BROTHERS AND THE BIRCH

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 16

BROTHERS AND THE BIRCH

Pictures which have be°n appearing In the papers of two new Etonians described as being so exactly alike that, masters will have difficulty m telling them apart bring to mind Montagu Williams's story of his own days at Eton (in "Leaves of a Life"),'remarks an English exchange. . ' "At Evans's there were two boys named Mitford, who resembled gne another so closely that it was next to impossible to tell them apart. There was this difference between them, however, that while one suffered acutely during a flogging the other, from much experience of the birch, had ceased to shrink from its application. The situation suggested a novel proceeding to the brothers. He of the thin skin was one day under sentence >of a flogging, but his more callous brother in return for a pottle of strawberries consented to undergo the ordeal."

The substitution was not discovered. Keate did not trouble much about resemblances; names were near enough for him. Once the wrong one of two brothers (not twins) was summoned for a flogging. He protested his innocence and explained that it was his brother who was the real offender. "But you're a Voules," said Keate, brushing aside so absurd a plea, "and if you're not wanted today you'll be wanted tomorrow/ And so proceeded to execution.