I am not now, nor have I ever been, an advocate for the making of a crusade on the brothels of our nation. It must be understood by all of those in reasonable society that such houses will exist, and have existed, since time immemorial. The law should only punish those who act against the better natures of man; others should be allowed to exist freely, as they have done for many generations before.

The English Vice

It seems a preoccupation of our nation to be disposed to flagellation. And this final word for those to whom the bawdy-house is a commonly sought home, on the fashion which has existed throughout our time, what the French call les vice anglais – The English Vice. Flagellation is present in every nursery and school across the land, as a form of childish discipline. And yet, on entering adulthood, there seems to be a desire by some members of our society to experience birching in a very different manner.

The brothels of which I have already spoken, have drawn a ready trade in this fetish. One establishment I visited kept an extensive supply of birch, always in water, so that it remained green and pliant: there were shafts with a dozen whip thongs on each of them; a dozen different sizes of cat-o’-nine tails, some with needle points worked into them; various kinds of thin bending canes; leather straps like coach races; battledores, made of thick sole-leather with inch nails run through the docket; and currycomb tough hides rendered callous by many years’ flagellation.

There were also holly brushes; furze brushes; a prickly evergreen called butchers bush; and during the summer, glass and china vases filled with a constant supply of green nettles. For those whose desire it was to birch a woman, rather than to be birched by her, there were a number of ladies in attendance who would take any number of lashes the flogger pleased. Amongst them were Miss Ring, Hannah Jones, One-Eyed Peg and a girl called Ebony Bet.

But it was not only in the brothels and immoral houses that such activities have persisted. In my experience I have personally known of several ladies of high rank who had an extraordinary passion for administering the rod and who took great pleasure in such actions. And I witnessed myself the heated debate carried out between the pages of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, whereby the correspondence between ‘Pro-Rod’ and ‘A Lover of Obedience’ espoused the emotions and joy they had felt whilst being subjected, and subjecting others, to the punishment of birching.

I am not entirely sure, however, if the esteemed publication in question was not somewhat misused by those writers, who perhaps diverted the discussion of childhood discipline to a more sensual debate. Moreover, that honourable English churchman of the Oxford Movement, Edward Bouverie Pusey, advises his followers to practise self-flagellation ‘for about a quarter of an hour a day’ to remind oneself that ‘our bodies become sacred; they are not ours’. It seems as if all our vices have become virtues, and when such a holy advocate recommends it, should we really have ever called it a vice at all?