There are rumours of one Eton headmaster who used to birch boys for not sitting still though the church service on Sunday mornings. However, he always conducted the birchings (for this particular offence) on the following Sunday morning, immediately before church, so that the chances of the boy being able to sit still were pretty slim, thus earning the boy another birching the next Sunday morning, immediately before church! It must be painful (and virtually impossible)for a boy to sit still on a hard church pew, immediately after his buttocks and upper thighs have just been reduced to a raw pulp of bloody, and wealed flesh. And so many boys got birched week after week for months, even years, until their bottoms became sufficiently hardened and desensitized by the floggings so as to be able to sit still through the church service immediately after!! May be this was the headmasters way of toughening them up (or toughening up their posteriors at least)!!