if one had done anything bad it was not that it came to light.
If it was very bad the boy was told that he would be severely punished: this meant flogging with a birch, which took place in the headmasters sitting room over a block on which a rug was stretched.
The headmaster fortified himself for the execution by first drinking a glass of Marsala.
At the time, the boys took these floggings as a matter of course, but it has been put on record by boys who were at this school, and who have since attained the age of reason, and some of them to positions of importance, that these floggings were exceedingly severe.