Excerpt:
Flogging is an old institution which has found mention in every book written about the school, and which could never be omitted from any discourse upon Eton. It used to be the custom, in the holidays, for parties of Windsor trippers to be shown over the school buildings under the leadership of a woman--the wife, presumably, of one of the College servants--who gave an oral explanation of the "sights." When the headmaster's room was reached, the guide of course drew attention to that awful emblem of authority, the "block"; and after pointing out the part which it played in the correction of offenders, she would add, in a croaking voice befitting the solemnity of the subject: "They receive the punishment upon their seats." That was a true, but rather inadequate description of a practice which only a very barbarous society could tolerate. A flogging was a disgusting sight even to the two "lower boys" who then had to act as "holders-down"; still more so to the Sixth Form Præpostor whose duty it was to be present; most of all, one would suppose, to the headmaster. It has been described as "an operation performed on the naked back by the headmaster himself, who is always a gentleman, and sometimes a high dignitary of the Church.
