What follows is reminiscent of the sort of stuff the late Alex Birch used to publish on his blog, A Taste of Birch. In it is not certain it didn’t come from there. If anyone knows the source just sound off.
Firstly though let’s quote Al Capone, an impeccable source for the maintenance of order, when speaking in the same era he said, “What the young need to day is a good sound strapping on their bare bottoms; especially the girls. The youth of today are quite shocking.”
Much has been written about the spanking of flappers in the 1920s here before, it seems to be a period rich in source material. No doubt the culture clash between ‘moderns’ and an earlier generation who grew-up in an Edwardian or even Victorian era had much to do with it.
Mrs JP Kelly wrote a women’s magazine about her young cousin.
“She is such a trial and our family’s reputation is in ruins. I know for a fact that she not only smokes, but steps out with boys. Even though she had now left home her parents are in despair. Only last week we were called to bail her out of jail after a raid on a speakeasy of all places. My husband was so incensed that he took her out back and spanked her hard on the bare bottom. She was quiet enough after this, but I know it has not cured her. Only last week she was seen out with the most awful boys and I know that she still smokes in public. What are we to do?”
What answer she got is uncertain but other magazines of the time extolled the virtue of “taking a belt to where it would do the most good.”
One contributor had his younger sister moved to the country where he told readers, “There they know how to handle her wilful ways. On the farm even grown-up girls get to feel the switch on their behinds.”
One wonders if they were not overreacting but then there must at least be some sympathy for the father who overheard his daughter express admiration for Bonnie Parker and “spanked her bare bottom until it smoked.”
Then there were the girls who flirted with such things for their own gratification. After all it was at this time that the term spanker-at or slapper-at entered the American language and quickly moved to London.
