Another thing that suggested itself to me was in the case of Australian schools are we to assume that British schools were very similar and thus in looking at the evidence from the more freely available Australian documents are we in fact seeing a close reflection of the school discipline at home in England? Or on further reflection are we seeing something slightly different. Where the Australian schools in fact harsher considering the fact that the colonies were in fact the product of a judicial punishment themselves, the colonists being as they were the grandchildren of convicts. Where the pupils seen as more likely to fall into delinquency and so thrashed more readily than their British peers?
There might have been a time when “six of the best” was a technical expression, and meant something different from “six ordinary strokes”. But in recent times, it was just a slang expression for “a caning”. (If a newspaper said “Time to ban six of the best” you would know it meant “Time to ban corporal punishment” and not “We think caning should be allowed, but only if it’s laid on less severely” or even “We think caning should be allowed, but that five strokes should be the maximum.”) You would no more expect a punishment book to say “six of the best” than “a good whacking” or “a larupping”.
