6/4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were made known to the school. This letter being unanswered, after 

 three weeks he resorted to the press. 



These letters and statements subjected the system to a sharp dis- 

 cussion. " C. F." thinks the system not a bad one, if two things are 

 clearly understood, namely, that an appeal will always be heard, and the 

 prefect's punishing be limited to six cuts. The first rule would check 

 abuse of power ; the second would enable the prefects to settle many 

 offences " out of court," thus preventing the brutality sometimes dis- 

 gracing schools. "M. A. Oxon" was at Winchester five years during 

 the " peaceful times," spoken of by Mr. Lechmere, and could testify 

 that the " tortures of tunding " were then not infrequent. For " going 

 out of bounds during play-hours," he and others had once undergone 

 a prefect's tunding, in which he received twenty-five to thirty cuts, 

 " laid on with such a will" that his jacket was cut to ribbons, and was 

 never worn again," and his " arms and back were black and blue with 

 wheals. . . . We were not, however, milksops in those days, and we 

 bore with Spartan fortitude, and without a murmur, a punishment which 

 now makes a cowardly, rascally ' garroter ' howl and cry to the attend- 

 ant surgeon for mercy." He had, however, hoped, until enlightened 

 by Mi\ Maude, that these tortures were gone by the relics of a less 

 civilized age. He describes the system as it was in his day, and adds 

 that, while he endured it and was none the worse, he would not like 

 to have a child of his subjected to a similar discipline. " W." gives a 

 chapter of his experience, from which it appears that he was subjected 

 to the bullying of his school-fellows. He states that he can give many 

 instances of " prefect tyranny." " An Older Wykehamist " answers 

 " An Old Wykehamist," and asks, " What's the use of an appeal after 

 a thrashing ? " and adds that an appeal before would provoke the ire 

 of the prefects and the jeers of companions. He states that it was only 

 three years since a prefect tunded, at one time, thirty or more boys 

 for some trivial offence, and that he himself had received more than 

 one hundred and sixty tundings, of from four to sixteen cuts each, in 

 seven and a half years' attendance at Winchester ! 



Mr. Maude writes a second letter, answering the charges of " exag- 

 geration." He reasserts that there is no limit to the power exercised 

 by the prefects, and shows that the right of appeal is of little value. 

 He give? cases showing the barbarity of the system. About fifty boys 

 were "licked" one afternoon for being absent from an " irregular" 

 roll-call, " the floor of the room looking like a fagot-yard." The head- 

 master disapproved of the irregular roll-call, but excused the prefects 

 " on the ground of an excess of zeal in performance of duty ! " In one 

 case the prefect gave a boy several cuts on the face (" facers "), be- 

 cause he was supposed to be " padded." 



Edmund D. Wyckham states that he frequently witnessed abomi- 

 nable cruelty in the " peaceful times " of Dr. Williams ; once saw a 

 boy tunded with a cricket-stump and lamed for life. The boys, on 



