A light rain fell as the train neared the new school......
Chad's luck had not helped him recently. Having recently been sent to live with a foster family, Chad had new hopes of being happy and normal, like every normal 16-year old he had ever met. But his hopes were dashed. the new family (the Williams) had been rampant child abusers and alcoholics, and had beat him so many times that it was on Chad's own merit that he had called the authorities. Without much ado, a case worker had come to the Williams home, declared it unfit, and put Chad on a bus to his new home, the Weston Academy for Delinquent Boys.
Chad felt happy to leave this horrible home, but he had reservations about the Weston Academy. Having lived in state foster homes for years, he new a lot about his new home.
The year was 1856. The United States was still a new nation, teaming with immigrants from Ireland and the rest of Europe, and Chad was one of them. Having fled Ireland with his mother in 1848 when he was 6, Chad had knew the hardship of leaving a motherland. After a brief illness, Chad's mother died in 1849 of consumption, leaving him in the hands of the state. Since the laws of the day didn't protect children from neglectful hands, Chad spent many years working in workhouses under the watchful eyes of men with whips, ready to strike any boy who didn't seem to be doing a 'lawful job'. After a couple of stints with foster parents in the area (Northern Virginia), Chad was on the train, bound for his new home in Weston, New York.
Weston was a school for boys who hadn't fit in elsewhere. Harsh discipline was the key to goodness and good manners were the key to godliness. Both served as standards at Weston, which was ruled and 'managed' by a gentleman named Henry Benchford.
Henry Benchford had worked as a chaplain at a school in England for many years, back in the 1820's, and although the times had changed, Benchford hadn't changed a bit. In the 1820's Empire dress was the fashion, and Benchford dressed that way until his death. Men wore tight, dandy-style suits, consisting of vest, jacket and trousers, skin tight and showing off the ideal figure of the period. That ideal was a pinched waistline, achieved by the use of a corset cinched tight about the waist, and broad shoulders and hips. To the day, Benchford dressed in his stylish 1820's ways, his waist pulled in tight with a wide corset, his posture erect from the whalebone and tight laces.
His ways were superceded upon the conscience of every boy at Weston. Each boy was fitted with a corset upon his arrival, with a waist measuring a full 6 inches less than the natural waist. Each morning, the boys put on their corsets and had the laces pulled tight by their corset buddy (another foster boy) to please the chaplain. To wear a corset that didn't fit the approval of the chaplain brought a whipping.
In the front Yard of Weston Academy stood four whipping posts. Each post was made of a log, sunk deep into the ground and crossed with another plank, so as to make a cross. Leather harnesses on the cross were placed so as to hold the ankles and wrists of the boy to be whipped. Another strap was pulled arouned the waist to hold the youth tight, so he could not move an inch as the whip lashed his back and buttocks.
There were many modes of punishment at Weston, but the one of primary importance was the whipping. The chaplain's whippings broke the skin on the back and buttocks of the convicted boy, and the blood that flowed served as a reminder to the rest of the young men (who were required to watch each whipping) to correct their evil ways.
The typical whipping consisted of the following.......... (to be continued)