ological Institute_,
August-November, 1898, p. 162.)

"The Cymric law," writes a correspondent, "seems to have survived
in popular belief in the Eastern and Middle States of the United
States. In police-courts in New York, for example, it has been
unsuccessfully pleaded that a man is entitled to beat his wife
with a stick no thicker than his thumb. In Pennsylvania actual
acquittals have been rendered."

Among all classes children were severely whipped by their parents
and others in authority over them. It may be recalled that in the
twelfth century when Abelard became tutor to Heloise, then about
18 years of age, her uncle authorized him to beat her, if
negligent in her studies. Even in the sixteenth century Jeanne
d'Albert, who became the mother of Henry IV of France, at the
age of 131/2 was married to the Duke of Cleves, and to overcome her
resistance to this union the Queen, her mother, had her whipped
to such an extent that she thought she would die of it. The whip
on this occasion was, however, only partially successful, for the
Duke never succeeded in consummating the marriage, which was, in
consequence, annulled. (Cabanes brings together numerous facts
regarding the prevalence of flagellation as a chastisement in
ancient France in the interesting chapter on "La Flagellation a
la Cour et a la Ville" in his _Indiscretions de l'Histoire_,
1903.)

As to the prevalence of whipping in England evidence is furnished
by Andrews, in the chapter on "Whipping and Whipping Posts," in
his book on ancient punishments. It existed from the earliest
times and was administered for a great variety of offenses, to
men and women alike, for vagrancy, for theft, to the fathers and
mothers of illegitimate children, for drunkenness, for insanity,
even sometimes for small-pox. At one time both sexes were whipped
naked, but from Queen Elizabeth's time only from the waist
upward. In 1791 the whipping of female vagrants ceased by law.
(W. Andrews, _Bygone Punishments_, 1899.)

It must, however, be remarked that law always lags far behind
social feeling and custom, and flagellation as a common
punishment had fallen into disuse or become very perfunctory long
before any change was made in the law, though it is not
absolutely extinct, even by law, today. There is even an ignorant
and re