- Project Runeberg -  On punishments and prisons /
15

(1842) [MARC] Author: Oscar I Translator: Alfred May
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widely from its original idea, that it disgraces,
renders the return from the path of crime, when
once entered upon, almost impossible, and leaves,
as a choice, only misery and the scaffold. How
many examples of this state of things, as grievous
for humanity, as it is dangerous for the public
safety, has not our country to produce.

But, it is objected, corporal punishments are
closely united with our habits, our manners, our
traditional customs! This assertion is founded, in
my opinion, on a misunderstanding, a
confounding of the views of a past time, with those of the
present. Corporal punishments were incorporated
with the general opinion, so long as they agreed
with the prevailing ideas of religion. The church
itself pointed them out as a means of obtaining
eternal bliss, and the penitent sinner imagined, that
by flagellation, bodily suffering and severe fasts,
his lost peace of conscience might be regained.
Far from being disgraceful, corporal punishments
were then considered as a means of atonement;
and the only right way by which the offender could
again be restored to the bosom of the church.
Hence they are found united with confession and
penance, through which the person purified by
punishment was readmitted into the church. But
this belief, these ideas have long since disappeared.
The public opinion in our days stamps the punished
offender with a disgrace almost indelible, and thrusts
him back with disgust. Is there a single person,

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