y.

+500. Unseemliness of lynching, torture, etc.+ It is an unseemly thing
and unworthy of our age and civilization that persons should be lynched
for alleged crime, without the trial and proof which our institutions
provide for. The arguments in defense of lynching (except on the
frontier, where civil institutions do not yet exist) never touch on this
point. It is unseemly that any one should be burned at the stake in a
modern civilized state. It is nothing to the purpose to show what a
wicked wretch the victim was. Burning alive has long been thrown out of
the folkways of our ancestors. The objection to reviving it is not an
apology for the bad men or a denial of their wickedness: it is the
goodness of the lynchers. They fall below what they owe to themselves.
Torture has also long been thrown out of our folkways. It might have
been believed a few years ago that torture could not be employed under
the jurisdiction of the United States, and that, if it was employed,
there would be a unanimous outburst of indignant reprobation against
those who had so disgraced us. When torture was employed in the
Philippines no such outburst occurred. The facts and the judgment upon
them were easily suppressed. The recognition of Panama was unseemly. It
was unworthy of the United States. It was defended and justified by the
argument that we got something which we very earnestly wanted.

+501. Good taste.+ Finally we may notice here also the matter of taste.
Good taste is the most subtle of all the codes of judgment which are
cultivated by the mores. What we now consider good taste was violated in
the dramas of the Greeks and Romans. This is entirely aside from
obscenity or vulgarity. For instance, it does not appear that the author
of the _Medea_ appreciated the dastardly conduct of Jason. De
Julleville[1652] says that in the thirteenth century no one knew the
distinction between good and bad taste. The assertion is fully
justified. The mediaeval people may have had good taste in architecture,
stained glass, and hammered iron (as we are told), but their literature,
administration of justice, and politics show that they lacked good
taste, and also the case shows what a high protection against folly and
error good taste is. This last office it shares with the sense of humor.
The sports of that age were cruel. People found fun in the sufferings of
the weak under derision and abuse. "The Middle Ages did not shrink from
presenting as funny