As I’ve said many times before my first caning was for ‘general attitude’ : not one specific offense, but a whole collection of minor regular infractions that sort of ‘added up’ to paint a picture of someone testing the limits of the system.
A bit like trying to chisel a brick here and there out of a wall and see if it still stood up. Included in these was; regularly cutting across the quad grass to chapel; being late to registration: and being tardy to class on a near continuous basis. Not tardy enough to get pulled up every time, but more the last one into the class apparently taking exception at attending something that was less interesting or exciting than the conversation I’d just left …..Answering back – not exactly being sassy, but clever answers to see how far I could push it
I suppose I discovered that if you poke a sleeping dog long enough eventually it will bite !