Faggot

“ One evening, when they were all in bed and the faggot-maker was sitting with his wife at the fire, he said to her, with his heart ready to burst with grief:
"Thou see'st plainly that we are not able to keep our children, and I cannot see them starve to death before my face; I am resolved to lose them in the wood to-morrow, which may very easily be done; for while they are busy in tying up the faggots, we may run away, and leave them, without their taking any notice." ”

“ Little Thumb
here was, once upon a time, a man and his wife, faggot-makers by trade, who had seven children, all boys. The eldest was but ten years old, and the youngest only seven. One might wonder how that the faggot-maker could have so many children in so little a time; but it was because his wife went nimbly about her business and never brought fewer than two at a birth. They were very poor, and their seven children incommoded them greatly, because not one of them was able to earn his bread. ”

“ They did so, and he brought them home by the very same way they came into the forest. They dared not to go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.
The very moment the faggot-maker and his wife were got home, the lord of the manor sent them ten crowns, which he had owed them a long while, and which they never expected. This gave them new life; for the poor people were almost famished. The faggot-maker sent his wife immediately to the butcher's. ”

“ “My sons, if you are of one mind, and unite to assist each other, you will be as this faggot, uninjured by all the attempts of your enemies; but if you are divided among yourselves, you will be broken as easily as these sticks.” ”

“ In matters of religion he was fully aware that, though the thumb-screw, rack, and faggot had fallen into disuse, their office was exercised by public feeling as their successor, through which men stood in terror, not of their lives, but of their living. ”

“ And what use do they make of the faggot when they have it? asks the preacher. Why they make a fire with it, on which they may jump, till they have stamped it out!
And in speaking of the obedience of servants to their masters, he says it should resemble that of the man who is being shaved. Such a man turns his head this way, or that way, puts his chin up, or puts it down, in obedience to the slightest gesture and sign of the barber.
Faber is fond of quoting popular sayings and proverbs ”

“ Nevertheless, psychologists have noted that this tendency towards the more elevated forms of homosexual feeling is still to be found, more or less developed, amongst religious leaders and other persons with strong ethical instincts. It is only therefore when this tendency occurs in slightly abnormal minds that we excite our passions against men whom our imagination alone has branded as debased criminals, men for whom the only fitting reward is an application of the stake and faggot, without further inquiry. ”

“ "You are sitting under the trees," he wrote in 1851, "feeling all the ease, all the tranquillity that can possibly be enjoyed; you see some poor figure laden with a faggot come turning out of some little path. The unexpected and always striking way in which this figure appears to you carries your mind instantly to the sadness of human life. . . .
'Quel plaisir a-t-il eu depuis qu'il est au monde?
En est-il un plus pauvre en la machine ronde?' [1]
La Fontaine, 'Death and the Woodcutter.' ... In tilled lands you see these figures digging and delving. ”

“ Fafnis, the dragon with which Sigurd fights.—Sigurd the Horny (a German romance based on a Norse legend) .
Fag, the lying servant of Captain Absolute. He "wears his master's wit, as he does his lace, at second hand."—Sheridan, The Rivals (1775) .
Faggot (Nicholas) , clerk to Matthew Foxley, the magistrate who examined Darsie Latimer (i. e. Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet) after he had been attacked by rioters.—Sir W. Scott, Redgauntlet (time, George III.) .
Faggots and Faggots (II y a fagots et fagots) , all things of the same sort are not equal in quality. ”

“ They ran to type: either barely of drinking age or else quite gray, the men with their long hair and half-open blouses more ornate than most of the women, a few obvious faggots, a crop-headed girl in a man's shirt and trousers holding hands with a more female-looking one. ”

“ Many times also this night they heard the forcible falling of many faggots by their bed side, but in the morning no faggots were found there, no dishes or trenchers were there seen neither, and the aforesaid Giles attests that by their different arranging in the pantry, they had assuredly been taken thence and after put there again.
“October 21. The keeper of their ordinary and his bitch lay with them ”

“ For there were no friends to affect Mutually and faggishly in embraces; And the young and sensitive Were Oriental and fonder Of the cigarettes They put in their faces And the beers that suddenly appeared Before them. This would not do: Mouth-hugging the earth On its bulge of life Or moving to songs Where the dances never end. He was an old fag and must retain A square orbit. It, at least, Was a gentleman's right And in accordance with the Manner of the fags. ”

“ His severest duties as a fag are to cook breakfast and supper in his fag-master's room; but in many of the houses the boys eat their meals together, so the fags have a pretty easy time of it. In fact, altogether too much has been said about the tyranny and brutality of fagging. Most small boys are glad enough to be with the big boys, and a Senior who plays football or rows well might have as many youngsters to wait on him as he chose. Fag-masters are often the fags' best friends, and even at the universities afterward keep a kindly eye upon them. ”

“ Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions. In this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted; the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous. It was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty; ”

“ If a boy is in his first term he must keep his hands out of his pockets. If you see a boy with one hand in, he will, perhaps, be in the second term; after that both may be put in the pockets. The duties of fags are less irksome than once they were, but (such as they are) strictly exacted. They may be called to run errands and make themselves generally useful. The house fags have to "fag out" the "dens" of their superiors, to light their fires, to make toast for them at tea, and so forth. ”

