able to bring the stubbornest ruffians to terms; and that no man had been found with grit enough to keep his emotions to himself beyond the ninth blow; as a rule the man shrieked earlier. That penalty had a great and wholesome effect upon the garroters and wife-beaters; but humane modern London could not endure it; it got its law rescinded. Many a bruised and battered English wife has since had occasion to deplore that cruel achievement of sentimental “humanity.” From Following The Equator, Volume 1, Chapter 5, “The Discovery Of Australia,” by Mark Twain, 1899
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