Birching in the newspapers

ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
QuoteLikeSharePin Topic

holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Apr 27, 2011#2
KK Transferred from recent post. We often surf the same pages but are you signing up for free sites? Glad I can be of help someone who has been so helpful. What a veritable mine of information this paper has proved to be.

CLICK

QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Apr 27, 2011#3
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
American Way,

I regret that I did not notice your link to the birching article. In truth, I tend to skip clicking your links when I have trouble understanding your supporting text and especially after I have clicked links that fail to deliver the promised content. It seems that some USA documents can only be viewed by those in the USA. The rest of us are denied access, even to snippet views.

Papers Past contains more than one million pages of digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals. The collection covers the years 1839 to 1945 and includes 63 publications from all regions of New Zealand. It is quite possibly the best such free English language digital collection in the world. Google’s collection is far less systematic and presently very incomplete.

The service is free and includes OCR text and word search. It is also searchable using Google. The OCR is of variable quality depending upon the quality of the original printing, and its photo image.

The papers reflect the ethos of the nation and the daily concerns. There are many reports of foreign news that show how New Zealand viewed the world and was influenced by it.
QuoteLikeShare

neilfrommanc
276
2
Apr 27, 2011#4
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Very wierd, ponderous and pompous style as seemed the fashion then.

Note the word “fetish” in the third paragraph – I don’t think it quite had the same connotations then!

QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
Apr 28, 2011#5
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif);”>Hi KK. You say to our esteemed fellow contributor American way:

Sadly you are not alone. I do not share the enjoyment that our excellent and hard-working Management Team find in American Way’s more surreal efforts. I simply find myself frustrated and annoyed that I cannot understand them.

As regards the inaccessible links, I have pointed out to American Way in the past that certain features of Google are only available to US IP addresses. If you find yourself really desirous of seeing the promised contents of such a link a trick which will sometimes work is to access the link via a US anonymous proxy service, of which there are some free ones. One of our past nuisance posters (I would say fun pesters, but I’d have to put in the © notice ) made extensive use of one such service.

However, if using an anonymous proxy service be sure to first clear your browser cache, including cookies, as Google is extremely wary of the copyright implications of allowing access to the material outside the US and will identify some data from previous websites visited which makes such origin appear likely. Sadly though even this precaution may not be sufficient, as depending on use previously made of the IP address the anonymous proxy allocates you Google may object to it anyway. In short, a lot of hassle unless you really, really want to see whatever is purported to be in the link.
Hi neilfrommanc. You say of the 1889 article from the Nelson Evening Mail:

What a dreadful thing to say about magnificent text from the days when the English language was correctly used and had stature and dignity, not having been widely reduced to SMS language rubbish like 2nite gr8, cu, l8, 4got etc.!

You say of the use of ‘fetish’ in the third paragraph:

Quite! I don’t think the word had general currency as meaning a pathological attachment of sexual interest to an inanimate object in 1889. The usage there is absolutely correct though, meaning something regarded with irrational reverence.</div>
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Apr 28, 2011#6
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/m … /Copyright

http://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/m … Books+etc-

http://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/m … 799894/Re-
QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Apr 28, 2011#7
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Classroom Management 1910

GOOGLE

INTERNET ARCHIVES
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Apr 28, 2011#8
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
PROFESSIONAL GIRL FLOGGINGTimaru Herald, Volume L, Issue 4760, 3 February 1890, Page 4

A writer in Truth [a scurrilous muckraking newspaper] some months ago called attention to the advertisements on the part of a woman, offering to flog unruly girls of any age on payment of a fee. It struck her that this sort of thing ought to be exposed, and she endeavoured to enter into correspondence with the “operator.” After one or two failures she succeeded in catching her fish, a correspondence ensued, and she, posing as the mother of an unruly daughter of 20, had an interview with the advertiser. The whole story is too long to be repeated here but the woman’s system is explained by herself in a sort of circular as follows:

– My first object when a girl is placed with me is to show her kindly, but firmly, that I must be implicitly obeyed. It is always a good plan to rule by moral suasion if possible. When that has been fairly tried and fails, then it is positively necessary to use some other means of making the girl obey.

First I warn her of the consequences of repeated faults; then, when a direct act of disobedience, a lie, or very serious fault shows itself, I tell her that presently I shall punish. Never birch when angry. During the interval she thinks over the fault. I make preparations. These consist in having ready a strong narrow table, straps (waist band with sliding straps, anklets, and wristlets), cushions, and a good, long, pliable rod, telling her to prepare by removing her dress, kinkers, &c., and putting on the dressing gown (hind part before). Then I talk seriously to her, show her the nature of the fault, and the need of punishment as a cure. Next I put on the waist band, after having told her that if she submits quietly no one need know; if she struggles I must call in help, (girls generally prefer to be quiet). Placing her at the end of the table (on which there are cushions to protect the person) I turn her body over the table and fasten the straps underneath it. Then I fasten the knees together, wrists the same, unless I anticipate a struggle – then I use anklets and wristlets, and fasten the limbs to the legs of the table. This really takes less time to do than to write about. Unfastening the dressing-gown, the orthodox surface is found at the right angle for punishing. Taking the birch, I measure my distance, and standing at the side, proceed to strike slowly but firmly. By moving gently forward each stroke is differently placed, and six strokes may be enough if well given with full force. If the fault has been such as to need severe correction, then I begin on the other side and work back again. For screams increased strokes must be given. If a girl tries very hard indeed to bear it bravely, then, perhaps, I give 10 instead of 12.

Directly it is finished I cover up the part exposed, unfasten the girl, and, finding her probably much subdued, help to resolutions of amendment. If this birching has been judiciously and conscientiously administered, the girl will bear against the operation no resentment, but be ready to “kiss and be friends.”

After allowing the culprit a little time to compose herself and re-dress, I expect her to join the others, and no mention of any kind is made of the punishment unless future misconduct makes it necessary, and this is not often.

Birching is an extraordinary thing, not an every-day work, therefore care must be taken that the operator has the proper nerve and patience for the operation. Mothers are the proper persons to whip girls, but if they have not the necessary nerve, then it is better to appoint a deputy. After this serious business is over, much steady patience is needed, for a birching is no use whatever if a girl is to be petted again and allowed to do just as she likes. She must be under firm, kind discipline. None of my girls have been more attached to me than those whom I have obliged to discipline severely. They have a great respect for those who can master them, and who do not taunt them with past misdeeds. One good scolding is worth months of “nagging.” Efforts at amendment must be encouraged, and those having the charge of girls must not expect to reform them all at once. “Rome was not built in a day.” The old Adam will sometimes show itself, and for checking his work nothing is so useful as a birch rod judiciously used.

Anyone who would be deterred by screams or struggles from carrying out what has been begun should never attempt whipping, because, unless it is thoroughly done, ground is lost, and the girl will rejoice in her triumph.

Source:http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00203.2.31

________________________________________

It is a little surprising that this gapfiller appeared in a supposedly respectable newspaper.
QuoteLikeShare
StevefromSE5
Apr 28, 2011#9
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Hi KK

That description is almost exactly how spanking houses operated in Victorian London & other cities.

The only differences:

The drawers were left on when the miscreant girl donned the dressing-gown back to front.

Six was usually considered sufficient for even the oldest miscreant.

I’m sorry that we exported that particularly disgraceful modus operandi to your fair land.

Can we have it back, please?!!

Steve
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Apr 29, 2011#10
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXI, Issue 7911, 27 September 1909, Page 4

BRUTAL BOYS SENTENCED TO BE BIRCHED

At Christchurch on Saturday ten boys, ranging in age from fourteen years and nine months to seventeen years, appeared in the Juvenile Court, before Mr W. R. Haselden, S.M. They were charged with having created a breach of the peace in Colombo street, Sydenham, on September 5. Eight of them pleaded guilty, and the other two not guilty.

Sub-Inspector McGrath said that there seemed to be a tendency among a section of boys in Sydenham to form “pushes,” and the ten boys before the Court were apparently one of these gangs. They appeared to have arranged to give a boy of sixteen a thrashing, and on the evening of September 5, a Sunday, the whole band sallied forth to meet their victim on his return from church. They met him in Colombo street, and gave him an unmerciful drubbing. Two young ladies who arrived on the scene went to the assistance of the lad, and succeeded in rescuing him from his tormentors, though they were somewhat roughly handled themselves. The gang did not disband then, but proceeded to maltreat other little boys whom they met.

Three of the boys gave their ages as seventeen, three as sixteen, three, as fifteen, and one as fourteen years and nine months, and in reply to the Magistrate’s question why those boys who were over sixteen had not been taken before the Magistrate’s Court the Sub- Inspector said that when juveniles and others were concerned in the same offence it was usual to charge all the offenders before the Juvenile Court.

The victim of the assault said that he felt the effects of the punishment he received for a week afterwards. The two boys who had pleaded not guilty were with the others, but he could not say that they struck him.

Statements made by some of the accused boys were produced by Sergeant Reamer. From these it appeared that the reason for the action of the “push” was that they believed the boy had said that he would blacken the faces of the Sydenham larrikins with boot polish. One boy stated that seven of the gang took an active part in the infliction of the punishment.

The Magistrate said that what the case demanded was a whipping for all the boys, but he had not the power to order such punishment for those over sixteen, and it, would be unfair to submit the younger boys to the indignity while the older ones escaped it. He gave the four boys under sixteen the option of taking six strokes of the birch rod or paying a fine of 20 shillings and two of the boys elected to take the whipping.

The Magistrate said that such conduct, on the part of the boys was most serious, and he was determined to put a stop to it. For the sake of good order it was impossible for him to let them off lightly. The two boys who had been manly enough to take a birching would receive the minimum number of strokes, four. He thought this punishment would be a sufficient deterrent to them and to other boys, and if it was not he could order up to twelve strokes. All the other boys would be convicted and fined 20s each, the fines to be paid at the rate of 5s per week. If they were riot paid, the defaulters would be committed to solitary confinement for seven days.

Source:http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90927.2.55

________________________________________

The case illustrates the difficulty when there are arbitrary age limits for punishments and it gives some insight into the exchange rate for different punishments – birch versus fine versus solitary confinement prevailing at the time. Also, it seems, youth gangs are not new.
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Apr 30, 2011#11
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Wanganui Chronicle , Issue 12881, 1 May 1913, Page 5

JUVENILE OFFENDERS INSTRUMENT OF PUNISHMENT

A correspondent in a Wellington paper writes as follows in the course of a long letter referring to juvenile courts: – The Juvenile Offenders Act directs that when corporal punishment is meted out, strokes shall be applied with a “birch rod.” Well Sir, a birch rod is not used; no doubt the instrument of punishment (a blood-curdling: one to look at) was a rod originally, but it has been purposely split for about half its length into a number of tails, and is there bound with cord to prevent it splitting; further, the tails being bound also at the ends. The result of this is that when a boy is ordered, say, six strokes he really receives a number of stripes equal to six multiplied by the number of tails. I know the case of a boy who was beaten so severely that his screams could be heard from the closed cell behind the watch house (where the “birching” was inflicted) to the other side of Lambton Quay. When examined at his home the boy’s back and loins were found to be literally covered with purple stripes and where the bound tail ends met over his hip there was a contused-looking bruise, which remained plainly discernible sixteen days afterwards; a member of the Legislative Council saw the bruise nine days after its infliction. The Juvenile Offenders Act further enacted that where birching is ordered the parents or guardian’s, may, if they so choose, witness the punishment, but they are not informed of this right by the Court. The Act should be amended to make it obligatory on the Court to do this.

Source:http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 01.2.26.14
QuoteLikeShare
Apr 30, 2011#12
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
BIRCH-ROD DAYS by William C Jones
Fond memory still recalls the bygone day
Of cruel tyrannizing birch-rod sway,
When sturdy teacher, of the old-time school,
Did govern well with birch-rod and the rule.
His unrelenting look, his solemn mien,
May, in imagination, still be seen;
The truant, disobedient of his law,
Recalls how quick he was to find some flaw;
Remembers youthful days the days of woe-
When oft was dealt the unforgiving blow
Upon the back, oft minus coat and vest,
Of hapless youth, for trifles, thus opprest.

Who dared to look or feel a moment gay,
Felt his coercion during all that day!
Well calculated to suppress all noise,
His laws inexorable were for boys.
We would rebel, yet each rebellious time
Were scored with the birch-rod, as for some crime.
Forgive him ! Never ! My heart revolting swells
With wicked thoughts, when back my memory dwells.
Yet, I remember, when in days now past,
We were all taught to spell, alike and fast;
To syllable and pronounce were taught it well-
Taught from the spelling book learned how to spell;
The class in reading, from books, were taught to read.
The teacher had one purpose to succeed;
And grammar, boys and girls were sparse
Who could not give the well-known rules and parse;
Each winter brought us to the rule of three,
And we could cipher well for well could he;
In writing the teacher would oft indite
A couplet, in our copy-books to write:
And well we wrote, and there was scarce a blot
For praises from his grace quite oft were sought
But never given, unless true worth was there
Worth was not found, if ’twas, I’m not aware.
Among them all, alone there is now but one
My boyhood ‘s memory loves to dwell upon;
He spared the rod on me, a helpless wight,
And made me love him, ruled me not by might;
Judge was he then, as now he is supreme-
Best of them all, be he alone my theme:

http://www.archive.org/details/birchroddaysothe00jone
QuoteLikeShare
May 04, 2011#13
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
A search of the database produced the following. Not all newspapers are included and the coverage varies during the survey period as does the population of those eligible for the birch rod. Some incidents were reported in several newspapers. The judicial birch for juveniles seems to have been most popular from about 1880 to 1910

QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
May 04, 2011#14
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
My esteemed colleague KK Have you ever thought of writing a book entitled “instruments of correction? The fruits of your research should not go unrewarded.

QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 04, 2011#15
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Victoria Government Gazette [Australia]
No. 50. Friday May 9, 1879, page 1015
NEGLECTED AND CRIMINAL CHILDREN’S ACT 1864 REGULATIONS

Whereas by The Neglected and Criminal Children’s Act 1864 it is amongst other things enacted that it shall be lawful for the Governor, with the advice of the Executive Council, to make regulations for the conduct, management, and supervision of Industrial end Reformatory Schools (established for the purposes of the said Act) for the education and correction of the children detained therein: Now therefore His Excellency the Governor, with the advice aforesaid, doth by this present Order make the following Regulations, that is to say:
Any inmate of a male reformatory, above the age of 14 years, guilty of any of the following offences, that is to say:-
1. Assaulting or attempting to assault any inmate or officer.
2. Wilful destruction of property.
3. Immoral conduct.
4. Bad language (second or further offence) shall be liable to be whipped on the bare breach with a birch rod to the extent of not more than 25 strokes for each offence: Provided that no boy shall be so whipped unless by the direction of the Inspector after an investigation into the facts of the case.

BRYAN O’LOGHLEN,
Acting Chief Secretary.
Chief Secretary’s Office,
Melbourne, 6th May 1879.

Approved by the Governor in Council the 6th May 1870.
ROB WADSWORTH.
Clerk of the Executive Council.

http://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/images/18 … ral/50.pdf
QuoteLikeShare
May 05, 2011#16
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
“The Justices of the Peace Act, 1882”, which came into force in the early part of the present month [September, 1882], is a consolidation of, and amendment on, the previous Acts relating to the Commission of the Peace. A most important feature of the new Act is the amendment of the law relating to indictable offences, whereby Justices of the Peace are empowered to deal summarily with certain offences.

