OK, you know that I am a cretan from across the pond and am not very versed in y'alls *funny* way of tawking.
We don't talk funny, youse does.
the birtch? meaning *the switch*, ie, tree limb about to be used across an errant child's posterior? or is it something different.
The Isle of Man (population 50,000) is a Crown Dependency in the middle of the Irish Sea. It is not part of the UK. It has its own parliament and makes its own laws. These are often similar to UK laws, but the island did not follow the UK in abolishing judicial corporal punishment in 1948.
JUVENILE BIRCHINGS IN THE 1950s
For 12 years after that, birching was principally a punishment for boys under 15 convicted of petty larceny (stealing), much as in UK magistrates' courts before 1948. The penalty was considered fairly trivial, though I doubt whether it seemed all that trivial to those receiving it (8 or 9 strokes in a few cases, though 3 or 4 was the norm). At any rate, it attracted little attention and was often reported only briefly in the local papers and not at all on the mainland. There were 52 of these magistrates' court juvenile birchings from 1952 to 1959 inclusive -- an average of nearly seven per year.
Older teens -- and in theory adult men, though there were no such cases in the post-war era -- could be birched only by higher courts, which at that time was rare (only two cases in the whole decade), though it became more common in the 1960s and 1970s.
SUMMARY JURISDICTION ACT 1960
In 1960 the Manx law was altered so that magistrates could order CP for males up to 21 instead of only under 15.
With the change in the law, birching took on an entirely new role. Previously a minor punishment for children, it became the customary penalty for youths of 14 to 21 for offences deemed fairly serious, without being serious enough to go to a higher court. These usually involved, or could be made to sound as if they had involved, some degree of violence. The maximum number of strokes was set at 12.
A NEW, MORE FEARSOME BIRCH
We now know, though it was not announced at the time, that to mark the change a completely different kind of birch was invented -- some say by Constable Henry Corlett, who often had the job of administering it. It consisted of four or five long and fairly stout hazel branches bound tightly together at one end.
This replaced the previous classic spray birch, and was by all accounts a much more fearsome weapon. It could be likened to a bundle of 4 senior school canes all being applied at once.
GADS MAN SPEAK ENGLISH for christ sake.:bang:
Careful I might revert to Cockney me old **** sparrer.
