Tawse
A tawse ( ) is a typical Scottish tool for corporal punishment that was often used in schools instead of the English cane . Today it is mainly used for BDSM activities.
A tawse consists of a thick, relatively hard piece of leather, often made by a saddler, that divides in the front area (40 to 60% of the total length) into two or three, more rarely into four or five parallel tongues. With the Tawse were formerly mainly in Ireland and Scotland , rarely, in England , in all schools (to 1980; in private schools and - boarding up last 1998) girls and boys to the hands as well as boys, particularly in the almost exclusively by the Catholic Church- run schools in Ireland, often punished on the (mostly clothed) buttocks .
A punishment on the buttocks is - contrary to popular opinion - significantly more painful than one on the hands (although it almost always involves a larger number of blows), and as with a cane, the effect can also be felt through common clothing. Since their use usually does not lead to skin injuries, a tawse can be used much more sustainably and more frequently than a cane. A two-tongued tawse is usually potentially more painful than a tawse with more than two tongues.
Court penalty
Male youths between 14 and 16 years of age could be sentenced by Scottish courts (as a more painful alternative to birching ) to a penalty of up to 36 blows with a heavy tawse on the bare buttocks by the year 1948 .
Web links
- The Cane and the Tawse in Scottish Schools , corpun.com, accessed April 8, 2012
Individual evidence
- ↑ THE COLLECTOR'S GUIDE TO THE SCHOOL STRAP: Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, Australia & Others - Second Edition , corpun.com, accessed on April 12, 2012 (please scroll down)