Huntsville gazette., 1881-11-05
Whipping in the OM-Time School.

A public school fifty years ago was
very different affair from what it is now
adays.
Upon my word, when I think of the
whipping that went on day after day in
the old Mayhem School am astonished
at it. Yet with the variety of corporal
punishment so freely bestowed there was
mingled sort of ghastly sportive ele-
ment, grim humor which did not al
ways commend itself to the perception
of him who received the flagellation. A
merry conceit, for instance, was that of
Master Clough.
That ingenious person would direct
culprit to stand upon the platform near
the desk and, without bending the knees,
touch the floor with his fingers. Then
a smart flourish of the rattan and sud-
den blow would cause the unhappy
youth to involuntarily resume an upright
position with diverting rapidity. Itwas
really very amusing ito Master Clough).
Sometimes an offender would be asked
by one of the masters which instrument
of torture he would choose, the riding
whip, the ruler, or the rattan. Which
ever he seemed to prefer was not the
one used, but one of the others would
make him smart. This little change
would have healthful moral influence
upon the scholar, teaching patience and
resignation under disappointment. A
pleasant illustration Ito the teacher) of
the irony of fate was shown in another
way. When the stock of rattans ran
low (and that was very seldom) some
victim of disgrace would be dispatched
for fresh supply, knowing that on his
return he would feel the first stroke of
the rod. With what ingenious refine
ment of torture the victim was thus made
to find the weapon that should wound
him!
There was another clever diversion of
our kind-hearted masters which in sum-
mer, when the days were long, occasion
ally broke the monotony of schoolboy
life. Sometimes, of a sultry July after
noon, a tired scholar, overcome by heat,
would find the sound of voices in the
room grow fainter and fainter, his head
would droop, and finally sink upon his
desk, and he would quickly be in the
land of dreams. Then it was that
the master, seizing his rattan and
stealthily yet joyfully striding across the
rows of desks, would give the sleeping
wretch such rousing whack as to as
tOnish and confound as well as suddenly
awake him.
l confess that these diversions of the
pedagogue were not without their at
traction for us who looked on and saw
the comical contortions of the boys
whose fortune it was at the moment to
be under discipline. The fact that our
turn might come next did not prevent
us from finding what entertainment we
might in what our master evidently en-
joyed. None of us had yet read the max
inns of the cynical La Rochefoucauld,
but we realized that under certain cir
cumstances there is something in the
misfortunes of our friends that gives us
a certain sort of satisfaction.
Those were, indeed, days when fog
ging was administered in no homeo-
pathic doses, but with a most heroic
fullness of practice. [ once made q
careful estimate of my own experience
in that way, and came to the conclusion
that l had averaged about a whipping
and half day during my connection
with the Mayhem School. Of course,
we became somewhat Injured to this
rough treatment. 1t was considered the
proper thing to suffer with Spartan
firmness, and he who, while laid across
the masters knee, could calmly make
comical and derisive faces from his ig-
nominious position for the entertain
ment of his associates, without having
his attention diverted to other parts of
his body, was accounted brave fellow.
Then there was superstitious belief
that by laying ones eyelash in the hand
that was about to be feruled the ac-
cursed wood was sure to be shattered
on coming in contact with the magic
hair. But meyer saw one shattered
Boston Transcript.