Magnet ‘Greyfriars Herald’ special flogging edition
Here is something to thrill the hearts and please the palates of my great army of readers: A Special Flogging Number.
I can picture some of you giving a sort of
delicious shudder. For there is something sinister, yet strangely fascinating
about the word “flogging.”
A flogging is really quite exciting –
except when one happens to be the victim!
You might want to rub your eyes with disbelieve when I
tell you that these words are the opening paragraphs to a special insert into a
boys’ comic. We have met The
Magnet story paper many times before. It is the publication
that carries the Billy
Bunter stories written by Frank
Richards. We all know by now that Mr
Richards had a “thing” about corporal punishment and
relished writing descriptions of boys under the lash of the Remove form master Mr
Quelch’s cane.
It was Frank Richards who introduced the word (if word
is quite the right term for a cry of such severe pain) “Yarooooh!” into the
English language.
For many years in the 1920s The Magnet included
an insert called the Greyfriars
Herald. It claimed to be the school
newspaper as written and produced by the boys of Greyfriars themselves, with
the Remove captain Harry Wharton himself as editor.
Here’s the opening ‘editorial’ that introduces the
special edition, as written by Harry.
“There is scarcely a fellow in the
Greyfriars Remove who has not been flogged at some time or other. Some fellows
take it stoically, others raise the roof with their screams. Vernon-Smith
belongs to the former category and Billy Bunter to the latter. The mere sight
of a birch or a cane is sufficient to make Billy start squalling!”
Look out for more in the
coming days; or read online or download
free-of-charge here.
Editorial
by Harry Wharton
Here is something to thrill the hearts and please the
palates of my great army of readers: A Special Flogging Number.
I can picture some of you giving a sort of delicious
shudder. For there is something sinister, yet strangely fascinating about the
word “flogging.”
A flogging is really quite exciting – except when one
happens to be the victim!
There is scarcely a fellow in the Greyfriars Remove
who has not been flogged at some time or other. Some fellows take it stoically,
others raise the roof with their screams. Vernon-Smith belongs to the former
category and Billy Bunter to the latter. The mere sight of a birch or a cane is
sufficient to make Billy start squalling!
Many people are of the opinion that flogging should be
abolished. I cannot entirely agree with them.
Just as the cat-o’-nine tails is a powerful deterrent
to crimes of violence, so flogging is a very effective check to schoolboy
misbehaviour. Burn your birch-rod and throw away your cane and where would you
be? (I speak now from a master’s point of view.)
You would have fellows running wild, and committing
all manner of offences, with the comfortable assurance that they could not be
flogged.
There are lots of fellows who snap their fingers at
“impots,” and who do not mind detention; but the mere suggestion of a flogging
makes them shake and quake in their shoes.
Of course, there is a certain type of boy whom it is
not wise to flog. A weakling, or a fellow of very acute sensibilities, should
be given some other form of punishment. But it can safely be left to the
headmaster to decide whom to flog and whom not to flog. So long as he gives the
writer of this editorial a wide berth, I shall be happy!
Although practically the whole of this number deals
with flogging, the subject has been treated in a variety of ways so that you
will not find it wearisome or monotonous.
As you peruse some of the articles in this issue you
will almost be able to hear the swish of the birch and the hiss of the cane!
I can safely assert that this is one of the most novel
numbers of the Herald which has yet appeared.
For more extracts from the Greyfriars Herald Special Flogging Number, click here
For more extracts from comics and
story papers, click here
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