What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

It was the “prefect of hall” who managed the whole business of our holidays—as they would be called elsewhere—which we called “remedies.” A “holiday” meant at Winchester a red-letter day; and was duly kept as such. But if no such day occurred in the week, the “prefect of hall” went on the Tuesday morning to the head master (Wiccamice “informator”) and asked for a “remedy,” which, unless there were any reason, such as very bad weather, or a holiday coming later in the week, was granted by handing to the prefect a ring, which remained in his keeping till the following morning. This symbol was inscribed “Commendat rarior usus.”

But in addition to these important duties the “prefect of hall” discharged another, of which I must say a few words, with reference to the considerable amount of interest which the outside world was good enough to take in the subject a few years ago, with all that accurate knowledge of facts, and that discrimination which people usually display when talking of what they know nothing about.

It was the “prefect of hall,” who ordered the infliction of a “public tunding.” The strange phrase, dropped by some unlucky chance into ears to which it conveyed no definite meaning, seems to have inspired vague terrors of the most terrific kind. Very much nonsense was talked and printed at the time I refer to. But the following simple and truthful statement of what a public tunding was, may enable those, who take an interest in the matter, to form some reasonable opinion whether the infliction of such punishment were a good or a bad thing.

At the conclusion of the evening dinner or supper, whichever it may be called, the “prefect of hall” summoned the boys to the dais for the singing of grace. Some dozen or so of boys, who had the best capacities for the performance, were appointed by him for the purpose, and the whole assembly stood around the dais, while the hymn, Te de Profundis, was sung. When all were thus assembled, and before the singers commenced, the culprit who had been sentenced to a tunding stepped out, pulled off his gown, and received from the hands of one deputed by the “prefect of hall,” and armed with a tough, pliant ground-ash stick, a severe beating. I never had a tunding; but I have no doubt that the punishment was severe, though I never heard of any boy disabled by it from pursuing his usual work or his usual amusements. It was judiciously ordered by the “prefect of hall” for offences deemed unbecoming the character of a Wykehamist and a gentleman, and only for such. Any such petty larceny exploits as the scholars at some other “seats of learning” are popularly said to be not unfrequently guilty of, such as robberies of orchards or poultry-yards or the like, would have inevitably entailed a public tunding. Any attempt whatsoever to appropriate unduly either by fraud or violence anything sent to another boy from home—any portion of a “cargo,” as such despatches were called—and à fortiori any money or money’s value, would have necessitated a public tunding. The infliction was rare. Many half years passed without any public tunding having been administered. And my own impression is, that the practice was eminently calculated to foster among us a high tone of moral and gentlemanlike feeling.

These reminiscences of the penal code that was in vigour among ourselves are naturally connected with those referring to the subject of corporal punishment in its more official form.

On one of the whitewashed walls of the huge schoolroom was an inscription conceived and illustrated as follows: “Aut disce!” and there followed a depicted book and inkstand; “Aut discede!” followed by a handsomely painted sword, as who should say, “Go and be a soldier!” (offering that as an alternative for which no learning was needed, after the fashion of a day before examinations for commissions were dreamed of!); and then lastly, “Manet sors tertia cædi,” followed by the portraiture of a rod.

But this rod is of so special and peculiar a kind, and so dissimilar from any such instrument as used elsewhere, that I must try to explain the nature of it to my non-Wiccamical readers. A stick of some hard wood, beech I think it was, turned into a shape convenient to the hand, about a yard long, and with four grooves about three inches long and as large as a cedar pencil, cut in the extremity of it, formed the handle. Into these four grooves were fitted four slender apple twigs about five feet long. They were sent up from Herefordshire in bundles, cut and prepared for the purpose, and it was the duty of the “prefect of school” to provide them. These twigs, fitted into the grooves, were fixed by a string which bound them tightly to the handle, and a rod was thus formed, the four-fold switches of which stood out some foot—or more than that towards the end—from each other.

The words “flog,” or “flogging,” it is to be observed, were never heard among us, in the mouth either of the masters or of the boys. We were “scourged.” And a scourging was administered in this wise. At a certain spot in the school—near the seat of the “informator,” when he was the executioner, and near that of the “hostiarius” or under master when he had to perform—in front of a fixed form, the patient kneeled down. Two boys, any who chanced to be at hand, stepped behind the form, turned the gown of a collegian or the coat tails of a commoner over his shoulders, and unbuttoned his brace buttons, leaving bare at the part where the braces join the trousers a space equal to the diameter of a crown-piece—such was the traditional rule. And aiming at this with more or less exactitude the master inflicted three cuts. Such was a “scourging.”

Prefects, it may be observed, were never scourged.

The “best possible instructors” of this enlightened age, who never treat of subjects the facts of which they are not conversant with, have said much of the “cruelty,” and the “indecency” of such infliction of corporal punishment, and of the moral degradation necessarily entailed on the sufferers of it. As to the cruelty, it will be readily understood from the above description of the rod, that it was quite as likely as not that no one of the four twigs, at either of the three cuts, touched the narrow bare part; especially as the operator—proceeding from one patient to another with the utmost possible despatch, and with his eyes probably on the list in his left hand of the culprits to be operated on—had little leisure or care for aiming. The fact simply was that the pain was really not worth speaking of, and that nobody cared the least about it.