|
The Exposure of the Delaware Whipping Post
Also known as [The Delaware Whipping Post]
(1914) United States of America
B&W : Three reels
Directed by (unknown)
Cast: (unknown)
Feature Photoplay Company production. / Released May 1914. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Mrs. Raleigh, wife of Wm. Raleigh, cashier of the City Bank, is an extravagant, selfish woman living beyond her husband’s income. The consequence: An unhappy home, the husband spending his leisure hours at the club. Contrasted with this, we see the home of Howard Mason, a poor workman. It is a happy home with a devoted wife and mother, saving every cent possible to pay off the mortgage. The story opens with breakfast in the Raleigh home, Mrs. Raleigh urging her husband for more money. Then we see breakfast in the happy home. Mason and his son, Billy, finish breakfast and with their dinner pails and a loving kiss, start for work at the factory. In the evening when Raleigh reaches home, he finds his wife and daughter nearly finished with their dinner. Angered at this, he starts for the club. Closing time at the factory, Mason and Billy find Mrs. Mason and the little girl waiting with a nice warm dinner ready for them. Two months later Raleigh, having lost heavily in poker and being hounded at home for more money, in a vain effort to secure it, robs the bank, and escapes. The bank is closed in consequence of this theft, and hundreds of depositors are made penniless. Not only does Mason lose the money, which he had saved to pay off the mortgage, but the factory is forced to close on account of the bank having called in the factory paper, which they hold. A month later, Mason returns home disheartened after a day’s unsuccessful search for work, only to find the mortgage is to be foreclosed the next day, and his little girl’s shoes entirely worn out. He makes a firm resolve to get work at any cost. In his vain effort, he passes a store and sees a pair of shoes that will just fit his child’s feet. He is tempted and steals them. The proprietor, watching through the window, calls the police and Mason is arrested. About the same time Raleigh is captured in New York, Mason is tried, found guilty and sentenced to ninety days in jail with twenty lashes. Raleigh is brought into court and released on bail. On another instance, being intoxicated and upbraided by his wife, he beats her. Mrs. Raleigh telephones for the police and has Raleigh arrested. He pleads guilty to wife beating, and is fined fifty dollars and costs. The same day Mason receives twenty lashes at the Whipping Post, and starts to serve his ninety days for stealing a pair of shoes. Raleigh grows desperate at the thought of his coming trial for his lowly crime, and ends his trouble and shame with death. // [From a trade ad (as reproduced in Tarbox-Lost p. 14)] A defense of the lash as a crime preventive and a defiance to the Sentimentalists who would abolish it. The State of Delaware is the only State in the Union that whips its criminals at public whipping posts, and also pilliories them. It has done this ever since it became a State. There have been periodical waves of agitation throughout the Nation for the abolition of these forms of punishment. The most violent wave of this kind culminated recently in a demand before Congress for Federal action compelling Delaware to discontinue its whipping post.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Prisoners - Punishment - USA: Delaware
Listing updated: 15 September 2023.
References: Tarbox-Lost p. 14 : Website-IMDb.
|
