Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1877 — Cruelty to School-Boys. [ARTICLE]

Cruelty to School-Boys.

A, London school-boy, 12 years of age, committed suicide recently because he feared a flogging. He had played truant, and knew what the usual consequences were. The matter has stirred up a great commotion in the newspapers, and a Parliamentary inquiry has been demanded. Some persons familiar with the discipline of the school have written to the London Times about it, maintaining that the public would not be astonished at the results if they knew how the flogging was done. The Rev. A. A Day says, over his own signature, that two men are required for the operation. One takes hold of the boy, hoists him on the buck by the Wrists, and keeps him 'suspended. The other strips off his coat and, armed with a l;irge and heavy rod, gives fifteen cuts on the boy’s bare back, and these with might and main. This, however, was a mild flogging, for if the offense was at all great, the buy, after having fifteen cuts on his back, received fifteen more in another place with a fresh rod; and that, at least in Mr. Day s time, used to be the punishment for running away. The school at which this sort of flogging prevails is called, by an odd irony, Christ’s Hos. pital. “ Taw is a grout country, Every hn non is afraid of us. the, M pus, “ 1 “ c -