Some contributors in the discussion thread on crutches (if you see what I mean) bring up other ambulatory aids by-the-by, and Bad Jim says:
Can anyone who remembers the 19th century think of canes as anything but a weapon?
The 19th century? What about the 1970s? I remember being caned at school. On the palm of the hand, though, rather than the backside. I think I was about six or seven. (This was in Ireland, by the way.) I also remember the news percolating down to us kids at some point1 that such things would no longer be allowed in schools, and some of us telling the teachers “You can’t smack us anymore because capital punishment is abolished!”
1 Google informs me that corporal punishment was abolished Irish schools in 1982, when I was nine.
Were there really canes that concealed swords? I realize those probably weren’t used in the public school system…but were there such things? Were they common?
“In France, during the civil unrest of the 19th century, canes were often prohibited in public places or during public gatherings as they often concealed deadly weapons such as swords, spikes and guns.
[…}
“System canes, or gadget canes as they are also known, are perhaps the most fascinating and highly collected type of walking sticks. This category of canes consists of those with a dual or hidden purpose, such as a sword, a whiskey flask and glass, or a walking stick carried by physicians containing scalpels and syringes. More than 1500 patents for gadget canes were applied for during the 18th and 19th centuries and were used in much the same way as we use a purse or wallet today.”
M.S. Rau Antiques (no affiliation)
Corporal punishment, in the form of swatting with a paddle, was in use in California schools at least until I graduated high school in 1968. I’m pretty sure it’s been abolished, but I don’t know when it happened.
You don’t even need to put a sharp object into your cane - it makes a fine bludgeon as is.
Go re-read your Sherlock Holmes and notice all the times when Victorian gentlemen arm themselves with a cane and go beat someone. This was learned behavior: dancing masters taught “singlestick” as a form of self defence.
Canes made it into dueling culture as well - Preston Brooks caned Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate because it seemed a better alternative than either challenging him to a duel (Sumner would refuse) or using a horsewhip (Sumner would likely take the whip, being bigger and stronger than Brooks.) Sumner took 3 years to recover from that particularly vicious beating.
I’m pretty sure that many states/school districts in the US still allow corporal punishment. My small NM town when I was in high school in the early eighties certainly did.
About gimmick canes: as someone who uses a cane to get about, I looked into sword canes or other nifty canes like that (because I’m a strange, strange man). In the case of sword canes, though, you’re not supposed to actually use them for support. They all have disclaimers. I also came across an “air dart” cane, too.
I well remember coming into school after corporal punishment was banned in Ireland. We were baiting our teacher all day long and were pretty sure we had all the grown-ups on the run. Though, admittedly, our then teacher was a very infrequent user of the stick in the first place, and anyway in a girls’ school the much less pain-inflicting ruler was the weapon of choice (depending on whether the flat or the sharp side was used, of course).
Another favourite was a well aimed ‘puck’ to the upper arm. It only hurt if the deliverer was a bride of Christ wearing one of those dull metal rings with a raised cross on it - then the puck would give you a dead arm but leave only the tiniest of bruises.
But - at least in my girls’ school - by the time the 80s swung round, the corporal punishment in use was mostly symbolic. It didn’t hurt that much and was more about asserting power or provoking shame, as I remember.
Whatever the case, the day it finished was a great day to be a child!
I remember being caned at school.
Respect, man, respect!
Canes are also rumored to have been used as flasks, though their contents were unlikely to have been cane liquor.
I’m reminded of a fantastic cartoon in Private Eye from the late 80s, with a headmaster looking sternly at a teacher standing outside a classroom full of ashen-faced kids, with a pair of ankles dangling inside the door. The caption is something like, “Really, Travers, what sort of English teacher is it that doesn’t know the difference between corporal and capital punishment?”
This site—which appears to aspire to be up to date—says that corporal punishment is legal in 22 U.S. states. (Though not in every school district—Pennsylvania is on the list, and I’m pretty sure that the Pittsburgh district didn’t have corporal punishment.)
Here’s a lovely picture of a Florida schools superintendent fondling a paddle.
In some of the circles I travel in, canes are considered an instrument of pleasure.
Where I live, they’ve moved on to handcuffs. Apparently, all the education classes demanded in Washington State don’t seem to include teaching kids about respect, etc. That said, I do know that my neightbor’s daughter was really afraid to go back to school (6th grade) this year, because a boy whod been expelled for pulling a knife on other students and bullying would be back.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review