t while Dixon was a
shopkeeper Fewson kept the village school.

Fewson's modes of punishing refractory scholars were somewhat peculiar.
Either a culprit was hoisted on the back of another scholar, or made to
stoop till his nose entered a hole in the desk, and when in one or other
of these positions was made to feel the singular sensation caused by a
sound caning on that particular part of his anatomy which it is said
"nature intends for correction." Sometimes, too, an offender was made to
sit in a small basket, to the cross handle of which a rope had been
tied, and by this means he was hoisted to a beam near the roof of the
school. Here he was compelled to stay for a longer or shorter period,
according to the offence, knowing that, if he moved to ease his crippled
position, the basket would tilt and he would fall to the floor.

On one occasion, with an exceptionally refractory pupil, his mode of
punishment was even more peculiar still. Having told all the girls to
turn their faces to the wall--and not one of them, so my informant, one
of the boys, said, would dare to disobey the order--he chalked the shape
of a grave on the floor of the schoolroom. He then made the boy, an
incorrigible truant, strip off all his clothes, and when he stood
covered only in nature's dress, told him in solemn tones that he was
going to bury him alive and under the floor. One scholar was then sent
for a pick, and when this was fetched, another was sent for a shovel. By
the time they were both brought, the truant was in a panic of fear, the
end hoped for. The master then sternly asked the boy if he would play
truant again, to which the boy quickly answered no. On this, he was
allowed to dress, being assured as he did so that if ever again he
stopped from school without leave he should certainly be buried alive,
and so great was the dread produced, the boy from that time was
regularly found at school.

If parents objected to these punishments, they were simply told to take
their children from school, which, as Fewson was the only master for
miles around, he knew they would be loath to do. Fewson taught nearly
all the children of the district whose parents felt it necessary that
they should have any education. He is said to have turned out good
scholars in the three R's, his curriculum being limited to these
subjects, with, for an extra fee, mensuration added.

But Fewson, if he did not teach it, felt himself to be well up in
astronomy. One