The Spanking Writers

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.

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Once more unto the Percy Anecdotes from the 1840s, this time to explore the flogging of a female convict in Russia:

The knout whip is fixed to a wooden handle a foot long, and consists of several thongs, about two feet in length, twisted together, to the end, on which is fastened a single tough thong of a foot and a half in length, tapering towards a point…

When the philanthropic Howard was in Petersburgh, he saw two criminals, a man and a woman, suffer the punishment of the knout. They were conducted from prison by about fifteen hussars and ten soldiers. When they had arrived at the place of punishment, the hussars formed themselves into a ring round the whipping-post; the drum beat a minute or two, and then some prayers were repeated, the populace taking off their hats.

The woman was first taken, and after being roughly stripped to the waist, her hands and feet were bound with cords to a post made for the purpose. A servant attended the executioner, and both were stout men. The servant first marked his ground, and struck the woman five times on the back; every stroke seemed to penetrate deep into her flesh; but his master thinking him too gentle, pushed him aside, took his place, and gave all the remaining strokes himself, which were evidently more severe.

The woman received twenty-five blows… ‘I (continues Mr. Howard) pressed through the hussars, and counted the number as they were chalked on a board for the purpose.’

I don’t actually know any Russians, but Ukraine is next door. Haron…

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In a rather fat volume “English Juvenile Courts” by Winifred A. Elkin (pub. 1938) I found a great passage that compares corporal punishment at home or school with court-ordered birchings.

Over the previous pages I’d got the impression that Ms Elkin didn’t like judicial corporal punishment very much, but with these few paragraphs she mad me wonder.

The conditions under which birching is administered in the courts are so different that no comparison with the results of birching by parents or in schools has any value.

If a boy is birched by his father, the punishment is carried out by someone for whom he may be presumed to have affection and respect… If he is birched at school, he may accept it as part of the discipline of an institution to which he feels he belongs and to which he recognises his responsibility. If neither his affections nor loyalties are involved, birching may perhaps cow him or make him more careful… It will not in any case effect any real moral improvement.

When it does good, it is not because the pain involved acts as a restraint against future misbehaviour, but rather that the punishment is taken as a sign that he has offended against the code of an organisation or of an individual whose standards he accepts and admires.

But it is a different matter when a boy is birched by a police officer by order of a court. Here it is certain neither his affections nor loyalties are involved… At the best, he will take it as an entirely impersonal business. If it restrains him in the future, it can only be because he fears its repetition.

Hang on, I thought as I read this. What she’s saying is, the only effective judicial birching is a really hard one, so flog ‘em till they scream. She can’t be saying that. She’s a nice lady, Ms Elkin, right? Well…

It is actually not unknown to find boys who express a preference for a birching rather than other methods. Clarke Hall said that he had known on several occasions boys who asked to be birched rather than to be sent away, but that he had never known the converse…

If the pain of it is reduced to vanishing point, it is hard to see what good can be expected of it from a punitive standpoint.

Yep, flog ‘em till they scream.

Actually, what the writer is doing is arguing ad absurdum: a moderate birching is no good, but no decent person would want to give a youngster a really hard birching, therefore we may as well get rid of judicial CP altogether.

However, I can just hear Abel pontificating along the lines of that last quoted paragraph. “If the punishment doesn’t hurt, young lady, it isn’t doing any good from the punitive standpoint.”

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We’ve just rejoined the National Trust, which looks after historic old buildings around the country. Not, of course, that any of our visits to said old buildings are purely for pervy pleasure, as we imagine life upstairs and downstairs. One of their properties caught my eye, and sounds like a must-visit location: The Workhouse at Southwell, apparently the best-preserved workhouse in England.

As ever, the Trust has tried to bring the history of the place to life. So, according to its website, visitors can:

Play ‘The Master’s Punishment’ game

OK, so I’m now wondering what this might entail. Will Haron be given a quiz to complete as she tours the property, a stern uniformed workhouse master marking her script, and applying the birch for every wrong answer? (Now there’s a job I’d enjoy for the summer season).

Maybe there’ll be a list of offences committed by the residents; visitors have to work out what the punishment would have been. Or perhaps the ‘game’ is more of a ‘guess the implement’: the girl’s tied down and whacked with the birch, cane, strap and more, having to work out which is which.

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Browsing the archive of the “Time” Magazine, we hit upon a report of an interesting 1926 court-case:

Curious spectators crowded into a courtroom at Melun, last week, as two men and ten women, all members of the Sadistic Bordeaux cult of Notre Dame des Pleurs (Our Lady of Tears) were arraigned on a charge of having stripped and flogged the Abbé des Noyers at Bombon.

The Abbé appeared in court, although still suffering from the strokes which had been administered to him with knotted rope ends by his Bordeaux assailants.

The article goes on to talk about the testimony of the assailants, and why they thought their abbot deserved a whipping. (Something to do with him being the Devil.)

