The Punishment Book

No, it won’t be the first (nor, I think I can safely say, last) punishment, in my 4 plus years with my Master. But, it was a first time for this sort of punishment (sadly, also probably not the last), and my first time writing for The Punishment Book, which makes enough firsts to inform the title, I say!

In my last post on my blog, “New World Order,” I wrote about the new arrangement my Master and I have come to, regarding discipline and punishment and how they will fit in our lives. In it, I discuss the dubious joys of Cod Liver Oil....

Well, now I’ve had a taste of it, and let me tell you, no “spoonful of sugar” is gonna help that medicine go down!

But before I get to that, I should discuss why this sort of thing is going to be happening to me at all.

I blame Tom & Jerry. It was after seeing the cartoon “Baby Puss,” as a wee girl that I became obsessed with the idea of “Castor Oil” as a punishment. (Of course, the reason I’d paid such attention to the cartoon in the first place was that it starts with the threat of a spanking with a hairbrush! It also left me with some other interesting ideas, but that’s a post for another time!)

Uncyclopedia humorously states: “Castor Oil is one of the oldest forms of punishment for children, with use going back to the Neolithic era. Until the early 1980s parents found it almost as effective as spanking, although it has, along with lynching, suffered a downturn in recent years due to political correctness.”

Continuing in the humour, this time unintentional, The New York Times published an article called “Subsitutions” on April 4, 1884, which includes this jewel: “So great is the juvenile horror of castor-oil that all parents know that not even the threat of a severe flogging can induce a small-boy [sic] to swallow the nauseous dose ... It follows that castor-oil as a punishment in schools is far more to be dreaded than flogging, and should it be generally adopted, small-boys will everywhere petition for the restoration of the rod.” (For any spanko, it’s worth reading the whole thing!)

And from the wonderful CorPun website, we get the “Home Office internal memorandum, 14 June 1923 Knowle Hill (Kenilworth, Warwickshire) Training School for Girls Notes by Miss Wall.” After an “Outbreak Of Insubordination” (whee!):

“Miss Langley then spoke of Ethel Milton, 13-5/12, who had had 12 strokes of the tawse on the seat. She said that a few days after this Ethel started bouncing a ball in the passage and knocking it against the office door on purpose. She did not feel that Ethel had sufficiently recovered from corporal punishment on the seat for her to administer another whipping, so she said she was to have one tablespoonful of castor oil. This she refused, so she was given two, which she took.”