Section 176 provides for the summary trial of children for indictable offences, other than homicide, should the parent or guardian of the child charged not object to its being so dealt with. Justices may thus inflict the same punishment as might have been imposed had the case been tried on indictment, provided that a sentence of penal servitude shall not be passed, but imprisonment substituted therefor. Where imprisonment is awarded, the term shall not exceed one month, and where a fine is imposed it shall not, in any case, exceed 40 shillings. The Act further provides that, where a child is a male, the Court may either, in addition to, or instead of, any other punishment, adjudge; the child to be privately whipped with not more than six strokes with a birch rod, by a constable in the presence of a peace officer of higher rank, and also in the presence of the parent or guardian.

Section 177 provides that, in the case of a person between the ages of twelve and sixteen years, the justices, should they think it expedient, having regard to the character and antecedents of the person charged, the nature of the offence and all the circumstances of the case, may, with the consent of the accused, deal summarily with the case, and adjudge the person, if found, guilty, to pay a fine not exceeding £10, or to imprisonment, with or without; hard labor, for any term not exceeding three months. The punishment of whipping may be substituted as in the previous case.

Section 178 provides, that where the person is an adult, that is to say of the age of sixteen years or upwards, and is charged with an indictable offence, the justices may deal; summarily with the offence, if the person charged consents to such course, and if found guilty, he may be imprisoned with hard labor for any term not exceeding three months, or adjudged to pay a fine not exceeding £20.

In section 179 provision is made for summary dealing with accused persons who plead guilty to certain charges. The whole of the clauses referred to embrace larceny of goods to the value of not more than 40s, and trial by jury may be demanded by, or on behalf of, any accused persons in lieu of summary jurisdiction under the Act. The provisions embodied therein should prove especially valuable in petty cases occurring in Wanganui. Here men are sometimes kept awaiting trial at the Supreme Court for a period of nearly six months for comparatively trivial offences, the punishment in this respect being perhaps greater than could by any possibility be judicially inflicted on the accused. The new Act will, render their awaiting , trial optional, and the’ manner in which men have hitherto been kept imprisoned here for long periods until the half-yearly sittings off the Supreme Court is contrary to the spirit of British law. There is thus just a possibility that the gravest injustice might be inflicted on an innocent man without any means of amende. True, bail is allowed, but even in the case pt a guiltless man can it always be obtained? In order that there may be less risk of injustice than there has been in the past, let our J.P.s exercise the authority now vested in them, erring rather on the side of lenience than severity, and they will merit the confidence of the public in that, by a judicious discharge of their duties, it may safely be relied upon that no criminal, however despicable, shall suffer more than a due reward of his misdeeds, while the miscarriage of justice in their jurisdiction shall be next to, an impossibility, as it ought to be.

Source:http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 20923.2.12
______________________________________________

British common law applied in NZ from 1840, with modifications subsequently by statute, until 1893 when the whole criminal law was codified.

Industrial Schools Act 1882, also provided for “whipping” (=birching).

The rise in newspaper mentions of the birch rod began shortly before the above two acts came into force.
QuoteLikeShare
May 06, 2011#17
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
My analysis above of NZ newspapers showed an unexpected decline in mentions of the term “birch rod” at the beginning of the 20th century. A further analysis suggests “birchings” and being “birched” may have replaced whippings with the “birch rod” at the turn of the century, or very soon after.

The number of news reports mentioning “birched” and “birching” did not decline until the early 1920s.
QuoteLikeShare
May 07, 2011#18
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
I did not search for the word “birch” as there are too many non-CP related mentions of the word.

There were big changes in the number of newspapers and the number included in the database during the survey period. There was also a big increase in population.

Some items are mentioned in multiple papers and some items report foreign news.

The number of items probably reflects public interest in birching rather than being a reliable indicator of the number of birchings.

Both school and judicial mentions are included. Most of the birchings were of boys as a kinder alternative to prison. Men were flogged with a cat.

Judicial CP was abolished in NZ in 1941.

QuoteLikeShare
JennyBr
1,776
2
May 07, 2011#19
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
Hi KK

Strange, then, that such “kindness” wasn’t extended to girls and women.

QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 07, 2011#20
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Jenny,

Whether you like it or not, whether it was right or not, boys and men were once treated very differently from girls and women and had very different roles. Please accept this fact and move on. It is pointless to keep on keeping on about the past. The past can not be changed. We know your views.
QuoteLikeShare
JennyBr
1,776
2
May 07, 2011#21
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
Hi KK

I know we can’t put right the injustices of the past but, if we don’t learn from them, we’re doomed to make the same mistakes in the future.

QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
May 07, 2011#22
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
KK I cannot agree more regarding Jenny. This post has less do with birching but I don’t feel I’m barging into this thread or by going off topic. Am I? Children of both genders were birched but with good old fashioned common sense IMHO. Modesty and delicacy were not embarrassing factors to consider. They were not as concerned about political correctness but with what was correct again IMHO. This may sound offensive to some but why are these very same issues being raised here? The prohibition of anything but same gender paddling appears to be likely to be signed in a state tomorrow where there are 49,000 paddle incidents in public schools. The overwhelming difference in proportion by gender indicates something that is happening in 2011. It might indicate it has more to do with human nature than nefarious motives.

Wanganui Chronicle – Oct 29, 1887

The cane, supplejack, tawse, ruler – round or flat birch? how many blows … be administered If a boy and girl committed a similar offence in a school?

Good old fashioned common sense

QuoteLikeShare

hcsj44
1,211
May 07, 2011#23
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
The cane, supplejack, tawse, ruler…

It’s the first time I have heard of supplejack, which I gather is a species of vine. Does anyone know more about its properties and whether it was commonly used for punishment?
QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
May 07, 2011#24
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif);”>Hi Jenny and KK. In response to KK’s observation that:

Jenny said:

There are two observations I would make here:

First, I am surprised if men were flogged with a cat as an alternative to prison. In prison as part of a sentence which included both detention and flogging, maybe. As a punishment for breaches of prison regulations while in prison, maybe. But floggings with a cat outside prison, in court or police premises for instance, the sentence merely being flogging, with no prison sentence involved? In the period quoted (1860 onwards) I am very surprised if this was the case.

Certainly in the UK from around 1863 only the higher courts could order corporal punishment for adult males, and then only for a narrow range of crimes, which were such that almost invariably there was also a prison sentence involved, and the corporal punishment was administered in prison as part of that sentence. See This article on the excellent CorPun.com site. This page from EPOCH New Zealand, gives some information on judicial CP in New Zealand but is not very detailed. Possibly KK might be be prepared to clarify if flogging with the cat was actually an alternative to prison for adult males or if the situation was similar to the UK please?

Second,Jenny’s comment is a valid one in general, but is only appropriate here if on occasion girls or women were sent to prison whereas boys or men charged with an identical offence at a like age, whether committed at the same time or separately, were sometimes dealt with by corporal punishment alone without a custodial sentence. I’ll stick my neck out and say that I doubt that this happened, or indeed that the judicial system had any intention that it should be able to happen. Any comments or evidence from anyone disproving my hypothesis will be most welcome.</div>
QuoteLikeShare

holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
May 07, 2011#25
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
hcj: The strap was considered a more benign instrument of correction. It would appear that it was not inflicted upon feminine flesh bare or otherwise. But I’m not sure judging by my previous post. I would assume, hopefully, no man would be asked to do such a task that through routine may become onerous.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00830.2.27

QuoteLikeShare
StevefromSE5
May 07, 2011#26
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
A_L

Judicial corporal punishment of females per se ended in 1810 over here. That included girls and women.

I believe some Victorian workhouses flogged women and girls, but whether this was remotely legal is open to debate. As most of these were run by local authorities, it is possible a magistrate would have at least asked serious questions about what was going on-Strood in Kent, I believe, was notorious.

It was also not unknown for actual mill foremen to beat children of either sex who weren’t working hard enough, so no discrimination there. Again, it wasn’t ordered by a court, but I suspect no magistrate would have found against any whipper, unless they severly injured or killed the child.

Interesting, then, that the cane was anything but illegal in borstals or approved schools, regardless of sex.

Steve
QuoteLikeShare

KKxyz
3,590
53
May 07, 2011#27
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Rhipogonum scandens tends to grow in tangles in the bush [forest] and can be a serious obstacle to trampers [recreational walkers] if they try to bush bash [go off cut the trail in certain lowland regions]. In its green state, it has a dense, hard, wiry stem would be very harsh if used as a cane. However, it is much less durable than rattan. It becomes brittle when dry, unlike rattan. There were occasional allusions to supplejack (and the buckle end of belts) as ultimate sanctions by “old” people when I was a boy. I never heard of either actually being used.

The Supplejack used in New Zealand Schools Grey River Argus, 1 November 1873

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 731101.2.4

The latest exhibition of eccentricity on the part of Cobden [now a suburb of Greymouth] has been confined to its School Committee, or, as they prefer to call themselves, the Local Committee of Education. These gentlemen, chieftained by Mr James Peyman, have constituted themselves into a Court of Appeal from the decisions of the Resident Magistrate, and, with a refreshing indifference to the law of libel, have chosen, to distinguish a family of the name of Dinan as so many liars, while they propose to exclude them from the privileges of citizens in a spirit worthy only of the period and practices of the Inquisition. It happened that a few days ago the local teacher, Mr Ray, was charged with striking a little girl with undue severity, and that lie was convicted of the offence most properly and with scarcely sufficient comment on the cowardice of his conduct – his conduct consisting of striking the girl unmercifully with a supplejack for no better reason than that she would not or could not write lines in her copy-book as he required. Judgment for a mere money line was given against him by Mr Whitefoord, whereas, had he been dealt with according to his deserts, he would have been well-striped with supplejacks or any other convenient, if cruel, medium of t convincing him of his altogether exceptional method of conveying instruction in caligraphy. With what may be, in some respects, a very laudable spirit, but at the same time with very contemptible thoughts and words, and a complete ignoring of facts, the School Committee came to his rescue, and passed a series of resolutions which their Chairman thus conveys to the editor of the Argus, and, through his columns, to an intelligent and, we confidently believe, an unsympathetic public :-

“Sir – At a special meeting of the Cobden Local Committee of Education, convened for the purpose of considering the late decision of Warden Whitefoord, the following resolutions were unanimously agreed to :-

“1. That the Committee is desirous of placing on record its dissatisfaction with the verdict given by Warden Whitefoord on the 27th instant, in the case of Dinan v. Ray.

“2. That after hearing the statements of the eldest girls attending the school, and of members of Committee in 1870-1, and reading the letter of Mr Stark, of the Grey River Argus, it is the conviction of the Committee that the evidence of the Dinan family is untrue.

“3. That after careful enquiry, it is the opinion of the Committee that the caning was not severe, and that the girl, from her own admission, deserved the correction.

“4. That the Committee entertain the highest opinion of Mr Ray’s capabilities as a teacher.

“5. That the decision of Warden Whitefoord is calculated to lower the master in the estimation of the scholars, and cramp the energies of the teacher, as the severe remarks of the Warden in delivering judgment prevents any’ attempt at discipline.

“6. That in consequence of the ruling of Warden Whitefoord, and the misconduct of the Dinan family in setting the teacher at defiance since, the Committee thereby recommend their dismissal from the school.

“7. That copies of these resolutions be forwarded to Mr Ray and the Central Board.

“8. That in the event of the Central Board not taking some action in this matter, this Committee will at once resign their trust. ”

(Signed) James Peyman, ” Chairman Local Committee. “Cobden, Oct. 29,1873.”

The calm serenity with which this Committee assume the position of a Court of Appeal, and amalgamate, as an excuse for their comments, the evidence “of the eldest girls,” of “members of Committee in 1870-1,” (whatever that may mean) and the contents of a simple statement as to matters of fact from the gentleman who reported the case, is thoroughly characteristic of Cobden. They unhesitatingly determine that the evidence of a “family” ‘given on oath in open Court was perjury. They accept the alleged admission of a girl nine years of age that she deserved to be struck with a supplejack, and marked black and blue, because she did not write her copy-book as Mr Ray desired. And, dressed in a little brief authority, they determine that a whole family whose members, save one, are innocent of even spoiling a copy-book, should be, for all time, deprived of the advantages of the educational system of which the Province of (Nelson [is so proud, and for which it pays so handsomely, not at the cost of this Committee, but of the community as a whole. The only one wise resolution r, which they came to is that, in one event, they “will at once resign their trust. “We sincerely trust they will have occasion to do so, and that iv future they will be prompted by the feelings which prompted Mr Whitefoord as a man and a magistrate to give the very proper decision which he did, and not by sympathy with unmanly cruelty and cowardice. If, as the Committee allege, the decision of the Warden is “calculated to lower the master in the estimation of the scholars, and to cramp his energies,” his position so acquired is nothing more than he richly deserves. The “energies” and the fingers of a teacher who can cane a girl as he did are infinitely better in a condition of “cramp” than in the exercise of cowardly cruelty.
QuoteLikeShare

hcsj44
1,211
May 07, 2011#28
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Rhipogonum scandens tends to grow in tangles in the bush [forest] and can be a serious obstacle to trampers [recreational walkers] if they try to bush bash [go off cut the trail in certain lowland regions]. In its green state, it has a dense, hard, wiry stem would be very harsh if used as a cane. However, it is much less durable than rattan. It becomes brittle when dry, unlike rattan. There were occasional allusions to supplejack (and the buckle end of belts) as ultimate sanctions by “old” people when I was a boy. I never heard of either actually being used.

Thanks KK, that explains it clearly.
QuoteLikeShare
JennyBr
1,776
2
May 07, 2011#29
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
Hi Another_Lurker

I think my point was missed. Authorities will often make policies that have the prima facie appearance of benefiting women so, IF birching were truly seen as a “kinder alternative” to prison, it’s surprising the authorities took care to avoid extending that kindness to girls and women.

Any claim that girls did not commit the types of offences that could lead to a custodial sentence is nonsense. It’s possible their was a secret policy of not prosecuting girls for offences that carried a custodial sentence. If either were true, the question of a girl being birched as a kinder alternative to prison simply wouldn’t arise. There would be no reason to legislate to prevent it and every reason not to – unless the authorities wanted to appear to treat girls more harshly. It would make far more sense to announce that girls and women would enjoy the same judicial kindness as boys and men even though the authorities knew it would never happen.

I very much doubt CP was seen as a kinder alternative to prison and the claim that it was is nothing more than propaganda. However, I could be wrong. I’ve said before that, even at 18 when I was in VIth form, given a choice of suspension/expulsion or the cane, I would have chosen the cane. Even now I’d prefer CP to a gaol term so perhaps the NZ authorities did believe it a kinder alternative. That, however, just brings us back to the question of why such kindness was explicitly denied girls and women.
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 07, 2011#30
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Sorry, I did not make myself clear.

CP, “such as a school master might use”, replaced short terms of imprisonment for boys only, not men in NZ. The flogging of men was usually an extra punishment added to a gaol sentence for especially agregious offences, and for offences committed in goal. In earlier times the law made little distinction between children and adults.

