Charlie Chaplin, in his memoir “My Autobiorgaphy” dedicates quite a few pages to his experiences in Hanwell School for Orphans and Destitute Children.
Of particular interest to me was, of course, the description of the punishment ritual:
For major offences… punishment took place every Friday in the large gymnasium… On Friday morning two to three hundred boys… marched in and lined up in military fashion, forming three sides of a square. The far end was the fourth side, where, behind a long school desk the length of an Army mess-table, stood the miscreants waiting for the trial and punishment. On the right and in front of the desk was an easel with wrist-straps dangling, and from the frame a birch hung ominously.
For minor offences, a boy was laid across the long desk, face downwards, feet strapped and held by a sergeant, then another sergeant pulled the boy’s shirt out of his trousers and over his head, then pulled his trousers tight.
Captain Hindrum, a retired Navy man weighing about 200lb, with one hand behind him, the other holding a cane as thick as a man’s thumb and about four feet long, stood poised, measuring it across a boy’s buttocks. Then slowly and dramatically he would lift it high and with a swish bring it down across a boy’s bottom.
…The minimum number of strokes was three and the maximum six… Boys would advise you not to deny a charge, even if innocent, because, if proved guilty, you would get the maximum.
I like the added nuance of the mock trial. We should play it out some time. I won’t even insist on dressing as a boy at the time, though that would be nice too.