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your life; how came you in this pickle? You have been fighting, you little rascal; I'll teach you to fight, I will, you little dog; with whom have you been fighting?" With no one,' answered I; 'I have not been fighting.' He seized me by the hair, and nearly deprived me of the few locks which my school-fellows liberality had suffered to remain on my head. 'You little villain, I will flog you doubly for this lie.' He herewith dragged me into the school: in vain I endeavoured to plead my own cause; he would not hear a single word: I was horsed, the rod was brought forth, all was expectation and terror. He paused, as if for a moment's recollection, and then said,' On account of your being a new boy, I shall pardon the lie which you have told; but I shall punish you for being on the ground, against which I have issued a positive mandate, under pain of severe whipping.' I declared, which was the fact, that I knew nothing of such a prohibition. He bellowed out, that this did not signify; he would have no command of his disobeyed; that he had proclaimed the law before I

came; and I might have known it if I had chosen to enquire. To enquire? How could I enquire about a thing that it was morally impossible should ever enter into my head? Accordingly I underwent a flagellation very little short of being flay'd alive. This horrible and wanton barbarity did not prepossess the master in my favour. While I was smarting from the lashes I had received, I stood, for sit I could not, and wrote an account of the whole transaction to my father. As soon as I had folded up and sealed the letter, the tyrant, who had leisurely watched me during the whole time, and seen the crimson blush of indignation rise on my little countenance, while I was writing, called me to him, and bade me let him read that letter. I was compelled, however reluctantly, to comply with this demand, and saw, to my infinite chagrin, the letter burnt, and had the satisfaction of hearing, that, as soon as it could be done without danger of mortification and gangrene, I was to undergo another animadversion for my contumacy and rebellion. As this worthy man always punctually performed his promises of

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that kind, I was not forgotten, and, at the end of a fortnight, experienced a still severer specimen of the effects of unlimited barbarity, aided by uncontrolled authority. I was branded, by this magisterial despot, as a liar, and a hardened, impudent, obstinate scoundrel, a term he was very liberal in applying to those whom he disliked. The frown of the master was the signal for the boys to hate; and I consequently underwent every species of persecution and of torture, that the ingenuity of youthful malice could devise. I seriously thought of putting an end to my existence; but that religion, which my parents had carefully instilled into my mind, from earliest infancy, forbade me to commit a crime of so heinous a nature as suicide. My spirit was not subdued, it was not even cowed. I resolved to end this vexatious mode of life in some manner or other; and no way seemed so ready as to evince, that I was not a coward: wherefore, I went up to a boy, five years older than myself, who had been my chief tormenter, and challenged him to fight, for having insulted me. With the most ineffable

contempt he heard my proposal:

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cried he, and fight some of those children there, who have thumped, and kicked, and spit upon you.' I made no other reply than by a blow on his face, which brought the blood in abundance from his nose; the consequence of this was a most terrible beating, for I was by no means his match in weight, in strength, or the pugilistic art. However, this business was productive of the most happy effects in my favour; the little fry shrunk abash'd from me, and by petty civilities endeavoured to court the smile of him, whom, but a little before, they had despised and tormented; even my victorious antagonist shook me by the hand, and declared that I was game, for I had endured drubbing till I was literally unable to stand upon my feet. Two months elapsed, and I had received no weekly pocket-money: I applied to the master; he seemed amazed at my boldness in daring to speak to him, and said, that the week's pay of all the boys was stopped, because some windows in the school-room were broken:

not broken by me,' said I :

But they were

No matter for

that, somebody broke them, and you as likely as any one, and you shall not have your week's pay.' 'But,' continued I, not more than three three-penny panes of glass were broken, and the weekly pay of above sixty boys, amounting nearly to fifty shillings a-week, has been stopped these two months.' This speech was deemed so highly offensive, that I received six blows on the palm of the hand, from a long cane having shoe-maker's waxed thread twisted. round its end, and a hint that a severer punishment awaited any future impertinence of this kind. This abominable meanness, this peculation, this plunder of defenceless infants, superinduced in my mind contempt upon detestation for this brute. Fourteen weeks elapsed, and we had none of us received any weekly pay; this was because a gate in the play-ground had been said to be broken down by us; but this gate had been up eighteen years, was decayed, and had fallen down during the vacation, when the boys were absent from the school: add to this, that if the fact was according to the master's statement, the new gate could

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