English common law prevailled in NZ from 1840, with some ammendements by NZ acts of parliament, until the NZ criminal law was codified in 1893. Although the code prescribed flogging on the back for men and the “whipping” of boys on the bare breech with a birch, corporal punishment was permitted under common law before this.

Timeline (Not complete)

1840
New Zealand becomes a British Colony. British common law, based on custom, precedent, judges rulings and old British Acts of parliament comes into force.

1867
Neglected and Criminal Children Act passed. This gave courts the power to commit children to industrial schools. It also sought to keep industrial schools distinct from reformatories, which were for ‘criminal’ children. However, often the two classifications were lumped together.

1882
Justices of the Peace Act allows whipping of boys (six strokes of a birch rod, by a constable)

1882
Industrial Schools Act passed, repealing the 1867 Act. Penalties available for both children and young persons were imprisonment, fine or whipping (= birching).

1893
Criminal Code Act passed replacing British common law by codified laws. The Code was based on British proposals but these were not adopted in Britain.
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 07, 2011#31
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/womens-suffrage

NZ women got the vote 1893
QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
May 08, 2011#32
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif);”>Hi Steve. An interesting post, but not quite what I was expecting in response to my post above. Least we are at cross-purposes I’ll just repeat that what I was looking for was evidence that in New Zealand, in the period covered by KK’s birching researches (1860 onwards):
Men were flogged with a cat (of nine tails?) by sentence of a court as an alternative to prison and not as part of a sentence including prison or for disciplinary breaches while in prison.
</li>
And/or
Females were sent to prison for offences for which males of like age were given corporal punishment without a prison sentence.</li>
I see that KK has now very kindly cleared up the first point and Jenny has made some very pertinent remarks on the second.

Turning to your post, I have a couple of points. You say:

Well it would, wouldn’t it! Seriously, I think you’ll find that was 1820 not 1810. On the excellent CorPun.com site there is an account here from the Inverness Journal of 14 March 1817, describing how the previous Friday an unfortunate young woman was flogged through the streets of Inverness naked from the waist up, and for the third time! And here, also from CorPun.com, is an account from The Times of 11 June 1817 relating to a bill raised in The House of Commons the previous day to totally abolish the public whipping of women by commuting it to up to 3 months hard labour in a workhouse. The bill became law in 1820 and effectively the whipping of women in the UK as a judicial penalty (though not necessarily as a punishment for breaches of discipline while incarcerated) seems to have ceased then.

In view of the alternative penalty of up to 3 months hard labour Jenny, and possibly others, might well argue that the above measure was unfair to women. It would make a very interesting debate, but perhaps not in this thread as this would divert from KK’s theme. In any event the public whipping of males in the UK continued into the 1830s and judicial corporal punishment as a court ordered sentence for males was only abandoned in 1948 in mainland Britain.

And you also say:

I’m not going to deny that the cane was sometimes extensively used or misused in male borstals and approved schools. However, I’m not so sure about the female variety. I know of one well documented case where during what was effectively a period of riots the cane was used on the bottom rather than the hand as the regulations required, but that is all.

Somewhere I have an old official management manual for detention institutions for young people, brought off eBay as a joke present for a friend who once worked in one and who strongly disapproves of corporal punishment. He turned out to have a copy so I retained it. Sadly it has disappeared into my rather large book collection and I’m going to have to have to do an ‘Eric’ and say I can’t find it at the moment, not my usual style I hope you’ll agree! But it does definitely specify hand only for caning females, and, if I recall correctly, a maximum of 4 strokes.

There is a Voy Forum which mainly deals with recollections of those who found themselves inside Female Juvenile Detention Institutions in the UK. Few if any of the contributors mention corporal punishment. Indeed some seem to have quite happy memories of disordered lives got back on the right track. I won’t link it, instead copy/paste the string below into Google. It should be the first hit generated:

The last time I linked an item there in the foundation post of this thread it disappeared within hours, possibly due to its moderators detecting traffic from here, hence the link via Google precaution. Sadly my thread got hi-jacked by fun pesters too. (The term ‘fun pesters is of course © my distinguished fellow contributor Alan Turing.)

My apologies to KK. This post follows on from his thread but also digresses somewhat. If anyone wants to follow up any points in this post except those relevant to KK’s thread I suggest possibly a new thread.</div>
QuoteLikeShare
sd1936
43
May 08, 2011#33
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
If American Way’s link snippets are not too long, he might copy/paste them into these windows. My computer allows me to basically take a little photo of a webpage and save it as a jpg file, which I can then post anywhere. I use a MAC and there’s a “grab” function. I’m sure it’s also possible for pcs… less-coolly named of course.
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 08, 2011#34
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
The following may be the first mention of the word “whipped” in NZ legislation. It specifically allows boys not older than 14 to be whipped and/or imprisoned for minor offences. The notion of what constitutes a “whipping” is presumably established in the common law of the day – that is, by custom and precedent. (I have added some punctuation to make the sentence easier to read.)

AN ACT for Extending the Jurisdiction of Resident Magistrates in Criminal Cases and for amending
“The Resident Magistrates Jurisdiction Extension Act 1862” 30th October 1865

Part IV. When any person shall be charged with having committed or having attempted to commit, or with having been an aider abettor counsellor or procurer in the commission of larceny, and whose age at the period of the commission or attempted commission of such offence shall not, in the opinion of the Resident Magistrate before whom he or she shall be brought or appeal, exceed the age of fourteen years, it shall be lawful for any such Resident Magistrate upon conviction thereof upon his own confession or upon proof to sentence the offender to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two calendar months or, if a male, to be once privately whipped either instead of or in addition to such imprisonment.

http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ … 73770.html
QuoteLikeShare
May 08, 2011#35
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
The search was done on photo scanned documents converted to text by automatic OCR which is not 100% accurate.

“Whipping” probably means “birching” or similar. At least one person (John A Lee?) reported that he was caned rather than birched when sentenced to be whipped for petty theft.

Source:http://www.nzlii.org

1865 Resident Magistrates Criminal Jurisdiction Extension and Amendment Act 1865 (29 Victoriae 1865 No 73) [First mention of “whipping” in NZ legislation.]

1866 Justices of the Peace Act 1866 (30 Victoriae 1866 No 47)

1867 Larceny Act 1867 (31 Victoriae 1867 No 3)
1867 Offences against the Person Act 1867 (31 Victoriae 1867 No 5)
1867 Malicious Injuries to Property Act 1867 (31 Victoriae 1867 No 6)
1867 Neglected and Criminal Children Act 1867 (31 Victoriae 1867 No 14)
1867 Protection of Animals Act 1867 (31 Victoriae 1867 No 35)

1868 Offences against the Person Act Amendment Act 1868 (32 Victoriae 1868 No 20)

1874 Offences against the Person Act Amendment Act 1874 (38 Victoriae 1874 No 4)

1882 Vagrant Act 1866 Amendment Act 1882 (46 VICT 1882 No 9)
1882 Justices of the Peace Act 1882 (46 VICT 1882 No 15)
1882 Industrial Schools Act 1882 (46 VICT 1882 No 25)

1884 Police Offences Act 1884 (48 VICT 1884 No 24)

1893 Criminal Code Act 1893 [Common law codified]

1894 Indictable Offences Summary Jurisdiction Act 1894

1908 Crimes Act 1908

1927 Police Offences Act 1927 (18 GEO V 1927 No 35)
1927 Justices of the Peace Act 1927 (18 GEO V 1927 No 37)

1941 Crimes Amendment Act 1941 (5 GEO VI 1941 No 10) [Capital and all judicial corporal punishment abolished]
QuoteLikeShare
May 08, 2011#36
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
AN ACT to provide for the Protection of certain Animals and for the Encouragement of Acclimatization Societies in New Zealand 10th October 1867

35. No person under the age of fifteen years who may be convicted under this Act shall be liable to imprisonment, anything in this Act the contrary notwithstanding, but may in default of payment of any fine so inflicted, be privately whipped if so ordered by the convicting Justice or Justices, such whipping to take place in the presence of the convicting Magistrate.

[A summary / explanatory comment in the margin reads “Boys may be whipped”. The assumption seems to be that no girl would ever commit such an offence. “Convicted person” = boy.]

Source: http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ … 35347.html
QuoteLikeShare
May 08, 2011#37
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Neglected and Criminal Children Act 1867 (31 Victoriae 1867 No 14)

5. It shall be lawful for the Superintendent of any Province in which any such school shall have been established from time to time as occasion may require to make regulations for the conduct management and supervision of any such schools established in any such Province under this Act and the employment education and correction of the children detained therein and such regulations from time to time to amend vary or annul but no such regulation as aforesaid shall include or permit any corporal punishment except such as may be lawfully inflicted by schoolmasters.

46. If any inmate of any industrial or reformatory school shall abscond therefrom or wilfully destroy or damage any real or personal property belonging to any such school or wilfully neglect or refuse to obey or conform to any such regulation as aforesaid such inmate (if a male) shall on conviction thereof before two or more justices be liable at the discretion of such justices to be privately whipped and such inmate may if he has absconded be ordered by the said justices to be sent back to the school from which he shall have so absconded and to be there detained until he reaches the age of fifteen years or for such shorter period as to such justices shall seem reasonable.

http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ … 14359.html

[It might not have been fair but this is how things were, in the old days. Yes, we now know girls can be very naughty.]
QuoteLikeShare
May 08, 2011#38
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90525.2.82
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90528.2.88
Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 125, 28 May 1909, Page 8
A Young Criminal ORDERED TO BE WHIPPED. HIS HONOUR’S REMARKS

Dennis Richard Dane, the fourteen year old boy, who came up before Mr. Justice Cooper on Tuesday last for sentence on a crime of rape, and was remanded for further enquiries, appeared before his Honour this morning, and received sentence.

His Honour observed that he had been informed by the Education Department, and also by Mr. Millington, gaoler, that the Burnham Industrial School was an institution to which he could commit a youth such as the prisoner, as there was proper provision for the classification of inmates.

“I propose to sentence the prisoner to one month’s imprisonment in the Wellington Gaol,” continued the judge, “and to order him to be whipped. At the expiration of his sentence I shall order him to be sent to the Burnham. Industrial School.” Having attended to the formalities in connection with the age and religion of the prisoner, his Honour continued : – “Your case is very bad,” he said, “an exceedingly proper case in which you should be whipped. If may arouse in you some sense of the flagrancy of the crime you have committed. It is quite clear you cannot be allowed at large. It is a terrible thing to see a boy in your position. It may not be entirely your own fault, as I have said before, for you can neither read nor write, and other members of year family have been guilty of criminal acts. Under those circumstances you find yourself in the position in which you are now placed.

“Still.” continued his Honour, “the interests of the State require that you should be punished for this offence. I think the corporal punishment of whipping is certainly appropriate to the act you have committed. The interests of the community require that you should be kept under strict supervision for a long period.”

His Honour then passed sentence on the prisoner of one month’s imprisonment in the Wellington Gaol, with a direction that he should be kept apart from the other prisoners, and “that he should be whipped with 10 strokes. At the termination of his sentence the .prisoner would be committed to the Burnham Industrial School.

“You will remain there until you are at least 21 years of age,” were the judge’s last words to the prisoner.
______________________________________

Currently, there is great concern in the news about children being negelected and getting into trouble. There is also concern about the failure of government agencies to adequately deal with the matter. The old newspapers make it clear little has changed.

QuoteLikeShare
May 13, 2011#39
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
HAROLD L SMITH
Britain in the Second World War
A social historyCopyright © Harold L Smith 1996
Published by Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
and Room 400,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

6.6 The Hereford caseDuring 1941 and 1942 magistrates increasingly ordered juvenile offenders to be birched, in an attempt to stem the [war time] rise in juvenile crime. The Hereford case was a turning point because it drew attention to the incompatibility of birching with the right of appeal.

1. On 12th January, 1943 two boys, William James Payne, aged 13, and Dennis Harold Craddock, aged 11, appeared before the Juvenile Court for the City of Hereford to answer two summonses preferred against them by Chief Inspector Wheatley of the Hereford City Police. The first charged them with breaking and entering St. Martin’s School between 19th and 20th December, 1942 and stealing therein a number of crayons, pencils and other things to the value 12s. 6d. The second charged them, … with breaking and entering on 1st January, 1943, a store at a hostel and stealing therein a considerable amount of goods to the value of £35 14s 0d …. On 26th January the adjourned hearing took place and each boy was sentenced to receive 4 strokes with a birch rod on the charge of malicious damage, and on the charges of larceny, the charges of breaking and entering having been withdrawn, they were committed to the care of the Local Education Authority until they were 18 years of age….

‘It is no part of my duty to express any opinion on the sentence or any part of it beyond saying that it was one which it was within their discretion lawfully to impose…. It would also be desirable, to prevent any possibility of mistake, that in future, if corporal punishment is awarded by the Court, a direct question should be put to the parents if present, whether they desire to witness the birching or not. I have already ventured to express the opinion that the wording of the Statute creates a difficulty regarding the carrying out of a sentence of corporal punishment while there is a possibility of appeal. It is not easy to envisage a remedy short of suspending the birching till the time for appealing has expired, a course which would not be regarded as in the interests of the child.

‘Hereford juvenile court inquiry’, Parliamentary Papers 1942-43, vol. 4, Cmd 6485, London, 1943, pp. 1, 18.

6.7 Punishment by birching The public outcry against the use of corporal punishment following the Hereford incident led to demands that the law be amended to deny magistrates the power to order it. The Home Secretary, however, chose instead to caution magistrates against it.

The question whether the courts should by an amendment of the law be deprived of power to order birching is … controversial; but in the memorandum on Juvenile Offences sent to justices June, 1941, they were reminded:

‘that the Departmental Committee on Corporal Punishment came unanimously to the conclusion that, as a court penalty, corporal punishment is not a suitable or effective remedy for dealing with young offenders’

Herbert Morrison, Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, fifth series, vol. 393, 4 November 1943, c. 847.

6.8 The Hereford case and birching The Hereford case stimulated considerable public comment on the appropriateness of birching, and much public criticism of local magistrates.

Juvenile Courts

The Hereford Case still causes much discussion, particularly:

(a) The excessive publicity (Six Regions). This is already said to have stirred up virulent personal talk directed quite unfairly at local magistrates (South Western Region).

{b) The pros and cons of birching (Six Regions). The Scottish report says that the majority are against birching, and that widespread indignation has been caused by the statement of the Chief Constable of Renfrewshire that he would ‘use a green birch and cut them with it’. Nevertheless many upholders of corporal punishment are to be found (Four Regions); they feel that young delinquents should be dealt with firmly and that birching may be the only way of dealing with the worst.

