Eye-popping, but genuine

 

Magnet 1925 Issue No 919

Here’s an advert to make your eyes pop. It appeared in the Magnet, a weekly story paper for boys, advertising its companion paper The Gem. “Spanking Good Yarns” it reads and shows a drawing of boys beating the backside of another.

I only saw the advert published once, in September 1925. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, but perhaps some boss at Amalgamated Press, the company that published both titles, realised the advert might attract the “wrong” sort of customer.

The Gem which ran from 1907 to 1939 published many stories set at elite “public” boarding schools and descriptions and drawings of corporal punishment were widespread.

Incidentally, just a reminder to never trust advertising. If you had bought the following week’s Gem you might have been disappointed, the spanking scene depicted in the advert did not appear. It had already been in issue no 906 on 20 June 1925 (See extract here).

Readers wouldn’t have been too disappointed there were plenty of other interesting drawings that year.

Issue No 922

Issue No 928

Issue No 899

For more on Comics or Story Papers, click here

 

Traditional School Discipline

Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com