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The New York Times February 9, 1913
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WOULD FLOG DRUNKARDS.
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Lash Recommended by a London Doctor for Cure, Not punishment.
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LONDON, Jan 28.--- Dr. Miller, lecturing before the London Medical Society has advocated flogging drunkards. He declared that the present system of treating drunkenness judicially is all wrong, because it began at the wrong end. When a citizen is brought up for the first time on a charge of drunkenness, he is admonished and allowed to go; the second time he is fined and the third he is imprisoned. The first time the man is clearly culpable, the second time he is less accountable for his condition and the third time he is a chronic drunkard.
The only thing such a man remembers, Dr. Miller said, is physical pain. It is the one logical deterrent for the chronic alcoholic, and it is the one not used. The reason for this is that we are too scientific and too sentimental. We are too white-livered to beat a man who beats his wife; therefore, in the name of humanity the wife has to go on getting beaten. It would be kind to flog an alcoholic early, whereas it is simply barbarous to imprison him later.