Juvenile courts’, Home Intelligence report, 18 November 1943, INF 1/292, Public Record Office, London.
QuoteLikeShare
May 23, 2011#40
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
20th century questions about birching in the House of Commons as recorded in Hansard

1900-
Birching in the Army. 9 May 1902
Birching of Youthful Offenders. 26 March 1903
Birching of Youthful Offenders. 28 May 1903
Alleged Birching by The Sparkhill Police To Extort Confession . 21 July 1904
Birching for Sleeping Out in Dorsetshire. 10 December 1906
Boy Birching In Manchester. 10 June 1907
Birching in the Navy. 6 August 1907
Birching of Juvenile Offenders. 17 July 1908
Birching Sentences (Jedburgh). 6 October 1909

1910-
Birching (Presence Of Magistrates). 24 February 1910
Birching Boys (Sittingbourne). 14 March 1910
Birching Boys. 19 April 1910
Vagrancy Act (Birching). 17 July 1911
Birching (Wolverhampton Case). 5 June 1912
Juvenile Offenders (Birching) 1 July 1919

1920-
Juvenile Courts (Birching). 2 March 1921
Birching. 15 June 1921
Birching. 26 June 1922
Birching. 21 March 1923
Royal Navy (Birching). 7 May 1923
Birching. 4 July 1928
Boys (Birching). 18 December 1929

1930-
Borstal Institutions (Birching). 10 April 1930
Young Offenders (Birching). 24 July 1930
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 9 June 1932
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 25 May 1933
Birching (Boys). 26 March 1936
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 12 March 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 18 March 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 22 March 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 8 April 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 28 October 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 3 November 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 8 November 1937
Birching Sentence, Edinburgh. 23 November 1937
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 9 February 1938
Juvenile Offenders (Birching). 1 March 1938
Boys (Birching). 17 November 1938

1940-
Birching Sentences 4 November 1943
Flogging and Birching 9 December 1943
Birching Sentence (Boys) 27 November 1947

1950-

1960-
Maxwell (Birching Award) 17 November 1966

1970-
Birching (Isle of Man) 10 January 1978
Birching (Isle of Man) 2 February 1978
Birching (Isle of Man) 18 May 1978

1980-
Isle of Man (Birching) 31 July 1981
QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
May 23, 2011#41
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
We used the word spanking and whacking, as used here, is a no/no word we avoid here at all costs. This 19th century NZ story shows an arsenal of instruments of corporal punishment (strap, cane and birch). Seventeen year old girls are only corporally punished as a twelve year old boys. They obviously considered factors other than physical size that may show a wisdom that has been lacking of late perhaps due to feminists agendas.

CLICK

QuoteLikeShare
Guest
May 24, 2011#42
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Hi American Way ,

Given it was 1902, it seems quite enlightened that corporal punishment of inmates 17 or above was not normally to take place.
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 24, 2011#43
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract. … 5B8385F0D3

The New York Times
May 28, 1893
BIRCHES FOR MIDSHIPMEN ALL ON THE BLAKE SAID TO HAVE FELT THE ROD

Genial Admiral Hopkins Declared to Have Received His Share During His Middy Life, as Have Many Good Officers – The Practice, However, Confined to the First Two Years Aboard the Britannia. Much Authority Given to Midshipmen – All Sons of Officers of Distinction.
________________________________

Few New Yorkers who were shown over the big flagship Blake [Royal Navy first class cruiser launched in 1889] in during her stay in this port by the swell little midshipmen of that vessel are aware that the embryo Admirals who so politely guided them about are subjected to an application of the birch rod whenever their Captain deems it necessary.

On board the Blake are no less than twenty-four midshipmen, every one of whom represents some old and renowned family. Yet, In accordance with British naval traditions, not one of the youngsters is deemed too good to escape the birch rod should a punishment be ordered.

To a New York Times reporter a British officer the other day said laughingly,

“Oh, yes; we order an application of ten or twenty strokes of the birch rod on one of the little chaps whenever there is cause, but, as a matter of fact, the birching is confined almost entirely to the first two years of the course, when the youngsters are known as naval cadets. This initial two-year period is served aboard the Britannia at Portsmouth. After the lads leave the Britannia they are known as midshipmen. When a birching is ordered the Ship’s Corporal officiates.”

“How is the punishment administered?” was asked.

“Well, ahem!” was the laughing reply, the good old schoolboy fashion we think good enough, and before the Ship’s Corporal has finished with his birching it forces more than one grimace to the face of the little chap. But there is usually good blood in the young offender and few if any, of them will bawl, no matter how sharp the rod stings.

“Of course, though, the youngster has the satisfaction of seeing the Ships Corporal stand at Attention! and with his hand at his cap in salute after the birching is ended, for the Corporal has to bear strictly in. mind that he was birching a young officer and not an enlisted man.”

Few officers of the British Navy, it is said, have passed through the course aboard the Britannia and escaped altogether a sound birching, and even jolly Admiral Hopkins of the Blake is declared to have received his share of the rod during his middy life, as have many other good officers.

[…]
QuoteLikeShare
May 24, 2011#44
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/hms_blake.htm

Birched boys receiving instruction in the use of the sextant.

Royal Navy cruiser HMS Blake was built at Chatham Dockyard and launched in 1889. HMS Blake served one commission as flagship at the America and West Indies Station during 1895 and in December of 1895 was commissioned into the Channel Squadron.

The steam-powered Blake had two tall funnels but also (decorative?) masts. There was a big gun at the front and back and several smaller guns along the sides, all protected my steel armour.
QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
May 25, 2011#45
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif);”>Hi KK. Ah, the good old days, when Britannia ruled the waves, and if anybody upset us we sent a gunboat and threatened to blast them into eternity unless they behaved. Now we can’t even afford an aircraft carrier, let alone a fleet of battleships and cruisers. That’s what happens when you stop birching all the midshipmen every day before breakfast!

You wrote:

Decorative! Decorative! My good man, have you no knowledge of naval discipline and good order? You have to have masts so that you can make defaulters climb ’em and stand to attention on the yardarms when you’re manoeuvring in storm force 10 conditions! </div>
QuoteLikeShare
Guest
May 25, 2011#46
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
……or yard sarms to hang them from ………………
QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
May 25, 2011#47
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif);”>Hi Prof.n. Good point – having first tied ’em to a deck grating and flogged ’em thoroughly with the naval cat of course!
Hi KK. Please accept my apologies for introducing a note of levity into this excellent and superbly researched thread. I’ll be good for a bit now, honest!</div>
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
May 25, 2011#48
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
A better photo of a ship of the same vintage as HMS Blake, complete with decorative masts. Apparently, warships of this time were designed to destroy other ships by ramming – note the shape of the bow. Photo

The USS Olympia in action: Painting

The masts are not decorative. They are used for signalling and for observation. The higher the view point the further you can see and the better the perception of distance.
QuoteLikeShare
May 25, 2011#49
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=GIxGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA66

The Literary Gazette (London) 16 Jan., 1858, page 66.
Gossip of the week

Dr. Arnold used to say that the use of the birch-rod was the essential difference which distinguishes English education from all others, and makes Englishmen what they are. The French, he thought, would never be either good governors or loyal citizens till the birch-rod was introduced in their schools. We can fancy that if a man liked to be a schoolmaster at all he might like to use the birch-rod, but we never should him supposed, a priori, that the boys themselves appreciated the value of that institution. So it is, however. When the Rev. E. J. May, Head Master of the Brewers’ Company’s School, was discharged in consequence of the Grand Jury ignoring the bill against him for flogging one of his pupils, a number of the boys of the school, who had been in court all day awaiting the results, set up a cheer. This was kissing the rod with a witness!
QuoteLikeShare
May 25, 2011#50
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1932a.htm

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech, A Campaign Address on Public Utilities and Development of Hydro-Electric Power (Portland, Or., Sept. 21, 1932)

Excerpt:

70. That right [to set up a governmentally owned and operated utility] has been recognized in a good many of the States of the Union. Its general recognition by every State will hasten the day of better service and lower rates. It is perfectly clear to me, and to every thinking citizen, that no community which is sure that it is now being served well, and at reasonable rates by a private utility company, will seek to build or operate its own plant. But on the other hand the very fact that a community can, by vote of the electorate, create a yardstick of its own, will, in most cases, guarantee good service and low rates to its population. I might call the right of the people to own and operate their own utility something like this: a “birch rod” in the cupboard to be taken out and used only when the “child” gets beyond the point where a mere scolding does no good.

QuoteLikeShare
willyeckaslike
May 26, 2011#51
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
KK May 25 2011, 9:34 PM

Somehow me thinks the people that built USS Olympia were not very good at reading plans. Looking at the Photo it looks as if the bow has been put on upside down. But as it is a “ramming” bow that explains it.
But not only upside down it looks as if the ramming bow has been put on the wrong end !
Was this an early technological advance by the US navy to out smart the enemy and confuse them by reversing into them when ramming ?

 

 

QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Aug 06, 2011#52
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
The birch rod in the year 1900
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 000110.2.6
Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXI, Issue 5010, 10 January 1900, Page 2

A Young Highwayman – At the Magistrate’s Court, Lyttelton, on Tuesday, a boy named Eric Thompson, aged twelve years, was charged with assaulting another boy named John M’Donald, and robbing him of 5s. The evidence showed that Thompson took McDonald unawares and knocked him down, making his face bleed, and forced him to give up the money. The Bench sentenced Thompson to receive nine strokes with the birch rod.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00430.2.33
Star, Issue 6782, 30 April 1900, Page 3

LYTTELTON. (Before Mr. G. Laurenson, J.P. and Captain Marciel, J.P.) Monday, April 30.

Larceny. – Charles O’Connor, a lad of twelve, was charged with having stolen £5 from the shop of James Coxon, in London Street, on April 12. He admitted having taken 8s. The evidence showed that Mr. Coxon had left £5 in a coat hanging up at the back of the shop. Accused was in the shop on the evening of April 12, and was the only person who could have taken the money. When taxed with having stolen it, he at first denied it, but afterwards admitted having taken 8s. The Bench ordered the boy to receive twelve strokes with a birch rod.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00801.2.17
Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume IX, Issue 718, 1 August 1900, Page 3

Correspondence.

(To the Editor.) Sir, It was a sad sight to see a youth “in his very May morn” sentenced by the Paeroa justices to a month’s imprisonment for gross larrikinism. The boy will come out of gaol in all probability worse than he was before; the punishment will do him more harm than good, and what vestige of self-respect he had will vanish. Yet what could the Bench do under the existing law? The boy had thrice offended, and cautions were wasted on him, while he was evidently the leader of a gang of young ruffians who haunt Paeroa. But, sir, would it not be infinitely a better punishment to have given him, did the law allow it a week’s solitary confinement in the local lock-up and two thorough good lashings, rather than send him to Mount Eden there to consort with past masters in crime. In many cases people refrain from laying informations against these recalcitrant youths simply because of the imprisonment which must be meted to them under the present code. But if it meant only the strong arm of a constable behind a well-grown birch rod the gentle larrikin would not thrive in our midst as he is now doing. However, I am pleased to see that the police have taken the matter up without gloves, and the late case should surely act as a deterrent to the gang of young blackguards by which this town has been infested for some years past.
Yours, etc., A Sufferer. Paeroa, July 31, 1900.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 810.2.39.2
Star, Issue 6870, 10 August 1900, Page 3

LYTTELTON.

Friday, August 10. (Before Captain Marciel J.F., and Mr. W. Cook, J.P.)
A Juvenile Offender. – William Burns, a lad of fourteen, charged with having broken into the house of Robert Laurie, and stolen some dolls, lollies and other small articles, of a total value of 5s, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to receive twelve strokes of a birch rod.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 000914.2.3
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8949, 14 September 1900, Page 2

GISBORNE, FRIDAY, SEPT. 14, 1900

[Editorial comment]

The boys who were ordered by the Magistrate this morning to be punished for the theft of golf balls, may consider themselves lucky in having escaped with six strokes of a birch rod, for had the full nature of their offence been intimated to the Court it is probable that their punishment would have been more severe. The young rascals broke into the Golf Club’s pavilion and with a screwdriver or other implement prized open every locker, breaking many of the locks. They tumbled the contents of the lockers in confusion on to the floor, and decamped with about six dozen of the newest of the golf balls, some clubs, and a gold medal. When the case was called this morning the Magistrate severely lectured the lads, and expressed the hope that they would not again appear before him. He ordered them to pay the sum of 16s 6d costs incurred by the prosecution and also to be privately whipped by Constable Clark in the presence of their parents if they desired to attend.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 01113.2.37
Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10189, 13 November 1900, Page 3

A WARNING TO JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

A lad, 15 years of age, was charged at the Police Court this afternoon, before Mr. C. C. Kettle, S.M., with stealing on the 7th November a silver lever watch, a gold chain, a dog’s tooth, a silver sovereign case, a watch key, two Contingent medals, a pocket knife, a purse, and one coat and vest, together the value of £10, the property of Lynn McKelvie.

Mr. Treadwell appeared for the accused, who pleaded not guilty. Sergeant Dwyer conducted the prosecution, and called McKelvie, one of the boarders at the Collegiate School, who stated that just previous to playing cricket he took his coat and vest off, and laid them on the ground. In his pockets were the articles mentioned. The watch and chain could not possibly come out of the waistcoat unless it was removed, as the chain was fastened to a buttonhole. Witness, after playing cricket, went in to tea, forgetting about his coat. When he afterwards went to look for it, it was missing.

Constable Ward stated that the theft of the articles was reported to him the day after the things were stolen. He saw accused, who at first denied that he knew anything about the things, but subsequently showed him the coat and vest under a tree, where he said he had placed them. The watch was missing, and accused, in reply to witness, said he would show him where it was; he had hidden it in his father’s stable.

The accused stated that when returning from his father’s paddock he crossed through the College Ground, where he saw a coat near the edge of the long grass. He looked round, but, seeing no one about, he put it under a tree for safety. He never touched the pockets of the clothes, and did not notice there was a chain. A short distance away he picked up a watch, and thinking it did not belong to the clothes, he ‘took it home and put it in the stable, in the hope that a reward would be offered for it. He did not tell his father and mother about it, because they would have made him take it to the police. Mr. Treadwell submitted that there was a doubt about the matter, and if the boy’s evidence was true there was no theft.

The Magistrate said he was always anxious to give a person who was charged with an offence the benefit of a doubt, but in the present case he had no doubt whatever that the accused knew he was acting dishonestly when he took the watch and hid it. It was always a difficulty to know what to do with juvenile offenders, and in the past the Court had been very lenient. He, however, thought that the time had come that some more drastic measures should be taken to deter young people from committing crime. He admitted that the lad had been subjected to a great deal of temptation. The sentence of the Court was that the boy should receive six strokes of the birch rod.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 01129.2.10
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 9010, 29 November 1900, Page 2

At the Police Court this morning Mr. W. A. Barton, S.M., gave judgment in the case of the boy Joseph Goldsmith, who was charged with stealing a cheque of the value of £10, the property of Henry Hughes, of Murewai. Sergeant Siddells appeared for the prosecution. His Worship, after lecturing the accused, ordered him to be privately whipped with twelve strokes of a birch rod. In reference to the stolen property, the Magistrate ordered that the cheque should be returned to the person from whom it had been stolen, and that the £1 recovered from a Native, which was part of the proceeds, should be handed over to Messrs Eure and Co. It was, he said, very unfortunate that the latter should have to bear the loss of the money as well as the clothes. If the accused were of sufficient age to earn money he might have made an order for restitution, but as it was, an order would be useless. His Worship further added that Messrs Eure and Co. had themselves to blame for not taking the trouble to make inquiries before accepting the cheque from so young a person as the accused, and finding out how he came by it.
_______________________

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 212.2.90.5
Otago Witness, Issue 2439, 12 December 1900, Page 33

TAPANUI

December 10. At the J.P. Court on Thursday last two young lads, whose names I need not mention under the circumstances, were charged with sheep-stealing from a neighbour, and pleaded guilty. The boys were aged 15 and 12 respectively, and instead of sending them to gaol the justices ordered them to receive 12 strokes each with a birch rod. This was duly administered on Friday by a sergeant of police. The excuse of the boys was that their neighbour had destroyed one of their rams some two years previously. The boys found the sheep on its back, and agreed to alter the ear-mark, for which purpose they heated a piece of fencing wire, but made a somewhat clumsy job of it. The father of the accused died some, years ago.

