Occasionally he would get a nocturnal notice to quit the parish in a given time, under a penalty which seldom proved a dead letter in case of non-compliance.  Not unfrequently did those whom he had, when boys, treated with such barbarity, go back to him, when young men, not so much for education’s sake, as for the especial purpose of retaliating upon him for his former cruelty.  When cases of this nature occurred, he found himself a mere cipher in his school, never daring to practise excessive severity in their presence.  Instances have come to our own knowledge, of masters, who, for their mere amusement, would go out to the next hedge, cut a large branch of furze or thorn, and having first carefully arranged the children on a row round the walls of the school, their naked legs stretched out before them, would sweep round the branch, bristling with spikes and prickles, with all his force against their limbs, until, in a few minutes, a circle of blood was visible on the ground where they sat, their legs appearing as if they had been scarified.  This the master did, whenever he happened to be drunk, or in a remarkably good humor.  The poor children, however, were obliged to laugh loud, and enjoy it, though the tears were falling down their cheeks, in consequence of the pain he inflicted.  To knock down a child with the fist, was considered nothing harsh; nor, if a boy were, cut, or prostrated by a blow of a cudgel on the head, did he ever think of representing the master’s cruelty to his parents.  Kicking on the shins with a point of a brogue or shoe, bound round the edge of the sole with iron nails, until the bone was laid open, was a common punishment; and as for the usual slapping, horsing, and flogging, they were inflicted with a brutality that in every case richly deserved for the tyrant, not only a peculiar whipping by the hand of the common executioner, but a separation from civilized society by transportation for life.  It is a fact, however, that in consequence of the general severity practised in hedge schools, excesses of punishment did not often produce retaliation against the master; these were only exceptions, isolated cases that did not affect the general character of the discipline in such schools.

Now when we consider the total absence of all moral and religious principles in these establishments, and the positive presence of all that was wicked, cruel, and immoral, need we be surprised that occasional crimes of a dark and cruel character should be perpetrated?  The truth is, that it is difficult to determine, whether unlettered ignorance itself were not preferable to the kind of education which the people then received.