Oh my.
In case anyone isn't aware, yes, Lord Marblehead EarlG is a British subject, not an American citizen.
My fellow alum Skins wanted to be more "euro," and so adopted Lord Marblehead as his friend. Sort of like how liberals adopt a token black or token Hebraic or token oppressed woman or token manual laborer as a friend.
Anyway.
Lord Marblehead is a product of a public school in England.
A public school in England is the opposite of a public school in the United States. A public school in England is a place where the children of the affluent and wealthy are boarded and educated, actually more resembling our private academies such as Phillips or Andover. I dunno why this is, but it's the way it is; a "public school" in England is actually an expensive exclusive
chi-chi private academy.
Lord Marblehead is from no proletariat or working class background.
I thought of Lord Marblehead a few weeks ago, when I was reading something, the memoirs of a guy who had been in an English public school. This is not from
Tom Brown's School Days or even from the later Dickensian era; this is actually from the twentieth century.
I need to caution those of the female persuasion to NOT read any further, to go on to another thread or something, as the description might trouble their sensibilities. This is not anything for ladies to read.This is not fiction; this is from real life, and it actually happened all the time, in English public schools.
One imagines Lord Marblehead as having been one of the "holders-down" of little boys.
.....Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley explained to us with solemn gusto the first morning that we were all gathered together before him he reserved himself the right to a good sound flogging with the birch rod.
But as I was from the first and all through either first or second in school I was bound ex officio to assist at the executions and hold down the culprit. The ritual was very precise and solemn--every Monday morning the whole school assembled in Hall and every boy's report was read aloud.
After reading a bad report from a form master Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley would stop and after a moment's solemn silence say "Harrison minor you will come up to my study afterwards."
And so afterwards the culprits were led up by the two top boys. In the middle of the room was a large box draped in black cloth and in austere tones the culprit was told to take down his trousers and kneel before the block over which I and the other head boy held him down.
The swishing was given with the master's full strength and it took only two or three strokes for drops of blood to form everywhere and it continued for 15 or 20 strokes when the wretched boy's bottom was a mass of blood.
Generally of course the boys endured it with fortitude but sometimes there were scenes of screaming, howling and struggling which made one almost sick with disgust. Nor did the horrors even stop there.
There was a wild red-haired Irish boy, himself a rather cruel brute, who whether deliberately or as a result of the pain or whether he had diarrhoea, let fly.
The irate clergyman instead of stopping at once went on with increased fury until the whole ceiling and walls of his study were spattered with filth.
I suppose he was afterwards somewhat ashamed of this for he did not call in the servants to clean up but spent hours doing it himself with the assistance of a boy who was his special favorite.....
Forget about Lord Marblehead having been one of the "holders-down;" he was probably actually the schoolmaster's special favorite, and one can envision the master and the 10-year-old Lord Marblehead, grinning and snickering at each other while taking of tea and scones in the library.
