AD 2022: Welcome Back Cane & Birch!

Both the plastic and cable birches have been tested for their efficacy at delivering pain and each different model, of which it goes without saying there are very many, is awarded a "pain index" on a scale of one to ten so that the purchaser can suit the rod to the purpose. It has to be said that the cable birches even in their lighter 2mm version are devastatingly more effective than any birch made of freshly cut twigs. And so, the Colonel had simply to make his selection from a number of offers which came his way. He finally selected two of each of the two calibres of cable birch available in the three-foot length. He chose the three-foot version as it was the longest available and it seemed to him that as the aim was to punish young offenders, the beating should be as thorough and painful as possible. With the longest length, he thought that when well applied, as he fully expected it to be, the free end of the cables would wrap themselves around the far flank of the supplicant's buttocks and the wrongdoer would experience a truly "well beaten arse" at it was known in his early days.

The next problem was who would carry put the punishments and to this question the Colonel gave considerable thought. With his military background and having himself supervised canings of his young recruits in the now distant past, he wanted a very formal and judicial feel to the procedure. It was not enough to tell a young tearaway that he was to be thrashed; he should also have the experience of preparing himself for the awful event with strict formality. And then there was the question of who should actually wield the dreaded rod.

The Colonel wanted two young men of a muscular stature and physique and with a presence which struck the fear of God into their "clients". He wanted two such persons to be present in the punishment room at the fatidic moment to take charge of the administration of the cane, both strong young men who would have no difficulty in controlling the lad they were to thrash. There were enough regular policemen attached permanently to the Court to deal with all other aspects of handling the defendants, but the Colonel wanted the sentence to be carried out by a dedicated team of two young men, appointed specially for the purpose; he proposed to call them the Disciplinarians. So the next task was to find and appoint two such young musclemen.

The Colonel learned that the local police force had a number of young officers who were dedicated body builders and regularly worked out in the police gymnasium. In fact, the Chief Superintendent and Head of that Precinct encouraged all his staff to take exercise seriously as he liked to think that he commanded one of the fittest groups in the country. So it was to the gym that the Colonel went to look over the present staff to see if there were any officers who might fit the profile he had in mind. He quickly focussed on two young policemen who were obviously close friends as they worked out together on their exercises, which they clearly enjoyed doing.

The Colonel, who was secretly quite a connoisseur of the male physique and associated accoutrements, followed the lads into the showers and saw that naked they were two most magnificent specimens of young manhood: probably around twenty-five or twenty-six years old; but in the full flower early male maturity. Both men had impressive muscles which they clearly liked showing off as he saw from the smartly cut casual clothes they wore when they dressed to leave.

He also saw that the two young studs (for that was already how he thought of them, although it was not a word he would have uttered in polite company) were superbly equipped in that key department located between their legs, an area which had always been of tremendous attraction to him. The Colonel was in fact quite a keen observer of that part of the male anatomy and he saw, much to his approval, that both men had been cleanly circumcised and that their cocks were in each case well-proportioned and descended neatly over a pair of equally well-proportioned balls.

It was the Colonel's personal opinion that any man who was proud of and looked after his body, as these two clearly did, had a duty to make the very best of his crown jewels; so, in his eyes, nothing was so pleasing as a well cut cock sitting above a well-defined pair of balls, held tight to the body in a neat scrotum. He just hated those long, dangly, uncut cocks, which hung limply there like a wet dishcloth accompanied by a pair of balls which dangled loosely beneath, in a scrotum resembling a wrinkled, deflated rubber balloon.

The Colonel, for all his outward appearance of belonging to the upper social establishment of British society, which of course he did, was, nevertheless, a very shrewd judge of men; and it was this ability to sniff out the facts of a situation just by intuition that led him to believe that this pair of young studs were probably a real pair of swingers who had much more going on between them than simply working out in the gym together. And as we shall see later, he was, of course right. But for now he felt confident that this pair would be ideal as his new Disciplinarians. Was he right or wrong in his supposition and how did he find out if they were interested in the somewhat unique position he wanted to offer them? Of course, in his position as a Magistrate, he was not a member of the police force and so the matter of getting this pair seconded to him had to be handle with some delicacy. All he could do was to suggest to the Chief Superintendent what he had in mind and hope that this latter would go along with his idea.

The Colonel arranged a meeting with the Chief Superintendent and somewhat delicately floated his idea. He quickly discovered that the Superintendent was of much the same mind as he himself was. He most vociferously made clear his view, that the change in the law was the most sensible act to be passed in recent years.

"The whole country is overrun with lawless young people, who have respect for neither persons nor property, whether private or public. How the government thought that we were supposed to keep these serial delinquents in order with the toothless weapons they gave us to do our job, only the lord above knows; community service, counselling, and so and so forth are next to useless. The convicted criminals, and let's not mince words, for under age they may be, but they are nevertheless criminals, have been laughing at us all these years, A good hiding is worth ten thousand words and I for one am heartily glad to welcome the reintroduction of corporal punishment with open arms. Thank God that we voted for Brexit and freed ourselves from the suffocating molly-coddling ideas foisted upon us by our erstwhile European partners and can once again make our own laws as we see fit."

