TORTURE FOR CRIMINALS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sllt,—May I, through your columns, call attention to a passage in the last edition of the " Unseen Universe," by Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait, which seems noteworthy, as indi- cating in a striking manner the tendency of a certain class of minds at the present time P In speaking of the punishment of our criminals, the authors say (p. 144) :—
"Imprisonment has been tried in vain, and, besides, it involves great and needless expense. The cat,' though thoroughly appro- priate, is objected to, as tending to brutalise (!) the patient, and render murder not unlikely. No such objections can be urged against the use of electricity in any of its many forms. For it can easily be applied so as to produce for the requisite time, and for that only, and under the direction of skilled physicists and physiologists, absolutely indescribable torture (unaccompanied by wound or even braise), thrilling through every fibre of the frame of such miscreants."
It has long been known from the works of physiologists that the nerves of various animals are not nnfrequently subjected, sometimes for a considerable time, to the action of electricity; but this is the first time to my knowledge that scientific men have confessed that such treatment produces " absolutely in- describable torture," and it is also new to me to find the same
torture advocated for human beings. The passage is the more remarkable as it occurs, printed in parentheses, in a book which treats of very different matters, and it apparently has little con- nection with what precedes or follows. It seems almost like a " feeler," a trial of the effect of the thin edge of a huge wedge. For if the public do not object, and our " skilled physiologists " are content to accept office as genteel torturers of their fellow- men as well as of animals (always for the benefit of mankind, of course), there does not seem to be any reason or feeling on their part which will restrain them from further utilising such advantageous opportunities of investigation. Might not the delight in the physiological world at the news of a fresh murder prove more demoralising to the community even than the-
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