To these awful aunts on the mother’s side and this reformatory _Pater_, succeeds an unabashed _Lover of the Rod_, whose heart is sad because she has observed of late years a tendency to go to a perfect idolatry of children. This gentle creature applauds Solomon’s precept—forgetting, apparently, that Rehoboam turned out a particularly bad boy—and ‘heartily believes in the good old birch.’ She gives her advice thus: ‘On the first occasion on which the girls show signs of disobedience, order all three up to the mother’s bedroom, to wait until she comes. I would keep them all three in suspense, as not comprehending your intentions. Then I would provide myself either with a good birchrod or cane (a cane is very severe), go upstairs, shut the doors, at once tell the oldest one you are going to give her a flogging. Doubtless she will feel much astonished and very indignant; but if you are firm, and threaten to call in the servant to help you, she will submit. There must be shame as well as pain in this; but she has deserved them, in my opinion; and one such punishment, in the presence of her two sisters, will do everything.’ But rod and slipper are despised by _Another Lover of Obedience_. His method is: ‘When children commit an offence, I do not punish them at the time, but order them to my bedroom some few hours after. The effect of my discipline is such that they never fail to do so. When there they are laid across the bed, their clothes removed, and from fifteen to fifty smart strokes administered, the amount varying with the offence. After this I can assure you they are perfectly docile for some time to come. I have tried many systems, but find this to be the best. I should advise all to follow this same plan; they will find it answer remarkably well. Even at the age of eighteen, should my children require it, I will administer corporal punishment.’ After such an inventive enthusiast for obedience, who dexterously combines suspense with agony, we must hold most reasonable the plea of another fond parent, who thinks that there is nothing wrong in slapping baby ‘with a satin slipper, to let it know there is a will superior to its own.’ This would seem to be the _elegantiæ_ of the Art, the very esthetics of corporal punishment—were it not for the same mamma’s declaration that she ‘detests the moral system.’ Should the baby grow up unimproved by slipper, a resource is offered her, and those like her, by yet another _Lover of Obedience_ who writes: ‘the editor has my address, and I hope will be kind enough to give it any mother who may wish to send her daughters to me for a few months; I will return them obedient and good. I have never yet taken charge of young ladies, but would willingly do so to prove my theory correct.’