But wait. What? There was a sadistic cult in Bordeaux? What was that about?..

“Time” doesn’t give any details about the cult itself; it’s like everybody in 1926 is supposed to know what a sadistic cult might be up to. I did some googling, but all the sites I can find are in French.

Oh, well, I’ll just have to make up all the details myself…

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I have frequently heard tops complain that spanking makes them tired, hurts their shoulders and bruises their palms. All I can usually say to that is, “Cry me a river”. Not that I actually say anything like that while in their reach, you understand.

It appears, injuring yourself while dispensing punishment is not unknown in history. I came across this account in “The Book Hunter” by John Hill Burton:

He had beheld, though he had never undergone, the old-fashioned process of flogging by heezing up the culprit on the back of the school-porter, so as to bring his bare back close to the master’s lash. The trembling victim, anticipating such punishment, used to be sent to summon the porter. He frequently returned with a half-sobbing message, Please, sir, he says he’s not in.” The fiction did not lead to escape.

Cromar was the name of the chief executioner in these scenes. Detested by his pupils, he was a victim to every sort of petty persecution from them, so that cruelty acted and reacted between him and them. On one memorable occasion he flogged John Burton with such violence as to cause to himself an internal rupture.

Oh, boo-hoo. I’m sure the schoolboys of old were full of sympathy.

By the way, I’ve never before heard “horsing” called “heezing up”. Have you? The events took place in Aberdeen in about 1820, so this may be very, very localised usage.

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Sex workers had it tough in the time of Emperor Charlemagne:

Should a prostitute be found in a man’s home, he should be made to carry her, on his shoulders, to the market place where she would be whipped. Should he refuse to carry her, then he was to be whipped with her.

I’d hazard a guess that the carrying option would have been the more popular. As would have been skinnier working girls.

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I’ve been reading about The Red Lodge, Britain’s first reformatory for girls.The enlightened founder believed that the girls could be educated without regular recourse to corporal punishment. But I can imagine one resident pushing her luck too far: absconding for a third time, perhaps, having been given a very clear final warning.

She would be brought before the Governors. That, in itself, would cause her to quake: any bravado would have been long abandoned by the time she was led into the room. They would ask for an explanation; she would have none. They would warn her of the dire fate that might befall a homeless girl wandering the streets of Victorian Bristol. They would ask whether she recalled her previous warning:

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we cannot allow this to go unpunished.” They would confer amongst themselves, before the Chairman of the Governors turned back to her. “We intend to make an example of you, girl. We cannot allow the staff her to be undermined, and you were given very clear warnings.”

“Please, sir. Have mercy…”

“You are to be birched at nine prompt tomorrow morning.” The Chairman would turn to the warden: “Please make sure the girl is washed and put into a clean dress tomorrow morning, and bring her to the Oak Room at five to nine. Now take her away…”

–
A small group would gather in the Oak Room the following morning: the Chairman, with birch rods in hand. A governor or two. The warden of the reformatory. And the girl.

She’d be ordered to remove her dress, before being tied over the end of a long oak table. The Chairman would stand back: “I think we should wait until nine, gentlemen.” And so they’d pause, listening for the bells of the neighbouring church. Counting each of the nine peals. Knowing that the other girls in the reformatory would also be counting, would also be holding their breath.

Pausing, once silence reigned.

And then beginning her thrashing: hard, measured, teaching a lesson that even the most tolerant of reformatories knows how to punish when punishment is due.

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Sometimes a mere photograph of a book cover can generate hours of daydreaming. Mind, not any old book, but the Punishment Book used at Llandeilo Workhouse in Wales from 1878-1907:

One example: three young inmates who…

… instead of going to school absconded and walked to Llanelly where they were seen wandering about by the Police and locked up”. The Master retrieved them the following day, for which he “applied 6 strokes with a birch”.

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Drum roll…Curtain opens…

My Lords, Ladies and gentlemen… (and the rest of you )

We are delighted to announce…

For the first time ever…

“The Spanking Writers”, our book!

Yes, folks, it’s true. We’ve finally made it into print. We’ve just taken delivery of our own copies of the anthology which brings together the highlights of the first two years of our blog (that would be 2006 and 2007). And it looks wonderful: hardback, a lovely dust jacket which you can remove if you want to read it in public, and so many fond memories as we read through the entries that we love the most.

If you fancy buying a copy, you can get it here. (It should be on Amazon before long, but we get to keep more pennies if you buy it from our own store. Not that we’re ever going to be millionaires, mind, but it’d be nice not to lose money on the deal). Happy reading!

Fiona Locke, the best-selling author of “Over the Knee” has this to say about the book:

“Discipline has never been sweeter. Quite simply some of the best spanking erotica you will read anywhere. The authors are imaginative, literary and above all, genuine.”

(Should we say something like “great gift idea - buy early for Christmas”? Or just “why not treat yourself to a little relaxing reading before falling asleep…”)

Here endeth the commercial break.

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