FROM many quarters come the reports of an increase in wife-beating. In various sections of the country, it has become so prevalent as almost to assume the proportions of an epidemic. Newspapers have referred to it as such.
Extreme measures are used in some places, in the effort to check this brutal practice. According to press reports, "Kansas City, Kansas, is the first city to take drastic and unusual steps to curb the nation-wide spread of wife-beating; and the procedure it has taken is sensational in the extreme."
It has revived and erected a modified form of the public pillory of colonial times, at which to chastise wife-thrashers. A two-inch iron pipe, six feet in height, has been set in a seventy-five-pound hitching weight. About a foot from the base is an iron ring, to which a chain with ankle irons is attached. It has been placed at the busiest corner in town.
FIELD MASS AT CAMP WHITMAN, NEW YORK
There has been considerable criticism for and against the revival of this severe form of punishment, but into this controversy we do not wish to enter. We do, however, desire to call attention to this indisputable fact,—that nineteen hundred years ago, the Divine Book foretold the coming of just such outbreaks and epidemics, which are growing more frequent and sinister as we approach the finale of earth's history.
Here is the inspired description: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be . . . without natural affection, . . . fierce." 2 Tim. 3: 1-3. The evidences that we have reached earth's closing hours thicken around us. L. E. F.