"So as far as your ideas go I am totally with you. And if you ask me if the two young policemen whom you saw in the gym will be willing to take on the job of wielding the cane and the birch, well I can tell you here and now that the answer will be a resounding yes. Let me tell you that if I posted your job specification on the notice board, my entire staff would apply. They are all as fed up as are you and I with the situation. So, I will put it to this pair, Vickers and Cromwell, I think you said were their names and you are quite right; they are as thick as thieves, and I am sure that they will agree to the move. What I suggest is that they replace two of the police staff who are at present attached to the court and as they will not spend their entire time thrashing the arses of convicted delinquents, assume the standard duties associated with the running of that side of the Court department."

"So there you have it Colonel; your wish is granted, subject to their acceptance which I am sure I shall get; all systems are go, as the saying has it. And let me wish you the very best of luck. Don't allow yourself to get soft on the bench as we, the police, whose job it is to catch the offenders, will be looking to you from now on to see that they get their just deserts; by which I mean a sound thrashing in addition to whatever other sanctions the law allows you to impose. You have a marvellous new tool in your hands sir; so use it generously to tan every hide that needs it."

So the whole deal was more or less signed sealed and delivered. The equipment, in the form of canes and birches, was in place; the punishment room was ready to be put again into use and his two co-magistrates were much more willing than had he had ever thought possible at first sight, to adopt and enforce the new regulations concerning corporal punishment. The Colonel realised that although Vickers and Cromwell were to be transferred to the Court at his request, they would still report to the senior police constable of the Court. And so he arranged an interview with him to outline his ideas and the reason for setting up a special two-man team called the Disciplinarians. Once again things went very smoothly; the Police Sergeant in charge of the court police contingent, was again one of the old school who was, like so many of his colleagues, totally fed up with the way things had deteriorated over the years and was happy to see some old fashioned discipline re-introduced.

He next had his first meeting with his two protégés, Vickers and Cromwell, who were, as the Chief Superintendent had predicted, more than happy to have been selected to wield the rods of justice. But what did one call a person whose principal job was to beat the skin of young delinquents' backsides? The Colonel was such an admirer of the two young men he had selected that he thought of them as his "studs". Indeed, so great was his admiration for their physiques, that he felt himself hardening in his trousers just thinking about them. "Gentlemen, I admire your enthusiasm for that part of your duties where you will, how shall I put it, interface physically with the offenders, but neither of you has any experience either of being beaten yourself or of beating someone else. As someone who in his youth at public school was a frequent recipient of the cane and occasionally the birch, I can tell you, gentlemen, that it is a very painful and salutary experience, one which I hope when well administered here by this court will stop some of these young miscreants dead in their tracks."

"I think, however, that before you actually apply your muscles to a real live offender, a little practice with both the cane and the birch is needed birch is needed; and in case you were wondering, all corporal punishment will be applied directly to the offender's naked buttocks. So in serious cases, it is customary to make the offender strip naked for his punishment to give him a sense of shame before he actually feels the bite of the rod on his naked flesh; however, for the majority younger offenders whose arses will doubtless frequently require a dose of your tender loving care, the normal practice is to make them step out of their trousers and underpants. Meanwhile, I think it would be advisable if you could find some sort of dummy on which you could practise your techniques before actually moving on to a live offender. There is a certain art to applying the cane to a lad's arse and a well beaten pair of buttocks shows a neat set of evenly spaced parallel cuts; that is the standard I expect from you two gentlemen as I wish this Court to have a reputation for the highest competence."

The Court held its first session under which the new law on corporal punishment was in effect. There were six cases brought before the magistrates that day, of which five were done and dusted very quickly. These cases involved a variety of first time offences such a vandalism, shop lifting and petty thievery and all involved young lads aged from fifteen to sixteen, all of whom pleaded guilty to the charges levelled against them. Before the new law, such young offenders would have been released on probation with a fine and a warning as there was really little more the Court could do. Now, however, with the ability to use the cane, a guilty plea or verdict could be couple the fine and the probation with a sound thrashing. And so the three magistrates, led of course by the Colonel, imposed a twelve stroke caning on each of the five lads. The Colonel had convinced his two colleagues on the bench that the standard tariff should be twelve cuts of the senior cane as a matter of course with the maximum number of cuts being limited to twenty-four at any one time.

Not surprisingly as each of the young lads was taken down from the dock to the holding cells, a look of terror and nervousness filled their faces. None of them had any idea of the legal aspects ruling their cases and they were all shocked to hear that they were going to be beaten before being discharged. As the Colonel had every intention of observing the punishments himself, he had set a time table which held the offenders over into the afternoon, when after lunch, one after another, they would be taken to the punishment room and their sentences carried out. The lads were not informed that they would be caned on the bare buttocks or when; and so they were in a high state of apprehension and ignorance. Being left to stew in their own juice for several hours, not knowing exactly what was going to happen to them, gave them food for thought and heightened the tension which they all felt.