[The same event in somewhat more detail]

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 01213.2.51
Otago Daily Times, Issue 11915, 13 December 1900, Page 8

At the Tapanui Police Court on Thursday, 6th inst., two boys named Clark, aged 15 years and 12 years respectively, were sentenced to receive 12 strokes with a birch rod and to pay 30s costs in lieu of being sent to gaol. It appears the boys found a ewe on her back in Mr., Kirk’s paddock, and they altered the earmark to resemble that of their mother’s flock. Two lambs were also taken with the ewe. The lads said they defaced the ear-mark in retaliation for a ram of theirs destroyed by Mr. Kirk some time ago. The younger lad was warned as to his conduct, and was threatened with being sent to a reformatory.
QuoteLikeShare
Aug 06, 2011#53
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00207.2.20
Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXI, Issue 5033, 7 February 1900, Page 3

AN ASHBURTON CASE

At the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court, Timaru, which commenced on Monday, Bartholomew O’Loghlin, a lad of 16, pleaded not guilty to a charge of indecently assaulting a girl of 11 1/2 years at Seafield, Ashburton, on December 19

Mr. Raymond defended. Mr. White sketched the case, showing that the girl was knocked down and indecently assaulted, with some violence, whilst on her way from school, along a rather lonely road, where she was met by the accused, who was driving a dray along this road. Evidence was given by the little girl; an elder sister, to whom she complained that evening ; her mother (an invalid) to whom complaint was made next morning; Constable Ede, who arrested accused on December 23 ; and the child’s father gave evidence as to localities. Accused told Constable Ede that he did not know what he had been doing: he had been drinking; he admitted knocking the girl down.

Mr. Raymond addressed the jury, suggesting doubts as to the credibility of the girl’s story.

His Honor, in summing up, said the defence was that the little girl’s story was a lie. They had seen her demeanour in the box, and then accused admitted that part of it was true, that he had knocked her down. If that was the usual mode of salutation on the roads of that district, with nothing more to follow, the jury might be satisfied with that explanation. The evidence of the mother and sister was of an independent kind, and accused provided some collaboration himself.

The jury retired at 5.10 p.m. and at about 6 p.m. returned with a verdict of guilty.

The lad was just over 16, the limit of age for birching, but at the father’s request His Honour ordered a birching to be administered by the police, accused to come up for further sentence if called.

[Another report of the case:]

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00208.2.35
Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3181, 8 February 1900, Page 3

SUPREME COURT [= second tier court in the system prevailing at the time]
TlMARU – Wednesday, February 7th.

(Before His Honour Mr. Justice Denniston.)

INDECENT ASSAULT. O’Loghlin, convicted for indecent assault, was put in the box (after a birching) and was bound over on a relative’s recognisance of £25 to come up for sentence when called upon, and warned to behave himself m future or he would be punished further for the offence now dealt with.

[A case of informal justice it would seem.]

_____________________________________________

 

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 000227.2.9
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXIV, Issue 45, 27 February 1900, Page 2

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL ESCAPEES

At the Magistrate’s Court this morning, before Mr. Howorth, S. M., Clarence Shepherd, an inmate of St. Mary’s Industrial School, was charged with having absconded from the institution on the 15th instant, and pleaded guilty. Sergt Mackay said the, lad, with another named Skelton, had escaped from the Orphanage, and was found on the road to Havelock. Sergeant Mackay said the police had considerable trouble in these cases of frequent absconding from the institution, and he pointed out that when the lads were sent back without punishment the good effect was lost. He would ask that before Shepherd was returned to the institution he be birched. The Magistrate complied with the request, and ordered the infliction of ten strokes with the birch before the accused was returned to St. Mary’s Industrial School.

[Skelton was charged with more serious offences and sent for trial at the high court. The school was later investigated for its harshness and abuse of inmates.]
_____________________________________________

 

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 000228.2.9
Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3198, 28 February 1900, Page 2

[Editorial Comment]

A day or two ago the Stipendiary Magistrate at Wellington disposed of three cases in which the Truant Inspector had summoned the parents of several children for having neglected to send the latter to school regularly. In one case the father said that he had kept his child locked up for three weeks as a punishment, and was not going to release him till he was willing to go to school. Thus a highly ridiculous position was created by the father, for it was obvious that the boy could not go to school as long as he remained locked up, and he might, and seemingly did, prefer confinement to school attendance. The father was fined five shillings and ordered to pay the costs of the prosecution. A woman who was charged with not having sent her children to school pleaded that she had exhausted all the means in her power to get them to attend, but had failed. She also was fined and had to pay the costs; but what reason is there for supposing that the children will be more willing to go to school in the future than they have been in the past? A third defendant, making the same excuse, was likewise fined. In dealing with these cases, the Stipendiary Magistrate made some remarks which are worthy of the attention of the Government and of members of Parliament generally.

He said that “it was a pity that he could not punish the children. He could not dismiss the cases, as to do so would be to render that portion of the Act ineffective. The legislature had decided that a fine should be inflicted in such cases – that the parent must be punished. The Court must not question the wisdom of the legislature.” It is clear, however, that by implication he did question the wisdom of the legislature. We agree with him that it would be an excellent thing if the Court could order the truant to be punished – not fined, but thoroughly well strapped or birched. We do not know what the proportion of truant children is throughout the colony, but there is reason to believe that it is considerable. Some of the defaulters attend very irregularly, and some scarcely ever enter the door of a school. The law as it stands has not proved strong enough to stop the evil, though it may have been somewhat reduced by the exertions of the Truant Inspectors. This truancy question is one in which the public are deeply concerned, for every child who is allowed to grow up in ignorance is placed at a disadvantage as compared with children who have had the benefit of such education as the primary State schools afford. The ignorant young person is but poorly equipped for the battle of life in a community in which so many have had the benefit of some instruction.

[Approximately 50 words obliterated by ink blot]

It is clear to us that something ought to be done to enable Magistrates to deal more effectively with truancy cases. We are not at all disposed to hold blameless the parents of children who do not go to school. In almost every case the parents are in fault. They either do not care to compel their children to attend, or by persistent neglect of their obligations they have lost control. They ought therefore to be punished for neglect of their duty to the community. The imposition of a fine frequently has a stimulating effect, and in bad cases a little imprisonment would be an excellent alternative. We cannot, therefore, agree with the Wellington Stipendiary m his implied condemnation of the system of holding the parents or guardians of truant children responsible; but the children should also be made to answer for their delinquency. If the Magistrates had power to order the infliction of corporal punishment, truancy would be reduced to a minimum. The truant ought to be brought before the Magistrate, either in Court or in his private room, and, on proof of the offence, the culprit should be taken to the school and there thrashed by the master, who should have imposed on him the statutory duty of carrying out the order of the Magistrate. We do not believe that there is any other way of dealing effectually with truancy. The law should be amended in the direction which we have indicated, and to make it thoroughly effective, every case of truancy should be immediately reported both to the police and the Truant Officer.
_____________________________________________

 

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00306.2.35
Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3203, 6 March 1900, Page 3

TIMARU SCHOOL COMMITTEE

A meeting of the Timaru School Committee was held last evening. Present – Messrs McNab (in the chair), Messrs Smith, Harris, Coe, and Barton. Apologies were received from Messrs Mc Arthur and Boothroyd.

[. . .]
The question of truancy was discussed. Members expressed the opinion that it was unfair to teachers and the truant officer that cases should be dismissed without penalty, and that aspect of the case placed before the Board. A discussion on the punishment inflicted on defaulters ensued, the opinion prevailing that birching should be added to the penalty if the offence should be the fault of the boy, and when all fails, committal to an industrial school.
[. . .]

_____________________________________________

 

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00315.2.33
Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3211, 15 March 1900, Page 4

MAGISTERIAL

TIMARU – Wednesday, March 14th. (Before C. A. Wray, Esq., S.M.)
LARCENY.

John King Barnett was charged with stealing, on March 9th, from John Young the sum of £8; also on another date, the sum of £3, and a ring value £3, the property of T. Clark. Mr. Raymond appeared for defendant, Sergeant Fraser prosecuted.

Mrs. Goulding, the boy’s mother, was charged with receiving money knowing it to have been stolen.

Mr. Raymond said that the boy admitted taking the £8. He went to the pocket for cigarettes, and on seeing the purse the temptation was too great for him. His Worship could order the boy a birching or to the Industrial School. He was an only child, and was not a very strong child. His mother asked that he should be birched and handed over to her, and she would in future be responsible for his good conduct.

Sergeant Fraser said that he would most strongly urge His Worship to send the boy to some Industrial School, he blamed the mother entirely for what had happened, and would show that she was by no means a proper person to have charge of a child. She knew that the money was stolen, though she at first denied it, but subsequently admitted it.

His Worship resolved to hear the case against Mrs. Goulding (accused’s mother).

Sergeant Fraser said that …..
_____________________________________________

 

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 00807.2.39
Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 32, 7 August 1900, Page 5

Stoke school Inquiry

Messrs. R. W. Bush and H. S. Wardell, S.M.s, the Royal Commissioners enquiring into the management of the Stoke (Nelson) Industrial School, sat in the Supreme Court buildings for the purpose of examining Brother

John. Mr. George Hogben, Secretary of the Education Department, and Mr. A. Thompson, Visitor of Industrial School Inmates under the Department, were also present.

[. . .]

He [John Denis Dullea, Brother Provincial for the Marist Order for Australia] thought that different regulations for punishments might be necessary in industrial schools from those needed in day schools. Had never, prior to the opening of the enquiry, heard of the punishments which had been carried on at Stoke. The cases had not been reported to him. Neither had he heard of the use of chains in that school. Knew that punishment had been given on the hands. In Europe he had seen the strap used mostly; in the colonies the cane was the common instrument. Did not think the supplejack was a proper instrument to use. Did not know it had been used. Disliked entirely striking boys on the body. Thought the deprivation of privileges, such as detention during playtime and recreation hours, and also from picnics and other outings, would be sufficient punishment. Could not suggest any other mode even in extreme cases among reformatory cases, unless birching on the back was done under the eye of the director.
QuoteLikeShare
Aug 11, 2011#54
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
[Off topic – not school CP but certainly would have helped further normalise school CP. May contain OCR errors] Selected Australian Birchings (and a Rare Career Opportunity)
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1533747
The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 – 1933) Monday 15 January 1900, p 2, col 1.

Advertising, Professions, trades, &c

Brisbane, 12th January, 1900

Applications will be received at the office of the Sheriff, Supreme Court, up until 31 January, 1900, from persons willing to undertake the duties of EXECUTIONER AND FLAGELLATOR; Salary, £125 per annum. Testimonials must accompany applications.

Philip Pinnock, Sheriff
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9077818
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Wednesday 29 October 1902, p 9 Article

BIRCHING AT PENTRIDGE

Peter Berry, aged 15, who was sentenced by Mr Justice Williams, at the Bendigo Supreme Court, on October 7, to one month’s imprisonment and two birchings of 20 strokes, for an offence upon a girl in the Wedderburn district, received his final whipping yesterday. The prisoner felt the punishment keenly. Prior to being triced up, and when being told he was about to receive his final punishment, he exclaimed Thank God, it is the last.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9823515

The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Saturday 8 August 1903, p 13. Article

A LAD BIRCHED.

A delicate-looking lad named Herbert Murray was sentenced on June 30 by the Coburg justices to seven days’ imprisonment and a birching of 20 strokes for indecently behaving himself in a railway carriage, but the sentence on appeal was reduced by Judge Johnston to 12 hours imprisonment and a private whipping of 15 strokes of the birch. Murray underwent his corporal punishment at the hands of the public flagellator on Thursday afternoon. Within half an hour after the punishment was administered he was discharged and escorted home from the gaol gates by his father.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/10602637
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Thursday 10 March 1904, p 7 Article
[Poor image quality]

BOYS ESCAPE BIRCHING

At the Kew court yesterday, before Dr Cole, SM, and Messers Rivers, Langton, Harrison, Brodrick and Norton, JPs, four boys named George Warburton, Victor Taylor, William Callaghan and John Collins were charged with stealing eight dragon pigeons of the value of £7, the property of B F Mansfield, on the 27th February. Mr. Ridgeway appeared for the accused Taylor and Warburton and Mr. C Estrange for Collins. Callaghan was undefended.
[Birchings ordered but the police refuse to administer]

633 words
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/56494541
The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 – 1929) Monday 14 March 1904, p 4 Article

SOFTHEARTED POLICEMEN

There is a precedent for the refusal of the police to carry out the directions of the Bench of Magistrates at Kew, Victoria, which on Wednesday ordered that some boys convicted of pigeon stealing should be birched. The section of the Act dealing with the matter expressly stipulates that the whipping shall be administered by a constable, and it is for that very reason that the power of Magistrates to order whippings has lain dormant for some years past. At one time, when a birching was ordered, the police to a man refused to carry out the Magisterial instructions and apparently the Kew Bench was ignorant of the fact that as a consequence of this ‘strike’ the section of the Act has since remained practically a dead letter. When questioned on Thursday with regard to his action, the Chief Commissioner of Police remarked: – ”I. have refused, and I will continue to refuse, to direct any man in the force to administer a birching. I will not give any order that will reduce any member of the police force of Victoria to the position of a common public flagellator.” – Melbourne Age.

__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/56495183
The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 – 1929) Wednesday 16 March 1904, p 4 Article

BIRCHING BOYS

The objection of the Victorian police to birch boys who are ordered to be whipped by a Magistrate is shared to a considerable extent by the members of the force in South Australia. It is not often, however, that the men in blue are asked to administer the flogging, and in any case they have only to decline to undertake the work and their wishes must be respected. The regulation on the subject gives the Magistrate power to order a lad a thrashing, which should be carried out in the presence of a justice of the peace or an inspector of police. By whom the punishment should be inflicted, however, the Act does not specify, and an interesting position would arise if nobody volunteered to wield the birch. Occasionally the arresting constable is asked to do so, but if he refuses – in many cases he does – the work must either be left undone or undertaken by an officer of the State Children’s Department, where the cases are heard. The Commissioner of Police, like his confrere in Victoria, does not believe in trampling on the finer feelings of his men, who are left perfectly free to refuse to punish their captives. ‘It is all very well thrashing a youngster,’ remarked’ a constable on Tuesday, ”when you know he is a thorough young scamp and fully deserves a good hiding. But if you feel at all sorry for the kiddie, it is very hard to lay the birch on.’
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9868612
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Wednesday 15 February 1905, p 7 Article

BIRCHING BOYS

Before the Hawthorn Bench recently two boys named Charles Anderson and David Lee were charged with setting fire to inflammable material on January 10 to the danger of property. The magistrates considered that the case would be met by the fathers of the boys chastising them. They also desired the evidence of a policeman that the punishment had been properly carried out, and wished to make an order to that effect. The case was adjourned …402 words
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9906092
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Wednesday 22 February 1905, p 6 Article

BIRCHING BOYS

The formal report of Sergeant Hibberd with respect to the caning ordered for two boys at the Hawthorn Court the previous week, but not carried out, came before the Bench yesterday, and was read out by Mr. Philpott JP as follows: – “I beg to report, in accordance with instructions received from the bench of magistrates last court day, February 14, relative to the whipping of boys named David Lee and Charles Anderson, that constable Kloester, to whom the bench ordered to whip them, refused to do so.

