Mr. CONKLING. I should like to add a word just at this point. I am willing that these judges should be punished for doing almost anything for which a man may be punished; but as I read the bill I think there is great difficulty in knowing that for which they are to be punished. The bill proposes to provide that no judge or other civil officer shall hereafter adjudge that criminals shall be punished by lashes or blows, “ or by any other mode of physical torture.” Now, for legal purposes, I would like to have some gentleman explain to this House what that means; to fix the metes and bounds which guard those words. Surely putting a man in a strait jacket is physical torture. I am inclined to think that putting him in a cell is physical torture. I feel sure that if you put a ball and chain upon him, and compel him to go out in public in that condition, although the essence of the punishment is the mortification to which he is subjected, and so intended to be, I am inclined to think that is physical torture. Now, I Presume it is very common in all or nearly all the States to take petty offenders, for instance, men incorrigibly prone to;drunk and exposing themselves in public, and send them to the work house, where, although they are confined but a short time, a ball and chain is put upon them; not one that weighs, very much, not that the ban of the punishment is the physical inconvenience or exhaustion which ensues; but because it makes them a spectacle, because it hangs them up like a dead crow in a corn field as a warning to other people who are disposed to commit like offenses, that is physical torture. I might go on and multiply instances in which some of the most approved, some of the lightest, some of the most casual punishments inflicted by our courts would be ited under very heavy penalty by this lli. Now, if I may be allowed to make one further remark, I will say, here is a bill which is not printed. If I had understood the force of it when the gentleman asked leave to introduce it I am free to say I should have voted, as I did not vote, for the suspension of the rules. It comes here now to be acted upon in very great haste. It involves principles and details of very great importance. I ask the Gentfrom Iowa [Mr. KAssoN] to allow it to be referred to some committee, with leave, which I Presume will be granted, to report at any time upon giving one day's notice; and in the mean time the bill can be printed.