The final case that day was much more serious. The defendant a young man of just eighteen called Thomas Makin, was a serial offender had been before the Court, for a variety of petty offences, no less than three times during the past twelve months; he was just one of those lads who could not keep himself out of trouble. Judging by his known criminal activities to date, the lad was clearly intent of making crime his career and he had all the makings of what might be described as a "future old-lag". Today he came face to face with the Colonel for the fourth time; but today he was for the first time accused of a truly serious offence. What he had done, and of this there was no doubt as there were a policeman and two independent witnesses to his act, was to seize the hand bag of a frail, eighty-year-old lady in a street market and in his haste to escape he had pushed her so hard, that she fell and broke her arm and had to be taken to hospital. Makin was quickly caught, as one of the stall holders, a muscular young type, ran after him and brought him down with a rugby tackle.

Given the nature of his present misdemeanour, the magistrates all viewed his actions as very, very serious indeed. Makin's mother appeared in Court and had engaged a solicitor to defend him, but the facts, all substantiated by witnesses, spoke for themselves and the magistrates found him guilty as charged. The Colonel summed up the case and passed sentence: "Young man, you have been before me four times in the last year and on this present occasion you have been found guilty of an extremely serious offence: theft with grievous bodily harm, which calls for the severest punishment. And to make matters worse, young man your victim was an old lady with no means of defending herself. Even worse you have expressed absolutely no remorse whatsoever for your actions during the proceedings before this Court today."

"In the past I have been lenient in the extreme with you, hoping that the shame of your court appearances would change your behaviour; but frankly young man, your behaviour has become steadily worse. And so, Makin, I am today sentencing you to be remanded for twelve months in a state reformatory which caters only for senior offenders who have committed serious crimes. Moreover, in view of the violent nature of your present crime, you will today before leaving this Court to be taken to your place of confinement, be given twelve strokes of the cable birch followed by six strokes of the senior cane. Additionally, in an attempt to set you on the right road and to bring home to you in a very painful way that crime, and violent crime in particular, does not pay, you will after arrival at your place of confinement be given a further birching one month to the day after your arrival"

"Now Makin, do you have anything at all you wish to say before the bailiff takes you down to await your punishment?"

Makin looked contemptuously at the Colonel and said: "Fuck you judge; I don't give a mother's fuck for what you have just said so you can stuff it up your arsehole for all I care."

The Colonel with his military background was no stranger to coarse language but what Makin had just said, and in the presence of ladies, his own mother included, was totally outrageous. If anything had been calculated to raise the Colonel's blood to the boiling point, then this was it. The bailiff's hand was already on the boy's shoulder to lead him down to the cells, but the Colonel motioned him to stop.

"Will the court recorder please note that the sentence which I have just passed on this delinquent is hereby withdrawn as I can see that I have been much too lenient with him. Young man, you are without any doubt the most outrageous person I have ever had the misfortune to appear before me in my life. In the light of your callous actions act which have brought you before us today, your total lack of any remorse for your actions and your latest utterly outrageous and vulgar outburst, you leave me with no alternative but to pass the most severe sentence on you which the law allows at present."

"Therefore, before leaving this Court, you will be given fifteen strokes of the cable birch followed by nine strokes of the senior cane, for a total of twenty-four strokes in all, which is the maximum allowed under the present law. I wish it were more but it is not. However, I shall instruct the Disciplinarians who will administer your punishment to lay on the strokes as severely as possible; you, young man, will learn what pain truly is before your transfer to the reformatory. I have decided that you are such an intransigent, died in the wool offender that you will now spend two full years in that institution, with no chance of remission for good behaviour, a concept which I suspect is anyway totally unknown to you. Additionally, instead of one supplementary birching in the reformatory you will now receive three, each of fifteen strokes of the cable birch at monthly intervals. So young man, you are assured that your first few months in the reformatory will be unpleasant and painful, and let me add that I cannot think of anyone more deserving than you. And let me just add one thing; if you continue with your truculent way at the reform school, you will spend a full two years with a perpetual sore bottom. Believe me boy, when I say that such places will not take any lip from the likes of you and the cane and the birch will be constant visitors to your backside, unless you mend your ways. Take him down bailiff, and see that he is well controlled whilst he awaits his afternoon appointment."

Makin's mother looked horror stricken as she realised what was to happen to her son. She looked pleadingly towards the boy's solicitor, her face begging for help; but the poor man could do nothing and simply raised his arms slightly and shrugged his shoulders in the classic gesture of defeat. His client, whom he had unsuccessfully tried to defend, against overwhelming evidence of guilt, had chosen, by his actions to dig himself into a still deeper hole and there was now nothing anyone could do; the die was cast and Makin was for a very unpleasant and painful experience that very afternoon and a very uncomfortable two years in the reformatory. The Colonel felt relieved that at the very least the young hooligan was off the street for two years; now armed with the return of corporal punishment, the reformatory might succeed in knocking some sense into the lad over the next two years. What was sure was the fact that if he continued to use the sort of language he had just voiced, he would finish up with a very sore arse for the entire period of his incarceration. But having seen the boy's record and heard his comments in Court, the Colonel was very sceptical that Makin was a soul to be saved. He saw the young man going from one petty crime to another and finishing up in a series of prison sentences.