Page:Discipline in school and cloister (1902).djvu/98

 Revelations of Boarding-School Practices.

At the age of seventeen I was sent to a boarding-school near Exeter. I was sent there owing to the influence of my aunt, who was always praising this establishment up to mamma, and strongly recommending it as a finishing academy for young ladies. My aunt was a maiden lady of forty, a fine, tall, buxom woman.

Neither myself nor my mamma ever thought she was an advocate of the rod, and liked administering, and seeing it administered. It turned out afterwards, as the narrative will show, that she was really in league with the schoolmistress, and would frequently call at the establishment and indulge herself in her favourite pastime, for which she no doubt paid large sums yearly, being a strong and fervent advocate of corporal chastisement, at times an unseen observer and with some of the elder young ladies being the operator. In all there were twenty-four young ladies in this fashionable establishment, their ages varying from twelve to nineteen. I was as tall, finely-shaped, and handsome as any young lady in the school, and no doubt when mamma