The Big Stiff revisited

 

Let’s pay another visit to Mr Septimus Green, aka The Big Stiff. He’s the schoolteacher who is against the cane. As we saw when we met him before (here) when he was appointed to the village school one of the first things he did was to break all the canes in the classroom.

Perhaps his stance was seen as a bit too radical by comic editors because although The Big Stiff wouldn’t cane the boys, he didn’t always mind if someone else did.

In this episode from 22 December 1934, he finds pupil Sam Bugg firing ink pellets at his classmates so he devises a most unusual punishment for him.

Later (in disguise) he seeks out Sam’s father and tells him that his son is troublesome at school. Next day Dad turns up at the school and does what perhaps The Big Stiff himself should have done in the first place.

The Big Stiff first appeared in the Hotspur from September 1933. You can find this and other early issues of the Hotspur on Comic Book Plus.

Picture credits: D. C. Thomson

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