Very likely, too, we should have done what this boy did and tried to conceal or deny our offence. It is all very wrong, no doubt, as we should all admit in maturer years, but it is just because the code of honour and veracity among schoolboys is rather an elastic one that the cane is so useful and salutary a corrective for it. Every schoolboy knows that, administered as the headmaster said he would have administered it in this case, the punishment does not hurt very much; but the sting of if is quite sufficient to make a boy remember that prevarication and deception do not pay, and if the boy has any good moral stuff in him the rarity and solemnity of the ceremonial are very well adapted to bring him to a better frame of mind.
Caning from of the Times6
