He certainly did castigate an enormous number of Etonians, amongst them, it is said, half the Ministers, Secretaries, Bishops, Generals, and Dukes of the earlier portion of the nineteenth century; but, nevertheless, the boys in his own division were usually punished by having to write out impositions, and were not flogged except for some very flagrant offence, such as intoxication. Keate, as Headmaster of Eton, it must be remembered, was chief executioner, and had to do justice when a boy was complained of by any assistant master. The school had drifted into very slack ways, and Keate, who possessed a very intimate knowledge of Eton, realised that leniency would merely make matters worse. Consequently he rather favoured drastic measures, and in spite of adverse criticism his system had a good effect. It has often been urged that it failed because the boys at times openly defied his authority. In the earlier days of his rule this was occasionally the case, and gross insubordination prevailed, though it never reached such a point as it had attained in the days of Keate’s predecessors. On the other hand, when the stern old Headmaster handed over the reins of power to Dr. Hawtrey, the school had become quite orderly and controlled. [SN: NAPOLEONIC METHODS] Though, as has already been said, not much given to flogging boys under his immediate control, he was a firm believer in the efficacy of the birch for almost every kind of offence, and was quite ready to be a ruthless executioner in order to facilitate the work of his subordinates. His methods were entirely Napoleonic, and when flogging boys who had committed some unusually heinous offence, by way of making an impression on their minds as well as their bodies, he used to accompany his infliction of punishment with a number of cutting remarks punctuated by strokes of the birch: “A disgrace to your friends” (swish, swish), “Ruin to your parents” (swish, swish, swish, swish), “You’ll come to the gallows at last!” and so forth. Flogging at Eton was once described by the _Edinburgh Review_ 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.” The Eton boys of the past took their floggings very lightly. One of them having, it is said, been flogged by the Headmaster by mistake for another boy, though he knew that he had done nothing to deserve his castigation, made no attempt whatever to escape it. When, however, the real culprit was discovered an investigation took place, and the flogged one’s tutor then asked, “Why did you not explain to the Headmaster that you had never been complained of?” “Well, sir,” was the reply, “I have been complained of so often that once more or less didn’t seem to matter much; besides, I thought that very likely some master I had forgotten about might have complained of me after all.” [Illustration: Headmaster’s Room, showing Swishing Block and Birches.]