In order to castigate such offenders. Dr. Goodford would be ready in his room on Sunday, where he would sometimes attend at 10.30 at night, in order to flog boys going by an early train next day. Even those leaving Eton altogether had to submit, for otherwise they would have been ranked as being expelled. Mr. Brinsley Richards tells of a boy, nearly six feet high, and with a moustache, who debated in agony of mind whether he would take a swishing on the night before leaving the school. He had actually got a commission in the cavalry; his uniforms were ordered, and he was to join his regiment in ten days; but on Election Saturday night he got uproariously drunk, was seen by a strict master, and put in the bill. He duly surrendered to his fate, received twelve cuts with “two birches,” and the following day took leave of Dr. Goodford on the pleasantest terms possible.
Dr. Goodford seems to have taken a genial view of flogging; on the morning of one St. Andrew’s Day he swished a Scotch boy who was coming to breakfast with him, and greeted him later on at that meal with a cheery “Here we are again!”
An amusing story used to be told of a boy just about to leave Eton who, having refused to be flogged, on his arrival at home discovered, to his horror, that his refusal to bow to constituted authority would prevent him from being allowed to enter the career upon which he had set his heart. Hoping to put matters right, he at once set out for Eton, only to find on his arrival there that the Headmaster had gone to Switzerland. The ingenious youth, determined to get flogged, then somehow procured two birches and hurried off to Geneva, only to find that the Head had gone on to Lucerne. To that city he too followed, but, missing the pedagogue whom he sought, again had to continue his pursuit, which eventually ended in the refectory of the Monastery of Mont St. Bernard, where he eventually persuaded the Doctor to administer the sought-for flogging amidst a circle of edified monks. The ordeal over, the Headmaster was presented with the leaving fee, which was then customary, in return handing the relieved youth a leaving book in the shape of a Guide to the Alps, which happened to be the only volume procurable.
A SWISHING TRADITION
During the writer’s school days at Eton, though flogging was in full swing, the castigations administered by Dr. Hornby—and he speaks from personal experience—were not severe. On the other hand the Lower Master, the Rev. J. L. Joynes, tempered the severity of his floggings according to the offence which they were intended to correct. On one occasion the writer remembers him laying with a will into a boy who is now a distinguished officer. The latter, however, although he received some thirty-two strokes, administered with two birches (the first one after a time became useless owing to the force with which it was used), never flinched in the least, though this “real flogging” must have occasioned considerable pain, very different from the mild sensation produced by the usual ones—often little more than a disagreeable form. At that time the tradition still prevailed that the wielder of the rod whilst “swishing” was not allowed to lift his hand above his shoulder. Though, as far as the writer can remember, this rule was adhered to by the executioner, he has since heard that the sole foundation for the idea was a curious underhand motion of the right arm peculiar to Dr. Hawtrey which his successors seem to have copied.
From time to time more or less public protests have been made against the use of the birch, which has always been an object of detestation in the eyes of sentimentalists and professional humanitarians.
In 1856 a long correspondence appeared in the Times dealing with the question of flogging. This arose out of the case of a boy named Morgan Thomas, whose father upheld him in not submitting to be flogged.
A report that in future no Upper boys will be flogged, recently called forth some controversy in the newspapers, most old Etonians being, it would appear, of opinion that the abolition of the birch and the substitution of other punishments, including, I believe, caning, are to be deplored. The inevitable sentimentalist, however, was of course well to the front, declaring that “birching, or even caning, is out of date, it being much better to bring boys up to do the right thing and to avoid doing the wrong thing from a sense of honour and pledge.” Apparently this gentleman was under the impression that such a method of education was a new and entire innovation!
In future it appears that amongst Upper boys, flogging is to be supplanted by something resembling the painful process once known as a “College hiding.” At the time when Oppidan Fourth Form boys used to delight in jeering at Tugs, a good many, being captured by Collegers, were dragged off and given a number of cuts with a cane—a far more painful ordeal, it was said, than an ordinary swishing by the Headmaster.