No comment was made by the justices, who will furnish the Acting Minister of Justice with their report of the case, as requested by him.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5170063
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 – 1931) Friday 5 February 1909, p 7 Article

A NEW HANGMAN.
LEARNING HOW TO USE THE CAT.
DUMMIES USED FOR PRACTICE.

Melbourne, February 4.
The successor to the public executioner and flagellator, who recently retired on account count of mental infirmity, has just been appointed. Like more than one of his predecessors, the new official’s name is “Smith.” He is a prisoner of the Crown, and will serve out his sentence with certain privileges while he performs his duties. He is to flog a couple of prisoners at once, and has started to rehearse on dummies with the lash. He took the position because he said he desired to send some money to his wife.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5070993
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 – 1931) Wednesday 19 June 1907, p 6 Article

A DEGRADING PUNISHMENT.
BOYS WHIPPED BY THE HANGMAN.

Melbourne, June 18.
Six boys who had been sentenced at the recent sittings of the Criminal Court by Mr. Justice Hodges to a birching on their pleading guilty to shopbreaking and several petty larcenies, received their punishment in the Ballarat Gaol at the hands of the public flagellator. The young thieves, whose ages ranged from 11 to 14, were each laid across a table, to the legs of which at one end they were strapped at the knees, while their hands were made fast to the other end. The flagellator inflicted the chastisement, viz., 15 strokes, on the buttocks with severity, each culprit crying piteously while being punished. At the conclusion of the birching the boys were set at liberty, but when leaving the quadrangle of the prison they displayed a kind of bravado. Two of them softly whistled a popular air, while another cracked an immodest joke with men engaged in pollarding trees at the gaol gates. The boys, who were committed for trial by the children’s court, are the first juveniles who have been ordered a whipping at the hands of the hangman by a Supreme Court judge.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/10744267
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Saturday 30 October 1909, p 20. Article

THREE YOUTHS BIRCHED

At the Pentridge penal establishment on Friday three youths, named Walter Mulholland, Victor Jacobs, and David Blake, who were each sentenced it the Melbourne General Sessions in September last by Judge Eagleston to terms of imprisonment and hard labour ranging from two years to 18 months for robbery in company, with a birching of 10 strokes each, received their punishment at the hands of the public flagellator yesterday.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1988128
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Friday 12 October 1923, p 13 Article

COURT ORDERS BIRCHING

KERANG, Thursday – At the Kerang General Sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, before Judge Moule and a jury, Charles Trinnici of Nyah, was found guilty of an offence against a girl, aged 9 years, and was sentenced to three months imprisonment and eight strokes of the birch.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2001127
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Thursday 18 October 1923, p 6 Article

JUDGE ORDERS BIRCHING

SALE, Wednesday. At the Sale General Sessions Ernest Henry Howarth, an immigrant, aged 27 years, was found guilty of an attempted offence against a girl aged 6½ years, at Nambrok. He was sentenced by Judge Woinariski to five years imprisonment and was ordered to receive 10 strokes of the birch.
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/4293241
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Thursday 3 July 1924, p 14 Article

INCORRIGIBLE YOUTH
Birching Ordered.

PERTH, Wednesday. – In the Children’s Court, David Jack, aged 17½ years, who admitted several convictions since 1919 for stealing, being unlawfully on premises, unlawful possession, breaking and entering, and escaping from custody, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three months imprisonment, with 12 strokes of the birch.
[. . .]

Accused had twice been in a reformatory where a previous sentence of birching had not been earned out. 183 words
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/4507415
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Monday 7 November 1932, p 4 Article

MAN TO BE BIRCHED

Edward Russell Everett, aged 33 years, was charged at the City Court on Saturday with having behaved indecently in the presence of a girl in a railway carriage between Jolimont and Prince’s bridge. He was convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for three months. The Bench also directed that Everett receive 15 strokes of the birch. He had admitted a conviction for a similar offence.
__________________________________

MAGISTRATE SUGGESTS BIRCHING.
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) Friday 10 February 1933, p 11 Article

MAGISTRATE SUGGESTS BIRCHING

John Cameron, aged 43 years, former jockey, was charged before Mr. J. W. K. Freeman. P.M., at the City Court yesterday with having used indecent language …. [poor quality image]
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/41089649
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 – 1954) Wednesday 6 September 1939, p 16 Article

CRIMINAL SITTINGS
Young Housebreaker Birched

The cases of five men and a youth were before the Chief Justice (Sir George Murray), in the Supreme Court. yesterday, in continuation of the Criminal Sittings begun on Monday. After the youth, who had admitted charges of suburban housebreaking, had been birched by his father at the suggestion of his Honor, he was released under the Offenders Probation Act.

Chief Justice’s Opinions

Arthur Ernest Willmott, 17, apprentice, of Cross road, Clarence Park, who admitted three charges of housebreaking, was released under a bond of £10 with a surety of £10, to be of good behaviour for 12 months, after he had been chastised by his father.

The offences were committed in company with two other youths who pleaded guilty on Monday.
After Mr. D. Menzies (for the youth) had said that there was no suitable place of detention for youths like Willmott. who had not offended before, his Honor said that it would be very much better if judges had the power to order birchings. It would have a much better effect in restraining the committing of these offences than anything else,” his Honor added; “the reformatory is no place.”

Ordinary releases under the Offenders Probation Act did not appear to have the desired effect. His Honor then referred to the number of youths who had been before him the previous day.

When Mr. Menzies said that the youth’s father would agree to his son being birched, his Honor replied that such a punishment would mean singling out the case from others of a similar nature. After Mr. Menzies had suggested that it bore special features, his Honor said that, if the birching took place forthwith in the presence of an officer at the police station, he might consider a release. Later, Sergeant G. E. Noblet gave evidence that a “very good birching” had been carried out in his presence and Willmott was then released
__________________________________

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/61746619
Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld. : 1885 – 1954) Monday 2 June 1941, p 2 Article

BIRCHING ORDERED
But No Flagellator.

MELBOURNE, May 31. Six strokes of the birch for a sex crime were ordered in a Melbourne Court during the week. But Victoria, no longer has a public flagellator to carry out such a sentence.
Judges still occasionally order corporal punishment, but because of political objections no floggings; has been administered in this State since a young married man was punished with the ‘cat’ on August 17, 1937. His was a sex crime also.
No one has been birched in Victoria since November 9, 1938, when a young criminal received 10 strokes for robbery under arms.

Power to appoint a flagellator lies with the Chief Secretary’s Department
In birching the prisoner is strapped to a saddle to receive the strokes of eight or ten strips of dried willow, bound at the handle end and free at the other. The strips are about 3ft long.

Blrching is usually reserved for prisoners under 21.

In flogging – administered to men over 21 only – a cat of nine 3ft cords is applied to the prisoner’s shoulders while he is strapped, spread eagled to a triangle. He wears a special collar to protect his neck and trousers high enough to safeguard his loins.

The law requires that the strokes should be counted in a clear tone by the chief warder. Marks inflicted by flogging heal completely in seven to 10 days.
__________________________________
QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Aug 15, 2011#55
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
This was raised as a rhetorical question. Or was it? The language employed about the two time wife beater (“poor dear Blythe) takes on a whole new meaning today in the second link. Or is that only in my mind?

CLICK

CLICK<a rel=”nofollow”></a>

QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Aug 15, 2011#56
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/55495023

Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland) Wednesday 27 July 1932, page 13.

WHIPPING WORSE
Birch Not So Bad

Penal officials say that the birch, 15 strokes of which were ordered in court for two young men who had been convicted of robbery, inflicts little more pain than a thrashed schoolboy of years ago experienced (says the “Melbourne Herald”).

There is a great difference between a “whipping” with a leather cat-o’ nine tails and a “birching” with a split cane.

The birch is not nearly so severe an instrument of punishment. Both forms of punishment were administered by the public flagellator, who is also the public hangman. They take place in a room at the gaol, in the presence of the governor or his deputy, prison officials, and a doctor.

Punishment must be administered within six months of sentence.

Birching is milder than the now obsolete caning with a rod. The prisoner is placed on a sort of vaulting horse.

For a whipping, the prisoner is lashed to a triangle, and the whip, a short handled instrument carrying nine knotted cords, is applied to the back.

[I suspect the reporter and editor did not really understand what they were reporting – the jargon seems rather confused.]

________________________________________

 

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/64727387

Alexandra and Yea Standard (Victoria) Friday 3 May 1935, page 3. (A many other newspapers, including one in 1928)

THE BIRCH IN CHURCH

By GRANVILLE SHARP.

The swish of a cane roused me from devotion. Glancing down the aisle, I was astonished to see the swish end in a smart stripe on the bare brown legs of a Fijian fellow worshipper. The smitten youth at once assumed an attitude of rapt prayerfulness, while the flagellator shuffled noiselessly to the rear bench.

All eyes but mine – and the flagellator’s – were closed, every head bowed. Panic-stricken by the thought of the consequences of my momentary irreverence, I hastily assumed the pose of the devout.

The tense moment passed, and “Amen” brought a sense of profound relief.

I had escaped the lash!

In Fiji, the flagellator is quite an important church official. He has, so to speak, the freedom of the sanctuary during divine service, and woe betide any worshipper whose petty transgressions attract his baleful eye.

In Fijian churches, the young men sit apart from the young women, and any loving glance from Romeo during the service, if detected, is rewarded by a blow from the official whacker. He is armed with a serviceable stick, and from time to time moves up the aisles and through the rows with a roving eye for delinquents.

He certainly succeeds in enforcing the outward and visible signs of religious fervour, and an apparently gratifying attention to the preacher’s exhortation.

To the flagellator there is no more heinous offence than forty winks during the sermon. Fidelity to duty demands that he administer swift corporal punishment to the sinful sleeper.

No one but the recipient of his attentions appears perturbed. The native minister continues his eloquent discourse supremely indifferent to the perambulations and spasmodic swishlngs of the birching deacon.

There is one roving figure in the field of vision, but what are the preacher’s compensations ? No surreptitious courting, no shuffling feet, no appraisement of Mrs. Apakuki’s new dress, no giggling in the choir, no snorting commentary on “Fourthly, brethren.”

In a few “advanced” churches in the neighbourhood of Suva and elsewhere, the retributory office has been abolished, and the Fijian may there display his aptitude for slumber, undisturbed by the minatory sentry.

Insomnia doesn’t trouble the Polynesian.

The religious value of a good birching has occasionally been demonstrated on unconsecrated ground.

Not long ago, the civic, fathers of a certain village in Viti Levu decided to thrash Tomasi, who preferred his Sunday morning nap to the arduous business of church attendance, and who conducted his devotions by wifely proxy.

Tomasi was bound to a palm tree and solemnly thrashed by the flagellator.

He is now a deacon with an eye on the pulpit!
QuoteLikeShare
Aug 15, 2011#57
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/45737951

The Advertiser (Adelaide) Thursday 13 November 1941, page 9.

BIRCHING FOR JOYRIDERS
Road Traffic Act Amendment

An amendment empowering the court to order up to 12 strokes of the cane or birch in addition to other punishment prescribed by the Act on youths up to 18 found guilty of joyriding for the second or subsequent time, was inserted into the Road Traffic Act Amendment Bill in the Legislative Council yesterday.

The amendment was made after the Minister of Agriculture Mr. Blesing), who voted with the Opposition, had intimated that the Government would not be prepared to accept any such amendment. Voting was 11 to 7.

“Keep your hands off the human being; we see too much of this sort of thing in the world today; this is going the wrong way.” Mr. Blesing said in opposing the use of the birch and cane.

Referring to the remarks of earlier speakers that caning in their youth had not done them any harm, he said that in his opinion such treatment instilled a feeling of resentment. He doubted whether anyone had benefited by it.

“We should try to bring our people up by education,” he added. “The right to birch belongs to a parent only.”

The amendment, which was moved by Mr. Cudmore (LCP) was passed when the Bill was recommitted.

The old saying or “spare the rod and spoil the child” was not taken much notice of now, which was unfortunate, said Mr. Cudmore. Joyriders were a danger to human life, a factor not always considered in debate.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Council (Mr. Condon) said that the amendment was opposed to the principles of democracy.

Mr. Anthoney (LCP) said that the term “Joyrider” was a misnomer and the offence was in effect common larceny. “We have been getting over-sentimental in regard to the punishment of children in the past decade or so. We have been far too lenient,” he said.

“Back To Dark Ages”

Mr. K. E. Bardolph (ALP), said that Mr. Cudmore’s amendment went back to me dark ages. Our forces overseas were endeavoring to crush powers which had gone back to medievalism.

Mr. Holden (LCP) If they don’t want a hiding, they need not steal Mr. Oates (ALP) said that suitable safeguards were provided under existing legislation, and there was no need for the amendment. There had been no suggestion of birching certain people who had broken the law in so-called “rags.”

Sir Wallace Sandford (LCP) said that the punishment was by way of deterrent.

Mr. Halleday (Ind.) said that they had reached a stage where they had said good-bye to the birch. He moved that Mr. Cudmores amendment be amended to increase to 21 the age for obtaining a driver’s licence.

Mr. Cudmore said that so few of the youths had licences that such a punishment would not harm them. If parents would only give the cane to children who needed it the legislation would not be required.

Mr. Halleday’s proposal was defeated by 12 votes to 6.

A move by Mr. Condon to enforce compulsory stopping at stationary trains failed on the voices.

QuoteLikeShare
C.Farrell
Aug 19, 2011#58
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
StevefromSE5 writes:

“Interesting, then, that the cane was anything but illegal in borstals or approved schools, regardless of sex.”

— This is not correct. The cane was indeed illegal in UK borstals, except at the single borstal in Northern Ireland. On the mainland, borstals officially had no corporal punishment at all, except in the very rare case of a birching to be individually approved by the Home Secretary for gross personal violence against an officer. Approved schools were a completely different sort of institution, where caning was permitted under the detailed 1933 rules, and some of them used it a lot. Seehttp://www.corpun.com/counukr.htm .

Jenny writes:

“I very much doubt CP was seen as a kinder alternative to prison and the claim that it was is nothing more than propaganda.”

— This is not correct. Birching for juveniles was indeed seen in the second half of the 19th century as a humane way of keeping young boys convicted of minor offences (mostly petty stealing) out of prison, it being recognised even then that putting them into such an institution was likely to make matters worse. Seehttp://www.corpun.com/counukj.htm#modernboys .
QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Aug 25, 2011#59
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
The turn of the century seems to me to be the height of the flogging machines. Everything else was becoming convenient so why not corporal punishment.

CLICK

CLICK

QuoteLikeShare
Aug 29, 2011#60
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Given the Hollywood rehab revolving door for shoplifters this may not be that bad of an idea.

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

Details six stories down..

