Now, the small boy need only have
mentioned the circumstances to any one of a score of big boys, and the
tormentor would have been first thrashed, and then, probably, expelled.
A friend of my own was travelling lately in a wild and hilly region on
the other side of the world, let us say in the Mountains of the Moon. In
a mountain tavern he had thrust upon him the society of the cook, a very
useless young man, who astonished him by references to one of our
universities, and to the enjoyments of that seat of learning. This youth
(who was made cook, and a very bad cook too, because he could do nothing
else) had been expelled from a large English school. And he was expelled
because he had felled a bully with a paving-stone, and had expressed his
readiness to do it again. Now, there was no doubt that this cook in the
mountain inn was a very unserviceable young fellow. But I wish more boys
who have suffered things literally unspeakable from bullies would try
whether force (in the form of a paving stone) is really no remedy.
The Catholic author of a recent book ("Schools," by Lieut.-Col. Raleigh
Chichester), is very hard on "Protestant Schools," and thinks that the
Catholic system of constant watching is a remedy for bullying and other
evils. "Swing-doors with their upper half glazed, might have their
uses," he says, and he does not see why a boy should not be permitted to
complain, if he is roasted, like Tom Brown, before a large fire.
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