I've been reading A Pepys Anthology. Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Very enjoyable. What a lively, interesting, individual old Pepys was.
In Restoration England, middle-class gentlemen had servants, and in a December 1660 entry, P tells us: "This morning, observing some things to be laid up not as they should be by the girl, I took the girl and basted her [ "basted' short for "lambasted," I guess. I've never used that word before, but it must enter my vocabulary. My cute dinge boy Jacko will have to get a basting one of these days though the broom doesn't sound a particularly erotic implement for the job.] till she cried extremely which made me vexed."
Of even more interest is a 21 June 1662 entry: "Having from my wife and the maids complaints made of the [servant] boy, I called him up and with my whip did whip him till I was not able to stir, and yet I could not make him confess any of the lies that they tax him with. At last, not willing to let him go away a conqueror, I took him in task again and pulled off his frock to his shirt and whipped him till he did confess that he did drink the whay, which he hath denied. And pulled a pinke [what does that mean? I know I am pulling my pinke at the thought of whipping a cute servant boy, but I don't think that's what P means] and above all, did lay a candlesticke upon the ground in his chamber, which he hath denied this quarter of this year. I confess it is one of the greatest wonders that ever I met with, that such a little boy as he could possibly be able to suffer half so much as he did to maintain a lie. But I think I must be forced to put him away. So to bed, with my arme very weary."
As a confirmed narcissist, I find P's self absorption delightful: note, we are told about P's arm and told that P was not able to stir, but the poor boy's pain doesn't warrant description at all.
Finally, I should mention this delightful entry. After laying his hands on the pornographic bestseller L'Ecolle des filles, P quite unironically and piously declares in a February 1668 entry, "Up [he doesn't mention what was up, but we can just imagine] and at my chamber all morning and the office doing business and also reading L'Ecolle des Filles, which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world."
That, of course, is precisely my viewpoint of MMSA Stories, " a mighty lewd web site," but yet it is not amiss for a sober man like myself to pore over it to inform myself in the villainy of the world.