To a school in Hertfordshire I was accordingly sent, the mistress having been previously informed that I was a child of wayward disposition. I had not been there a week before the spirit of opposition which pervaded me, as my aunt used to term it, got me into hot water, and I was ordered to bed. I had not been undressed many minutes when Miss Margaret, one of the principals, came into the bedroom and, after lecturing me on my conduct, told me she intended to whip me. She then rang the bell, and one of the maids brought a birch, and I was told to prepare, which I flatly refused to do. As I was rebellious, the maid tied my hands together with a towel, the ends of which were fastened to a peg high up on the wall, so that I could only just reach the floor with the tips of my toes. Miss Margaret then gave me a severe flogging. Finding I was obstinate, after a minute or two she desisted and left the room, leaving me with the maid. I tried hard to get off the peg, but could not. When Miss Margaret returned she asked me whether I was sorry. “No” I shouted. “Then I must whip you again,” she said, suiting the action to the word. This second whipping was too much for my spirit, and I begged for forgiveness. The rest of the day I did not cease crying, not so much from the pain as from mortification that I had met my match and been conquered. Strange as it may seem, from that day to the present I have loved Miss Margaret, and felt her to be a true friend. As I believe great benefit has resulted from corporal punishment, I think it right to advocate it, for I know from observation that if our faults are not corrected when we are young, we generally suffer in a far harder school when we grow up.’ _Mrs. L. Gray_ writes: ‘Being a mother of three daughters, the eldest being thirteen and the youngest nine years old, who have, up to the present time, given me great trouble in managing, I have determined, since reading the letters in your last number signed _Agnes_ and _A Schoolmistress_, as a last resource, to whip them. I am sure many of your subscribers and myself would feel greatly obliged to the lady who signed herself _A Schoolmistress_ if she would kindly give us a few instances where whipping has proved effective, and if she or any of your readers will inform me how old I may pursue that course of correction, as I have had a niece put under my care whose parents are in India, who is very wilful and disobedient, and, being nearly sixteen, I do not know how to punish her without whipping her. I should feel greatly obliged to any of your readers who would kindly let me know through your columns of a shop where I could get good birchrods from in London, as I am going to reside there in future. I am sure you would be conferring a boon on parents if you could publish the many letters that have appeared upon the chastisement of children, when the correspondence closes, in a separate book.’