CLICK

QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Aug 29, 2011#61
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Kleptomania with the British birch turn of the century and the American strap for shoplifting was more than sixty years later. Different instruments of correction. One vigilant justice and the other court ordered. The 1967 strapping of an 18 year old black girl shoplifter, Cynthia Gatling by her mother as ordered and witnessed by Judge L. Jackson Embrey led to his suspension.

The exercise was for a futile (she was laughing) minute judging her alleged laughter and subsequent court appearances (quick engine search) I tend to think Grandma Barnes on Britta, Gillian Jacobs of Community, her medicine would have cured Cynthia. A good old fashion whooping.

The judge’s suspension ended shortly thereafter. The second link is from Jet, African-American paper, owned by a prominent black family. They were none too please with the racial implications in 1967.

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

QuoteLikeShare
Sep 02, 2011#62
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
HONOLULU, H. I.: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1896 Wielders of the Birch Rod.

CLICK

A text with more details simply scroll down to the penultimate story includes much of the 1896 story. It includes a lot more for it is written in 1902.

CLICK
QuoteLikeShare
Sep 09, 2011#63
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
The birch (Eton) April 7, 1911. Humorous. Enjoy.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printAr … /3?print=n

QuoteLikeShare
Jan 08, 2012#64
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
While it is not a newspaper reference to birching this comes close and perhaps is more appropriately placed in this thread.

http://www.voy.com/204228/12368.html
QuoteLikeShare
Jan 11, 2012#65
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Quite a few years lapsed but the occupation provided a living.

Mrs Mary Ann Eaton: Birchmaker

CLICK

Henry Finmore: Birchmaker.

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK
QuoteLikeShare
Jan 11, 2012#66
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
May I make a correction before someone has the pleasure of pouncing on me for my error. It was man in a large building in Holborn that produced the birch rods. Queer trade. New York Times. Queer vocation. Los Angeles Times. Queer London for having no newspaper online from whence the story must have originated.
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Feb 01, 2012#67
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24189984M/Birch-rod_days

Birch-rod days and other poems
by Wm. C. Jones
Published 1909 by John F. Cuneo Co. in Chicago.

BIRCH-ROD DAYS
Fond memory still recalls the bygone day
Of cruel tyrannizing birch-rod sway,
When sturdy teacher, of the old-time school,
Did govern well with birch-rod and the rule.
His unrelenting look, his solemn mien,
May, in imagination, still be seen;
The truant, disobedient of his law,
Recalls how quick he was to find some flaw;
Remembers youthful days – the days of woe-
When oft was dealt the unforgiving blow
Upon the back, oft minus coat and vest,
Of hapless youth, for trifles, thus opprest.

Who dared to look or feel a moment gay,
Felt his coercion during all that day!
Well calculated to suppress all noise,
His laws inexorable – were for boys.
We would rebel, yet each rebellious time
Were scored with the birch-rod, as for some crime.
Forgive him! Never! My heart revolting swells
With wicked thoughts, when back my memory dwells.
Yet, I remember, when in days now past,
We were all taught to spell, alike and fast;
To syllable and pronounce were taught it well-
Taught from the spelling book – learned how to spell;
The class in reading, from books, were taught to read.
The teacher had one purpose – to succeed;
And grammar, boys and girls were sparse
Who could not give the well-known rules and parse;
Each winter brought us to the rule of three,
And we could cipher well – for well could he;
In writing the teacher would oft indite
A couplet, in our copy-books to write:
And well we wrote, and there was scarce a blot –
For praises from his grace quite oft were sought –
But never given, unless true worth was there-
Worth was not found, if ’twas, I’m not aware.
Among them all, alone there is now but one
My boyhood’s memory loves to dwell upon;
He spared the rod on me, a helpless wight,
And made me love him, ruled me not by might;
Judge was he then, as now he is supreme-
Best of them all, be he alone my theme:
QuoteLikeShare
Feb 01, 2012#68
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24189984M/Birch-rod_days

Birch-rod days and other poems
by Wm. C. Jones
Published 1909 by John F. Cuneo Co. in Chicago.

BIRCH-ROD DAYS
Fond memory still recalls the bygone day
Of cruel tyrannizing birch-rod sway,
When sturdy teacher, of the old-time school,
Did govern well with birch-rod and the rule.
His unrelenting look, his solemn mien,
May, in imagination, still be seen;
The truant, disobedient of his law,
Recalls how quick he was to find some flaw;
Remembers youthful days – the days of woe-
When oft was dealt the unforgiving blow
Upon the back, oft minus coat and vest,
Of hapless youth, for trifles, thus opprest.

Who dared to look or feel a moment gay,
Felt his coercion during all that day!
Well calculated to suppress all noise,
His laws inexorable – were for boys.
We would rebel, yet each rebellious time
Were scored with the birch-rod, as for some crime.
Forgive him! Never! My heart revolting swells
With wicked thoughts, when back my memory dwells.
Yet, I remember, when in days now past,
We were all taught to spell, alike and fast;
To syllable and pronounce were taught it well-
Taught from the spelling book – learned how to spell;
The class in reading, from books, were taught to read.
The teacher had one purpose – to succeed;
And grammar, boys and girls were sparse
Who could not give the well-known rules and parse;
Each winter brought us to the rule of three,
And we could cipher well – for well could he;
In writing the teacher would oft indite
A couplet, in our copy-books to write:
And well we wrote, and there was scarce a blot –
For praises from his grace quite oft were sought –
But never given, unless true worth was there-
Worth was not found, if ’twas, I’m not aware.
Among them all, alone there is now but one
My boyhood’s memory loves to dwell upon;
He spared the rod on me, a helpless wight,
And made me love him, ruled me not by might;
Judge was he then, as now he is supreme-
Best of them all, be he alone my theme:
QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Mar 11, 2012#69
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
No oil shortage here. Corporal punishment in the middle of the nineteenth century in Boston. Did New England mean old England birch?13,744 in 9 months and one school 69 children a day.

CLICK

QuoteLikeShare
Mar 13, 2012#70
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Spare Half Hours. 1880. Henry Lapham waxes so eloquently.

CLICK
QuoteLikeShare
holyfamilypenguin
4,559
3
Jul 13, 2012#71
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=GIxGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA66

The Literary Gazette (London) 16 Jan., 1858, page 66.
Gossip of the week

Dr. Arnold used to say that the use of the birch-rod was the essential difference which distinguishes English education from all others, and makes Englishmen what they are. The French, he thought, would never be either good governors or loyal citizens till the birch-rod was introduced in their schools. We can fancy that if a man liked to be a schoolmaster at all he might like to use the birch-rod, but we never should him supposed, a priori, that the boys themselves appreciated the value of that institution. So it is, however. When the Rev. E. J. May, Head Master of the Brewers’ Company’s School, was discharged in consequence of the Grand Jury ignoring the bill against him for flogging one of his pupils, a number of the boys of the school, who had been in court all day awaiting the results, set up a cheer. This was kissing the rod with a witness!
The birch has been the instrument of correction chose by young female miscreants.

Mr Labouchere. Interest in women and birching. The second was a repeat but with an enjoyable addition .

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK
QuoteLikeShare
Aug 07, 2012#72
Given the Hollywood rehab revolving door for shoplifters this may not be that bad of an idea.

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

Details six stories down..

CLICK
Click to expand…
Cure for Kleptomania. Girl Flogging. Corporal Punishment

CLICK

Cure for Kleptomania. Surgical.

CLICK

CLICK

I never realized the resemblance IMHO between Johnny Carson and Former President George W. Bush.

It doesn’t always work.

CLICK

Leona Helmsley: Only little people pay taxes.

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK
QuoteLikeShare
AlanTuringCodebreaker
1,275
Feb 10, 2013#73
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM18890413.2.19
Click to expand…
An article in the travel section of yesterday’s Grauniad, talking about a walk in a birch forest, says

Is this really true? And if so, I wonder when the spiritual aspect became less important than the practical aspect of controlling unruly children?
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Feb 10, 2013#74
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
Witches’ broomsticks were made of birch, but their power to drive out the devil is the origin of “birching” – using birch rods to punish schoolchildren.

I have never heard this suggestion before. It seems fanciful to me. It may be a speculation to explain an ancient custom that has taken legs.

I have previously wondered whether birches used to clean house might have been applied to children to cleanse them but have no evidence for this notion. The birch is not, to me, an obvious implement.
QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
Feb 10, 2013#75
ABOUT BIRCHING
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue XXIII, 13 April 1889, Page 4

By an Old Boy

There are certain subjects, which, to different persons, seem repellent, sore or ridiculous. Birching is one of them. To the man of a sober turn who conceives life to be of the Dutch garden order of things, and who would have all men and women Puritanically prim and proper, it is anathema maranatha [a gift to God at the coming of our Lord?] – infinitely repulsive.

On the other hand, the ordinary mortal, with reminiscences of his own birchings, cannot help on reflection smarting anew as he remembers his youth. Nevertheless, he is by no means the birch’s implacable foe. He views it in company with his first loves, his foolish fond early trust in fanciful Derby winners, and the like things; so that, in fact, it is dyed -with a tender and poetic glamour of the imagination that even endears it to him. He talks of it to his young children as a strange wondrous experience among the myriad others that, please God, life has in store for them.

Lastly, there are they to whom the mere idea of the birch is hugely mirth-provoking. They – the chances are – have never suffered from it, never ever seen it in the days when it acts like a dire fetish upon the mind. Thus they can afford to scourge it with their innocent unchastened wit, and to brag grandiloquently of how they would have bearded the ridiculous horror to its very twigs, had they had the good fortune to be taught “mensa, a table, within a mile of it.

Now, I for one respect the birch, with respect that borders upon affection. I have wept under it more than once. Even the abstract idea of it seems to me to be venerable. Nor can I at all sympathise with those sensitive people who blush at the mention of it, and hold up their elegant and mittened hands in scorn of it, as if it were a misbegotten monster. These are, indeed, just the persons who would, methinks, have beat benefitted by a nearer acquaintance with the thing they deprecate so uncharitably. It would have flogged some of the absurdity out of them.

How well do I recall the method and manner of my birchings twenty years ago! I suffered in two different schools. Nowadays a boy gets “tone,” as it is called, through athletics. In my day I think the agent was the birch. Just as the modern vaunts of the brief time in which he can run a mile, so his predecessor boasted of the number of his birchings in a single half, ” and the stoical mood in which he accepted them. “How many times were you birched last week, my dear?” was quite a current common place of salutation on the part of a fond mother when she visited her son at school. And if she were as fully Spartan in spirit as the lad, her eyes would brighten with pride at the elevated answer, Twice, mother, and I didn’t cry in the least.”

At the one school, indeed, birching seemed as much a part of our curriculum as the Latin grammar and Colenso. Daily alter morning school, a herd of boys stayed behind in the large room, to be castigated. One could then judge of a boy’s stamina very fairly. Some of us fidgeted a good deal during the unpleasant moments of expectation. Some smiled sardonically even to the head master’s face. Some shed tears, and volubly bewailed the injustice of their doom. These last were in the worst plight. They met with pity from neither gods nor men.

In this school our birching wore wrought in private. The drill-master was the executioner; and he used to come into the room with the birch under his arm, and smelling of beer as if he had been fortifying himself for the task. The head-master generally stood by and said “Enough!” when he thought that the crime was duly atoned for. But he did not always sufficiently concentrate his attention upon the work in hand and, thanks to sheer abstraction of mind, many a boy got more than was meant for him. Now and then he honored us by himself taking a turn with the birch; and, though amateurish, he had a strong arm, But he lacked “staying ” power. He could not, like Keate of Eton, have flogged half a hundred boys in a single evening.

A much more formal and impressive business was a birching at my second school. This was an institution with decided Ritualistic tendencies. We had half-holidays on saints’ days, Our Head master, Dr E., was also far from averse to giving us extra half holidays whenever we petitioned for them, you would have thought that boys thus indulged would never need to be birched.

I thank heaven that I for my part never suffered the extreme penalty under Dr E , though I can speak for his deputy. The birchings were done publicly – in presence of the whole school, that is. The Doctor used to turn up his coat cuffs, set back his shoulders, and widen, his legs, as if he were one in a boxing bout. His subsequent behaviour gave me the notion that he regarded birching as a fine gymnastic exercise. He took breath methodically between the blows, and sometimes paused awhile. The lad’s screams and our silence (there were two hundred of us) had then something of the sublime about them.

At this school there were perhaps ten or a dozen birchings in a half. Of course, canings of various degrees were innumerable ; but a birching is to a caning as a cathedral to a humble red-brick Methodist chapel. Impending birchings were announced many days beforehand on the green-baize board to which, notices of cricket and football matches, scholarship contests, and the like were pinned. The culprits had the pleasure of reading these advertisements like the rest of us.

The event took place in the great vaulted dining-hall, after dinner. As soon as the servitors had carried off the plates and glasses and cutlery, we sang our Latin grace, and then, instead of bustling off to play, we remained standing. When we were quiet, the head master, from the transverse table on the dais, summoned the victim to his immediate presence. The birch was already on the table. A solemn statement of the case against the boy was recounted to us all, and then there sounded the dread command, “Strip, sir.”

This was certainly a trying time for the boy. However firm his previous determination to bear himself with dignity, he was sure to find late too much for him. And so he lay like a sucking-pig on the table, and took his punishment as best he could. It was not very edifying to the rest of us; but it was dramatic; and so, though those of us who were in front held their breath and affected to turn pale, no sooner was it all over, and we were out in the cricket-field, than we discussed it as an incident in the monotony of school -life not on the whole unwelcome,

I do not pretend, in conclusion, to debate about the merits and dements of birching ; because, as I have said, l am unbiased. But no doubt there are cases in which birching is a very effectual deterrent from evil-doing as well as a cure for it; and the only deterrent or cure. Sometimes I think the birch might, with advantage be introduced into the life of adults. I wonder whether Schopenhauer [pessimistic German philosopher], for example, would have benefited by it, Perhaps, however, he experienced it when he was a school boy at Wimbledon. It is a curious point; for if so, may not his whole philosophy be the outcome of the birch and his proud resentful nature? Not everyone is magnanimous enough to be birched and be the better for it.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi … 90413.2.19
Click to expand…
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif);”>Hi Alan Turing and KK,

Witches’ broomsticks sounds an unlikely one to me. Surely given its usual design for punitive purposes the inspiration for the school and judicial birch was the fasces carried by the Lictors who attended on various Roman officials, principally on Magistrates, but also on such diverse worthies as the Emperor and Vestal Virgins.

The Lictor was a sort of bodyguard cum enforcer for his Principal, and attended the principal on formal occasions. In their Magisterial attendant duties Lictors summoned offenders to appear before the Magistrate and also attended to any physical punishment dispensed to said offender by the Magistrate. The symbol of the Lictor’s authority, which he derived from his Principal, was the fasces, a bundle of birch or elm rods, signifying the power to punish by beating. Under most circumstances an axe head protruded from the bundle of rods, to signify the additional power to execute.

The choice of birch or elm rods presumably derived from what was readily to hand in the area concerned if you were going to whack someone with a stick as ordered by a Magistrate. Doubtless in the course of their duties Lictors broke rods quite frequently, so it was prudent to carry spares. Thus when the tools of their trade became symbolic rather than workaday the symbol incorporated a bundle of rods rather than a single rod.

