Adventure worth a flogging

While writing about birching of juveniles, W.A. Elkin (whom I quoted recently), shares an anecdote that made me giggle:

“Aldershot: Boy got away from an Approved School; stole food for a wigwam where he played at Red Indians. Birched! A fortnight later up for the same offence with two others. Birched. Fortnight later two of them broke out again.”

This episode could be so appropriate if copied for a role-play scenario. When I play a reformatory girl, I quite often struggle to find an offence that would be both appropriate to the era, not so terrible that I couldn’t imagine myself committing it, and serious enough for a birching.

Thank you, unknown Aldershot boys. I’ll think of you when I’m repeating your trick.

Elkin suggests that the boys kept breaking out because –

“…most boys are terrified of being thought cowards. The one way they can keep up their prestige and prove to their friends that they are “tough guys” not to be intimidated, is by committing another offence.”

That may well be true, but in this case I think that they simply decided that the adventure was totally worth the trouble they were going to get into when they’re caught.