Flogging is an old institution which has found mention in every book written about the school, and which could never be omitted from any discourse upon Eton. It used to be the custom, in the holidays, for parties of Windsor trippers to be shown over the school buildings under the leadership of a woman--the wife, presumably, of one of the College servants--who gave an oral explanation of the “sights.” When the headmaster’s room was reached, the guide of course drew attention to that awful emblem of authority, the “block”; and after pointing out the part which it played in the correction of offenders, she would add, in a croaking voice befitting the solemnity of the subject: “They receive the punishment upon their seats.” That was a true, but rather inadequate description of a practice which only a very barbarous society could tolerate. A flogging was a disgusting sight even to the two “lower boys” who then had to act as “holders-down”; still more so to the Sixth Form Præpostor whose duty it was to be present; most of all, one would suppose, to the headmaster. It has been described 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.”[3] The Lower Master, at the time of which I am speaking, was the Rev. F. E. Durnford, nicknamed “Judy,” described in _Eton under Hornby_ as “a strange, laughable, yet almost pathetic figure, with whimsical puckered visage and generally weather-beaten aspect, like a sort of Ancient Mariner in academic garb.” He, too, used the birch freely in his domain of Lower School, but his castigations were of a more paternal kind, and between the strokes of the rod he would interject moral reproofs in his queer nasal voice, such as: “You nahty, nahty boy!” It was said that during the punishment he would even enter into conversation with the offender, especially when he knew his “people” personally, and that on one occasion he was overheard to inquire of a boy on the block: “Have you seen your uncle lately?” a question which, in the circumstances, would at first sight seem irrelevant, but was probably intended to awaken repentance in the criminal by directing his thoughts to some pious and respected relative. To the upper boys, “Judy” Durnford was a never-failing amusement; his every gesture was noted by them; as when, in correcting exercises, if some word or phrase eluded his memory, he would sit scratching his temples vigorously, and exclaiming: “It runs in me head.”