It is also claimed that the bundle of rods signified strength through unity. One rod is easily broken, a bundle of rods are not. Indeed, the term Fascist probably derives from fasces. When the rods were in regular use a Lictor would need to keep his collection tidy when on the move and presumably tied them together in some way. In the symbolic fasces they were bound at intervals along their total length with red leather ribbon.

My belief is that centuries later, when classically trained authority figures sought something suitably imposing and classically endorsed for the severe chastisement of naughty children and unruly persons they thought of the fasces. However initially it was erroneously supposed that the fasces itself was deployed as a punitive instrument rather than individual rods within it. On finding that binding the rods together throughout their length produced a bludgeon rather than the whipping type of device sought, experiment quickly demonstrated that binding just part of the length of the bundle to use as a handle produced an instrument unsurpassed for the job in hand. Voilà, the ‘modern’ scholastic and judicial birch rod was born!

Lictors go back a long way in Roman history. The first Lictor appointments are attributed to Romulus. I’d certainly think they precede the concept of witches’ broomsticks! </div>
QuoteLikeShare
JamieMurphy
112
20
Mar 16, 2020#76
Newark Advertiser, 29 January 1913

Before the Mayor and other magistrates at a Children’s Court, two Newark schoolboys were summoned for stealing two pistols, boxes of caps, paint tubes and other articles from the shop of
Miss Johnson in the Market Place.
From the evidence it appears that one boy went in while the other kept watch.
The elder boy was ordered four strokes with the birch and the younger boy three strokes.

Presumably the punishment would have been carried out by a policeman in the police station or possibly the court. It would be interesting to know details e.g. how many witnesses were present, was it on the bare posterior.
QuoteLikeShare
huberthowhow likes this post
Another_Lurker
10K
256
Mar 16, 2020#77
Hello JamieMurphy,

An interesting find, thank you.

I think you can be fairly certain that the lads would be whacked on the bare and most probably at a local police station or bridewell (a central facility usually used to hold prisoners from more than one police station due to appear in court or sentenced to a short term of imprisonment).

I think you can get a fairly good idea of what would have happened from the DailyMotion video clip I’ll link below. This is from the 1986 BBC TV series on Percy Toplis, the so-called ‘Monocled Mutineer’. Toplis was something of a bad lad in his youth. At school his exploits included persistent bullying for which he was frequently caned and, age 13, dispensing laudanum (a fairly powerful opiate then used as a medicine) to his entire history class. The headmaster’s comment on the latter exploit is said to have been that Toplis would end on the gallows. In the event he died in a hail of police bullets accused of murder in 1920 aged only 23.

Age 11, about 5 years before the Newark incident you describe, Percy Toplis appeared at the Magistrates Court at Mansfield (not far from Newark as it happens, and also in Nottinghamshire). He was charged with obtaining two boys’ suits by deception from a tailor. He had apparently then donned one of the suits and pawned the other for 9 shillings, about £38 in today’s money. He was sentenced to be taken to the local bridewell and given 6 strokes of the birch. A distant branch of my family produced Mansfield and district policeman for generations and it was said one of them was involved in the birching, though I’ve no way of verifying that.

As far as I am aware from other sources the BBC series gave a pretty accurate depiction of the likely proceedings. My apologies for not incorporating a jump to the relevant point. I’ve tried various methods suggested for DailyMotion but none seem to work here, at least not in my Browser. However, the birching occurs very early in the clip, at 2:59 onwards.

Here is the clip.
QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Mar 17, 2020#78
A woman, though not of robust build, wants to birch out of a sense of duty to humanity.

Australia 1928.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … hing+woman
QuoteLikeShare
Mar 17, 2020#79
I never realized that in 1952 birching could be such a formal affair. What’s a birching without a top hat? A tip of the proverbial hat goes to the good sheriff. These scoundrels must have deserved every stroke.

Top Hot Too ‘
Wearing his chain of of-
fice and a top hat, Harold
Blamfield, sheriff and pri-
son governor of Guernsey,
supervised the birching of
three boys, 15, 16 and 17,
in the island’s prison this
week.

Each boy received eight
strokes from a jailer under
medical supervision as pun-
ishment for wilfully dam-
aging property:

Birching, which was
abolished two years ago in
Great Britain, has been re-
tained by Guernsey’s State
Parliament.

The youngest of the 3
boys punished had been
birched with three other
boys 2 years ago, when,
acted only 13, he was found
guilty of indecently as-
saulting a girl of seven.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … -Blamfield

QuoteLikeShare
Mar 17, 2020#80
Can you imagine the crime rate decline would be if they were birched? There were be fewer girls in jail. I am sure those girls would let their girlfriends know. Their fellow inmates wouldn’t be corrupting each other and saving the state a lot of money. It would be face down and bare bottom up on the whipping table for these two pieces of work.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … rchLimits=

https://media-cdn.holidaycheck.com/w_44 … c141c92813

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3158/3082 … 36d2_b.jpg

https://www.visitscotland.com/wsimgs/In … ail030.jpg

They wouldn’t be laughing if that magistrate had his druthers.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JxdKlTRGGcQ/hqdefault.jpg

1912. I would gladly be the whipper free of charge.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … elly+birch

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … elly+birch

QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Jun 29, 2020#81
The punishment list for 1970 indicates just how rare was the birching of James Combe. He seemed surprised that he was going to be awarded that punishment. He would have preferred to be on the Isle of Wight in 1970 and not the Isle of Man.

Social distancing would have saved the poor fellow a lot of grief. He didn’t break a girl’s nose but got two more strokes. You figure.

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19700815. … ng——-1

https://ia801002.us.archive.org/BookRea … 6&rotate=0
QuoteLikeShare
Jun 29, 2020#82
The source for the punishment list is found here.

https://archive.org/details/AgainstBirching
QuoteLikeShare
bripuk
399
29
Jun 29, 2020#83
I first came across this publication some 30 years ago so thank you for bringing it to my attention again.
QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Sep 10, 2020#84
American/British cultural shock 1870. Such humble grace under pressure from England’s young ladies is laudable in the view of the writer.

The birching of young ladies.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … 18%2C1294/
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Sep 11, 2020#85
US news reports of birching

Wikipedia: The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (EDM) was a magazine published by Samuel Orchart Beeton from 1852 to 1879, with a supplement written by his wife, Mrs. Beeton, between 1859 and 1861: these supplements were later collected as her Book of Household Management. His intention was that it should “tend to the improvement of the intellect”. The magazine published articles on middle-class domestic issues, fashion and fiction.

In 1867, Beeton expanded the correspondence section of the magazine. The contents of this “Conversazione”, now included contributions by men, included material extolling the attractions of corsetry/tight-lacing, cross-dressing and flagellation; extracts on the latter were republished in pornographic compilations such as The Birchen Bouquet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engli … c_Magazine
______________________________________________________________

There was a lot of sleaze in Victorian times. Pornography and highly salacious material was often only thinly disguised.

Publications only prosper if they meet the readers’ interests. Beeton knew what was going on.

Newspapers including those in the US are on a constant lookout for cheap space-filling content. A common practice was to republish with attribution to an apparently or at least previously respectable source. In this way you can stay on the high ground. You report other people’s porn as a news story.

Apparently, it can be fun to test the limits of editor’s and readers’ gullibility. You begin with something plausible and then slowly descend into fantasy. Those initially fooled are reluctant to accept their gullibility. Others are happy to pretend. This sport is practiced in this very forum.
______________________________________________________________

More on the Englishwoman’s Birch

https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2015/03 … tress.html

The question of corporal punishment as a useful means for disciplining children was first broached in the autumn of 1868, when a number of readers’ letters in support of whipping began to be published. In the Conversazione pages for September, a correspondent called Pro-Rod wrote ‘I believe a good sound whipping from its mother’s hands will generally have a wonderfully good effect’. From this time on, a huge number of letters on the subject flooded in, both for and against corporal punishment.

However the entire discussion was hijacked and subverted by people writing in, not from the point of view of a parent wondering the best way of bringing up a child, but seemingly with quite a different aim in mind.

In March 1870 A Rejoicer in the Restoration of the Rod wrote in with a weirdly detailed and salacious description of various whipping incidents.

More and more people wrote in, ostensibly to contribute to the argument, but it’s difficult to read these letters as anything other than erotica, with various strict governesses and other authority figures whipping adolescent boys and girls. This is especially surprising and subversive since the magazine was aimed at proper Victorian middle-class women, who were instructed throughout the rest of the publication on being ladylike. The anonymity of the writers means that we don’t know anything about these correspondents, but it’s very likely that some of them were men, writing with the merest pretence of being a woman.

The magazine’s publisher, Samuel Beeton, came under some pressure over the series of letters. Seemingly torn between the people who wrote in to say the whole thing was disgusting and the huge flood of further correspondence continuing the argument, he realised that there was a way of pleasing everyone and making money in the process. From April 1870 onwards, the letters were published in a special supplement, which could be purchased every month for twopence (the normal magazine sold for a shilling an issue).

[. . . ]
QuoteLikeShare
Another_Lurker
10K
256
Sep 12, 2020#86
KKxyz wrote: ↑Sep 11, 2020
Apparently, it can be fun to test the limits of editor’s and readers’ gullibility. You begin with something plausible and then slowly descend into fantasy. Those initially fooled are reluctant to accept their gullibility. Others are happy to pretend. This sport is practiced in this very forum.
No, I’m sorry but I can’t possibly accept that that could happen here! ????
QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Sep 12, 2020#87
No Henchman for Justice Henchman.

Position Vacant!

AN amusing sequel, to the abolition of
capital punishment in Queensland
took place a few years ago in the
Criminal Court. His Honour Mr.
Justice Henchman had before him a
youth convicted of an offence which
called for some form of salutary punish-
ment, but his Honour was unwilling to
send the youth to gaol as he wished to
preserve the prisoner from the contamina-
tion of its atmosphere.

He therefore ordered the youth to
receive 15 strokes of the cane. In the
cells below the Court the punishment
was administered by a warder, at the
order of a police official, while the judge
sat on the bench.

The incident brought a protest from
the warders at Brisbane Gaol as the
administering of corporal punishment
was not part of their job. The legal
aspect was investigated, and it was found
that, although the judge acted rightly in
ordering a whipping, there was no one
in the State whose duty it was to carry
out the sentence. The abolition of
capital punishment had meant the aboli-
tion of the position of hangman, and
the hangman was also the flagellator.
The Government has not yet seen fit
to appoint a public flagellator to carry
out any similar sentences which might be
imposed by judges in the future.
QuoteLikeShare
Sep 12, 2020#88
Above quoted July 5, 1936. Arguments against “cruel & unusual” are used to ban for both forms of punishment in our Supreme Court. The paddle will be seen as atrchaic as the electric chair.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … ellator%22
QuoteLikeShare
Nov 09, 2020#89
USA is exceptional for more reasons than its continued use of the paddle. The fact that for every 11 boys that are paddled three girls are as a national average. Tardiness and dress code restrictions are hard for some to comply in student handbooks codes of conduct. Adolescent rebellion is hard to curb simply by suspensions and detentions. As young ladies enter the real world far worse consequences await them. Gender will not give them a free pass.

The sturdy paddle allows a measure of modesty in a coed school that fragile birch in an all girl school.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DLKTw6DDKIY/S … +tower.jpg

Judicial punishment should be far severer than warranted for girlish age appropriate foolishness.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … punishment+
QuoteLikeShare
Nov 13, 2020#90
I suppose from an American POV a birching would be a walk in the park in comparison to the paddling. The fine would be another matter.

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OL19410307. … ng——-1
QuoteLikeShare
hcj44
228
23
Unread postNov 13, 2020#91
You may think birching is a distant memory but “bamboo birch rods” can be purchased today, from a Chinese supplier, in 50, 60 and 70cm sizes. Surprisingly, they appear to be intended for domestic discipline rather than the adult market.
Bamboo birch.jpg (27.38KiB)
QuoteLikeShare
KKxyz
3,590
53
Unread postNov 13, 2020#92
{size=120]I wonder where the adjective “bamboo” comes from or relates to? The twigs in no way resemble any bamboo I am familiar with. Perhaps the translation is at fault.[/size]
QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Unread postNov 13, 2020#93
This was a very common instrument of correction for children at home.

QuoteLikeShare
Unread postNov 14, 2020#94
While the majority of New York City principal’s in 1911 favored the use of the rod they never persuaded their superiors. The turn of the century brought a flood of immigrants that might have proven to be too much of a challenge. New York is one city where moral suasion triumphed for weal or for woe (that poor girl’s expression) over the birch. They would never show her rubbing her bottom though that would have been a larger and safer target.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … 64%2C6043/
QuoteLikeShare
Unread postNov 21, 2020#95
The dimension specificity in schools called to mind the paddles according to ages. The
English youth needed three or four twigs while the Germans only two twigs civilize them.

https://newspapers.library.wales/view/4 … 20flogging
QuoteLikeShare
Unread postDec 01, 2020#96
Birching as a judicial punishment was not something that never made its way here. The Connecticut legislatures must not have approved it in 1901. I don’t know why it said restore whipping unless they were talking about flogging in reformatories.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … 68%2C9110/
QuoteLikeShare
Unread postDec 01, 2020#97
In Christian schools parents are called to come to the office to spank their youngsters but I know of no case that this is done on the high school level.

1892 birching.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … ing+gently
QuoteLikeShare
AliceOttley
235
19
Unread postDec 02, 2020#98
The magistrate appreciated that the birch should be used on the bare bottom – a wise man!
QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Unread postDec 02, 2020#99
Our USA readers must have been perplexed about why a boy committing a crime would be a concern about a birching while a year before their own highest court gave its blessings to paddling students for bad behavior. A paddling over a fully clothed bottom and even a man spanking a girl a few years younger would not raise an eyebrow then and still over forty years. It is shocking to some or there wouldn’t be a cache of tweets.

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SBS19780426 … or——-1
QuoteLikeShare
Unread postDec 03, 2020#100
THE BIRCH. The case against be three little boys who killed and mutilated three pigs because, according to their statement, they “wanted to get the bladders out,” was dealt with by the Worthing magistrates yesterday. The children were ordered to receive six strokes each with the birch rod. The father of one of the boys said he thought the occurrence was due to the encouragement given to boys to go into slaughterhouses and witness the killing of cattle.

A lesson well learned. The animals didn’t deserve this anymore than the boys did to be birched!

https://www.theglasgowstory.com/images/TGSE00720.jpg

https://newspapers.library.wales/view/4 … 20clothing

http://www.hellokids.com/c_14958/readin … ittle-pigs
QuoteLikeShare
2015holyfamilypenguin
4,320
69
Unread postDec 05, 2020#101
Some students are told if the get spanked in school they’ll be spanked at home. Getting it on the bare with a strap after a paddling is by definition a bad day.

1898 domestic use of the birch.

https://newspapers.library.wales/view/4 … 606851/26/

1901 the birch versus the cane.

https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3 … 3477891/8/
QuoteLikeShare
Unread postDec 08, 2020#102
Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine caught the fancy of the City of Brotherly Love. The last letter on Chastising Children found on the third is from the City of Sisterly Love. She seems remarkably unfamiliar with the birch rod.

https://fultonhistory.com/highlighter/h … Page=false
QuoteLikeShare

End of the topic.First unread post • 102 posts
…
11
Share this topic with:
Next Unread Topic:
CP and the end of the age of innocence
peterinpjs