CORRECTION. Chastisement, by one having authority, of a person who has com mitted some offence, for the purpose of bring ing him to legal subjection.
2. It is chiefly exercised in a parental manner by parents, or those who are placed in loco parentis. A parent may therefore justify the correction of the child either corporally or by confinement; and a school master, under whose care and instruction a parent has placed his child, may equally ,justify similar correction ; but the correction in both cases must be moderate and in a proper manner. Comyns, Dig. Pleader, 3 M. 19 ; Hawk. c. 60, s. 23, c. 62, s. 2, c. 29, s. 5 ; 2 Humphr. Tenn. 283 ; 2 Dev. & B. No. C. 365.
The master of an apprentice, for disobedi ence, may correct him moderately, 1 Barnew. & C. 469 ; Croke Car. 179; 2 Show. 289 ; 10 Mart. La. 38 ; but he cannot delegate the au thority to another. 9 Coke, 96.
A master has no right to correct his ser vants who are not apprentices. 10 Conn. 455; 2 Greenleaf, Ey. 97.
3. Soldiers are liable to moderate correction from their superiors. For the sake of main taining discipline on board of the navy, the captain of a vessel, either belonging to the United States or to private individuals, may inflict moderate correction on a sailor for disobedience or disorderly conduct. Abbott,
Shipp. 160; 1 Chanc. Pract. 73 ; 14 Johns N. Y. 119; 15 Mass. 365; 1 Bay, So. C. 3; Bee, Adm. 161; 1 Pet. Adm 168 ; Moll. 209; 1 Ware, Dist. Ct. 83. Such has been the general rule. But by a proviso to an act of congress, approved the 28th of September, 1850, flogging in the navy and on board vessels of commerce was abolished.
4. The husband, by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. 1 Hawkins, Pl. Cr. 2. But in later times this power of correction began to be doubted ; and a wife may now have security of the peace against her husband, or, in return, a husband against his wife. 1 Blackstone, Comm. 444; Strange, 478, 875, 1207 ; 2 Lev. 128.
5. Any excess of correction by the parent. master, officer, or captain may render the party guilty of an assault and battery and liable to all its consequences. 4 Gray, Mass. 36. In some prisons, the keeperg have the right to correct the prisoners.