There is no need here to digress on the advantages or otherwise of using a 'cosh' in schools, since a very thorough survey of both juvenile and pedagogic opinion on corporal punishment has already been made. We append merely some technicalities outside the scope of that report.
Jeering cries for one about to face trouble: 'You'll cop it', 'You'll get the stick', 'You've' had it', 'You're for the high jump', and, in Sale (Manchester), 'A-a-ah! Right for you!' The miscreant receives what is variously termed a bashing, beating, belting, biffing, bimming, birching, braying (Yorkshire), caning, clouting, coshing, dunting, flogging, hiding (usually'good hiding'), lamming, larruping (a term also favoured by the Lord Chief Justice), a leathering (or 'taste of the leather'), a licking, mangling, pasting, slashing, slapping, splattering, swishing, tanning (or 'has his hide tanned'), a tawsing (Scotland), thrashing, walloping, whacking (satisfying to say, and common), welting, and whipping.
He may say that he has had 'a dose of strap oil' or, when asked 'How many did you get?' reply 'Six of the best' or: 'Six swishers' or 'six stingers'. A 'stinger' is a hard blow, and the other may challenge: 'Let's see the marks then.' Alternatively a boy may say that a blow was 'not a stinger', boasting 'it was only a tickle'.
The problem with padding is to find a substance which is sufficiently insulating and yet not liable to immediate
detection. The most common suggestion given, 'put a book in your trousers', seems hopeful rather than practical.
Tradition has it that rashers of lean bacon (seldom available when required) are efficacious. The following advice
is also proffered when the behind is to be caned: (i) tighten muscles, (ii) keep trousers loose, (iii) shut eyes.
Hand caning presents a more difficult problem. There seems to be fairly general agreement that if the hand is quickly licked, spat upon, or in any other way thoroughly moistened before the operation, it will mitigate the pain. Other recommendations are: rub onion on hand (many give this), cover hand with vaseline, rub soap on, rub with a leaf (afterwards!), stick a clove in your hand, warm your hand. Afterwards, press it against a cold wall.
Alternatively it is said to hurt less if the hand is stiffened, if the hand is sloped, if the middle finger is raised, if the miscreant stands under the electric light (to give less room for the cane ?), if he brings his hand down with the cane, or if he moves his hand away! Indeed, almost anything seems to be thought better than having the hand where it is, and in the condition that it is at the moment when the cane descends. And the legend persists, so attractive that it will never apparently be wholly discredited, that a hair from the head (some specify a strand of horse hair) laid upon the palm of the hand will split the master's cane, and possibly even hurt the master instead.