OXFORD SCHOOL CUSTOMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14465, 3 September 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

OXFORD SCHOOL CUSTOMS.

PREFECT FINED FOR CANING SCHOLAR. A kin 10 of 20s and costs was imposed by the Oxford City magistrates 011 Giles F. Newton, senior prefect at Magdalen College School, for assaulting Joseph L. M. Morton, a pupil of 15. The boy, who is a son of Dr. Edwin Morton, of Woodstock Road, ■ Oxford, stated that on March 16 he was holding a boat for one of the prefects named Thompson, when he was struck on the neck by a stone thrown by another boy. Ho let go of the boat and stood up. Thompson got angry, and eventually got out of tlio boat and knocked him about. He was hit in the face and also kicked. He was told to go to the prefect's study, but did not do so, and did not go to rowing that d 'on tho following day he was again told On tho following day he was again told to go to the prefect's study after school, and accordingly went. Newton then struck him in tho face twice, and because he flinched ho had him held. He then gave him six more blows. Subsequently ho was again "licked" by some of the prefects on the back with a cane, receiving twelve strokes. Mr. C. E. Brov.nrigg, headmaster of the school, said ho dissented from the form of punishment which consisted of slapping in the face, and he had told the prefects-he could not allow it as an official punishment. Newton said that twelve strokes was a severe caning, but quite normal. The slapping on the face was an ordinary punishment, and was given when an offence did not seem to merit a licking" with the cane. He had since been told to discontinue this form of punishment. In cross-examination Newton admitted that he did not like tho boy. The chairman remarked that the Bench wore glad to know this punishment was inflicted without any knowledge on the part of tho headmaster, and that this reprehensible system had been discontinued.