The Colonel continues: ‘Now the real art of birching consists, of course, in inflicting the greatest amount of humiliation and suffering, but without in reality doing serious damage; we have to consider how so to apply the rod as to effect some radical moral good in the disposition and mind of the culprit; how to make them feel the very dregs as it were of humiliation, degradation, and every kind of mortification. It is a curious fact that it sends the blood of a sensitive modest girl in impulsive rushes (especially to the face and neck) in the form of scarlet blushes, which pass over those parts in continuous waves, corresponding to each stroke of the rod; this is a curious psychological fact, which is puzzling even to anatomists.’ _Letter from Mrs. Martinet on Slipper Punishment._ A slipper is a splendid thing to slap with, as it has such a stinging effect without cutting the skin, like a regular birchrod. I should not write so fully as I do, but knowing you to be an amateur, and consequently interested in every incident of punishment, it gives a kind of freedom to my pen, as I know you can be depended on not to abuse my confidence. My special penchant used to be for a good stinging bunch of real birch twigs, and I still think that is far the best thing to use for big girls over thirteen, but for little delicate chits under that age, there is nothing answers so well as a nice new slipper. A proficient disciplinarian would first give the delinquent a short lecture on the nature of her offence, then firmly insist upon the culprit herself fetching the instrument of punishment: to my idea, there is more shame and humiliation at having to bring the slipper to be flogged, than fear of the smart, which is always worse in imagination than fact. A skilful flagellatrix will always prolong these sensations, as they effect as much good as the application of the slipper. _Flogging and Cruelty in a Glasgow Industrial School._