The Last Use of the Whipping Post to Punish Domestic Violence: Maryland 1945

FULL TEXT: Upper Marlboro, Mel., Oct. 19 (/P) —The Prince Georges County Sheriff stepped up to a nude prisoner today, and lashed him ten times with a whip.

Twenty witnesses watched a convicted wife-beater, Lloyd O. Busching; 30, take his licking. The blows were delivered so slowly that it took ten minutes to deliver the ten strokes.

Reporters, barred from the jail, could hear the whack, whack, whack as the four-foot rawhide whip hit Buching’s bare body.

The jailer, Ellis Middleton, who saw the whipping, observed:

“The sheriff did it very nice. I wish the judge could have seen it. The sheriff did not hit him as bard as my dad used to hit me.”

~ Accused of Assault ~

Busching, a sturdy 175 pound gas company employe, was accused of knocking out two of his wife’s teeth after a beer party at their Dillon Park, Md. home.

County Circuit Judge Charles G. Marbury said it would deprive Mrs. Busching and their two children of financial support if he sent Busching to jail, so he ordered the beating, the first ever administered in this county although the Maryland law was written in 1882.

Sheriff R. Earle Sheriff gave reporters this account of the whipping:

Busching was stripped in front of the witnesses. After he was handcuffed, he stood straight up and put his hands on the bars in front of him. Then the sheriff went to work.

The sheriff said he kept his coat on, and that Busching made no sound – just jumped slightly each time the whip hit him.

~ No Skin Broken ~

Dr. James G. Sasscer examined Busching after the whipping, and said that although no skin was broken, the whip raised large The 25-year-old Mrs. Busching, who weighs only 98 pounds, has protested throughout that her husband should not be flogged. She did not testify at his trial.”

The wife-beating charges grow out of complaints by neighbors that the Buschings’ arguments were disturbing the peace. Mrs. Busching has been in seclusion since the trial but a friend with whom she stayed said she insists she still loves her husband. The friend, who asked that she remain unidentified, said Mrs. Busching has only one worry: What attitude will the neighbors take when her husband comes back home?

Although Busching was free to leave the jail as soon as the whipping was completed, he stayed there for more than three hours, then dashed out with a handkerchief over his face (photographers were waiting to take his picture) and drove his car.

“While he was in the jail he received a note from his employer saying his job was waiting for him when he got out.

Another whipping was handed out today, to Andrew M. Pennewill, 32, a confessed housebreaker. Pennewill took 20 lashes in the Kent county jail yard in Dover, Del.

But Pennewill took his whipping by choice. It will cut two years off his seven, year sentence. Maryland Congressman appeared divided on the use of whipping as punishment.

Senator Tydings (D-Md) said:

“Whipping is a good punishment for wife beating,” he added. Such punishment should be used “sparingly” and principally where a jail sentence would cause hardship to the offender’s family. Rep. Dudley G. Roe (D-Md) agreed that whipping “is a good law to apply in a case like the present one.”

Senator Radcliffe (D-Md) said:

“We should find some other way of bringing home the nature of their wrongs to bullies who do things in a brutish way. I think whippings a medieval method of punishment.” Radcliffe added he thought a jail sentence too light for “bullyish crimes.”

[“Wife Beater Lashed by County Sheriff – 30 [sic] Strokes Administered to Nude Prisoner for Attacking Spouse,” The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Md,), Oct. 20, 1945, p. 1]

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►• You have been told that before the rise of feminism in the 1960s that domestic violence against women was tolerated by society as acceptable behavior and was not taken seriously by police and the courts.

You have been lied to. The people who told you these lies were paid to tell them you. In most cases you paid your own money (taxes and tuition fees) to be lied to.

Here is one of countless pieces of evidence that demonstrate the truth.

►•►• To see more eloquent, vivid evidence proving the lie and giving you the truth, see:

►Society’s Acceptance of Domestic Violence?

►19th Century Intolerance Towards Domestic Violence

► Treatment of Domestic Violence Against Women Before 1960 – this post collects cases classified by the form of punishment or sentencing (whether judicial or through community action)

No, the claim that laws created by males were for the benefit of males is false. Yes, the "Rule of Thumb" myth has been proven to be a marxist-feminist hoax, taking an ancient English common historical notation published in the 18th century and extrapolating it into unsupported claims that 18th and 20th century United States communities, courts and legislatures (laws on the books) were in agreement with the18th century historical notation (Blackstone).

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“[O]nly since the 1970s has the criminal justice system begun to treat domestic violence as a serious crime, not as a private family matter.”

From the entry: “Domestic Violence” on encyclopedia.com

This claim has been proven to be false.

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[2723-10/12/21]

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