[bonyhadi]

THE CARE AND THRASHING
OF SMALL CHILDREN
by
Lieut. Col. A.R.S. Thistleton-Twistleton ffoulkes-Belcher
VD, GPI, AA & Bar, DT, RIP
Visiting Lecturer in Corporal Punishment,
Cynthia Payne Business School, East Cheam

LEARNED INTRODUCTION: CONTRA PANSY ATTITUDES

It used to be universally recognized that all children should be savagely beaten on a regular basis. Sadly, we live in decayed times and
are much afflicted with the Curse of Political Correctness. This Socialistic nonsense holds that children are in fact "people," with "human
rights," and that the arrant nonsense they habitually babble should be listened to and taken
seriously. Furthermore, the Childhood Commissars of our so-called Caring Society hold that any
adult exercising his natural propensity to flay the living daylights out of his squalling brats is
guilty of something called Child Abuse.

Balderdash! Children are beasts, and in common with the rest of Brute Creation (including wives
and the working-classes, but excluding dogs and horses) the only sensible way to deal with their
irritating existence is via The Lash. This is something that every true Englishman instinctively
knows. Pretending otherwise is akin to that fashionable degeneracy which leads some of us to
refer to the Frogs and Huns as "our European partners." Such moral spinelessness veers
dangerously close to homosexuality in my view, and we can do without our offspring learning
that from us. Why otherwise do we spend good drinking-money on fees to send them to Public
School?

WHAT CHILDREN ARE FOR

Here indeed is the crux of the matter. Before the start of their formal education, children are
not much good for anything. Nor indeed are they a great deal of good for anything during their
time at school, at Varsity (if one is very unlucky), or in the Young Offenders' Institution, but at
least they are Not In One's Hair. Given that one cannot, in this Vile Age, expose them on the
mountainside, sell them into slavery, or pack them off as boarders much before the age of five,
one had better find something to do with them. This should (a) ensure that they are Neither
Seen Nor Heard (the better-known variation on this maxim is yet another lamentable example
of modern-day Namby-Pambyism), and (b) prepare them for the Reality of Life once one can
decently dispatch them to Prep School and forget about them until the summonses or the debt-collectors start to arrive.

The answer to (a) is of course a Governess. To (b) it is Thrashing. It might be argued at this point that one could resolve the matter
most satisfactorily by appointing a Thrashing Governess, but this would be to miss the main point, viz that thrashing is both a Paternal
Duty and Fun! By taking responsibility for the physical chastisement of your own offspring, you are demonstrating your affiliation to
Family Values, and also gaining a deal of satisfaction from what otherwise would be a thankless and unrewarding situation.

For the truth is that your son will never repay his debt to you for begetting him, far less that for paying his wine-merchant's bills or
procuring the relevant surgical procedures, until he be safely ensconced in the City, whereupon you may start sending him your
bookmaker's letters and claims from the Child Support Agency. Your daughter will never, alas, be of any use, unless she marries
someone considerably wealthier than your wealthiest creditor, who also happens to be susceptible to blackmail or card-tricks.

THE WHYS AND WHEREFORES OF THRASHING

It is important to retain the element of surprise. A child has no need to know why it is being beaten, only that it is being beaten. This
keeps the infant in a suitable state of uncertainty, which will tend to reduce its willingness to misbehave, speak, or even breathe in your
presence. It may even hide under items of furniture at your approach, a cheerful eventuality that could save you several hundred
pounds a year in governess' wages. However, there is something to be said, on a character-forming level, for hunting down concealed
children and thrashing them for running away, shouting something like "I will make you wish that you had never been born." This will
certainly be of use to them in their school years, and they will come to thank and respect you for it.

In happier times, when The Rod was Not Spared, and the Child Not Spoilt, certain headmasters used to preface the administration of
Six of the Best with the phrase "This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you." Poppycock. The sole purpose of the flogging of
children is to cause them pain, and the infliction thereof is a pleasure utterly different from that of the reception. Being beaten
regularly can, however, form the basis of a Lifelong Interest and Rewarding Hobby, to which a fellow may return often, as indeed I do
to this day in the company of my manservant, Proops.

PARAPHENALIA

The correct implements for inflicting corporal punishment are as important to a chap as the correct guns for bagging grouse, the correct
rod for trout, or the correct horsewhip. In the last-named case there is potential for joint usage, although I personally would counsel
against keeping the same whip for one's horses as for one's children: one never knows what diseases the little brutes are carrying.
Some more educationally minded fathers prefer the traditional cane: these can be had for very little cost in a variety of thickness from
the local Garden Centre. Walking-sticks are highly effective, although visible bruising tends these days to excite the interest of a
variety of do-gooders and other ne'er-do-wells, and one should always remember that thrashing is not Rugby Football or Riding To
Hounds: the aim is to inflict flesh-wounds rather than compound fractures.

I have a particular affection for the Tawse, a miniature leather cat-o'-nine-tails much beloved of Caledonian schoolmasters until it was
taken away from them by the unwashed Anarchists who now dictate public policy in that benighted Northern Land. The Cat itself will
doubtless appeal to Naval types, but I feel I should relate in warning the tale of an acquaintance of mine, a Rear-Admiral so wedded to
maritime tradition that after flogging his children he attempted to keelhaul them from a rowing-boat on the Round Pond on Hampstead
Heath. He ended his days in a lunatic asylum.

A safe standby is one's own trusty belt, so long as it be made of stout leather, and so long as one's trousers may be secured during
the flogging procedure, since there are few things more irksome than trying to pursue a fleeing juvenile miscreant whilst impeded by
one's own nether garments. Belts come in a satisfying variety of thickness and weights. Proops informs me that certain "fetish" shops
can supply large studded ones for special occasions. Distressed gentlefolk should be aware that a plank of wood with a nail through it is
perfectly acceptable as a thrashing implement, so long as the timber be British and the nail not rusty.