1 AUGUST 1874, Page 3

A great fuss has been made at Shrewsbury about a

flogging case, in which the head master, the Rev. H. W. Moss, inflicted 88 strokes with a birch on a boy of 14, for having repeatedly smuggled beer into the studies of the school against orders. The 88 stripes, however, appear to have been given without really hurting the boy, though the skin appears to have been slightly broken, without Mr. Moss being aware of it. The boy went about his work just as usual after the flogging, took his usual place in the boat within 48 hours, and was much more injured in mind than in body, his view being that when Mr. Moss, at his father's solicitation, undertook not to expel him, but to accept his apology and his promise not to offend in like manner again, accounts were squared, and all punishment remitted. It is per- fectly clear, however, that that had never been Mr. Moss's view of the case, and his letter to the boy's father expressly dates that instead of expelling the boy, he should "much prefer to take other measures," the 'other measures' being obviously the flogging actually administered. Our own objection to flogging, —which is, we fear, for certain kinds of offences, indispensable in England,—has always been the sense of degradation much more than the pain inflicted by it, and for such offences as disobedience to orders we should greatly prefer a different penalty. In any case, flogging should not only be moderate,—as we think this was, —but seem so, which eighty-eight strokes of any kind (though many of them must have been "mere taps," as the Shrewsbury boys say that Mr. Moss's strokes are oftener than not), are not likely to appear. The head boy of the sixth form bore his very strong testimony to Mr. Moss's humane government of the School, in the name of the School. The Governing Bedy came to a very sensible conclusion, supporting Mr. Moss, but regretting the mis- understanding, and the apparent excessiveness of a not really severe punishment.