“ The fag-master is the protector of his fags, and responsible for their happiness and good conduct. In cases of bullying or injustice their appeal is to him, not to the form or house master, and, except in the gravest cases, all such cases are dealt with by the fag-master on his own responsibility and without report to the master. Until recent years a fag’s duties included such humble tasks as blacking boots, brushing clothes, and cooking breakfasts, and there was no limit as to hours; almost all the fag’s spare time being so monopolized. ”

“ The small boy thus enslaved is termed a fag, and his duties are to do everything the larger boy finds it impossible or disagreeable to do himself. If the small boy performs these duties zealously and good-humouredly, he is only kicked and driven about like a dog, and survives to become a fifth, and eventually a sixth form boy, and takes his change out of fags of his own. If he sulks, or neglects orders, he is either half or three-quarters murdered, according to the hands he falls into, and is usually taken away from the school, or otherwise expended, before he reaches hobble-de-hoy’s estate. ”

“ And it's awful fun, I can tell you, to see the way some of the fags get riled at cricket! You get a feller to give you a few balls, just for practice, and you hit the ball into another feller's ground; and then you tell your fag to go and pick it up. So he goes to do it, when the other feller sings out, 'Don't touch that ball, or I'll lick you!' So you tell the fag to come to you, and you say, 'Why don't you do as I tell you?' And he says, 'Please, sir!' and then the little beggar blubbers. So you say to him, 'None of that, sir! Touch your toes!' We always make 'em wear straps on purpose. ”

“ If he was a fag, or slave of a higher-form boy, cleaning the other's boots, scrubbing stairs, running on foolish and needless errands, getting cuffs and kicks by way of encouragement, he saw his fines piling up and no way ever to clear them off and gain freedom by promotion. ”

“ Not even on cricket feast night was a fag to be let off fagging!
It was enough! The last straw breaks the camel’s back, and the young Dominicans had now reached the point of desperation.
It was long before silence enough could be restored, and then the redoubtable Spicer yelled out, “Let’s strike!”
The cry was taken up with yells of enthusiasm—“Strike! No more fagging!”
“Any boy who fags after this,” screamed Bramble, “will be cut dead! Those who promise hold up your hands—mind, it’s a promise!” ”

“ It don’t pay for a fellow to be quite an ignoramus in these days, unless he happens to have been born a lord, or experienced some such jolly dispensation at starting; but as for hard work,—no, thank ye. What’s the use of having a fag, if you can’t get your exercises done for you, I should like to know?”
“What’s a fag?” inquired Hugh. ”

“ I am very tolerably well now, and think I have recovered altogether, though I verily believe I shall not be able ever again to fag so much; indeed, I shall never wish to do so in the same way. You will understand a good deal of the way in which fagging hard is so frequently ruinous both to body and mind, from an article in the ‘Rugby Magazine,’ No. III., which I hope you will like as much as the people on this side the Atlantic [Pg 63] (I mean the article entitled ‘A Schoolboy’s Story’) ; I think you will see a good deal in that to explain it. ”

“ The boy who gave good advice, while they were on the fire, took part in a rag that which was going on in the passage; the result was that the eggs remained seven minutes in boiling water. They were hard. When the fag-master pointed this out and asked his fag what he meant by it, the boy who gave good advice persisted in his statement that they had been exactly three minutes and a half in the saucepan, and that he had timed them by his watch. So the fag-master caned him for telling lies.
The boy who gave good advice grew into a man and went to the university. ”

“ There may be—though many schoolboys will, perhaps, think it scarcely possible—there may be, in the compass of the civilised world, some persons so barbarously ignorant as not to know what is meant by the term fag. ”

“ These boys constituted what may perhaps be called a neutral or buffer state between the fagmasters and their fags. The Sixth Form boys chose fags in turn according to an order of precedence which depended upon their rank in the school, and the choice might be made either by calling a boy’s name, or, if his name were not known, by walking up to him and laying a hand upon his shoulder. When every Sixth Form boy had chosen a fag, the choice began over again, and so continued until the number of the fags was exhausted, every one of them having now received his fagmaster. ”

“ The schoolboy proposition is: 'I am stronger than you, therefore you shall fag for me.' Its grown up form is: 'I am cleverer than you, therefore you shall fag for me.' The state of things we produce by submitting to this, bad enough even at first, becomes intolerable when the mediocre or foolish descendants of the clever fellows claim to have inherited their privileges. ”

“ These were the principal duties of the fags in the house. From supper until nine o'clock three fags taken in order stood in the passages, and answered any praepostor who called “Fag,” racing to the door, the last comer having to do the work. This consisted generally of going to the buttery for beer and bread and cheese (for the great men did not sup with the rest, but had each his own allowance in his study or the fifth-form room) , cleaning candlesticks and putting in new candles, toasting cheese, bottling beer, and carrying messages about the house ”

“ Sometimes it happens that a fag turns out a great cricketer or oarsman, in which case his old fag-master is as proud of him as of a younger brother. Like as not in after-life a country parson can look back upon the time when he fagged the bishop of his diocese. Like tunding or smacking, fagging is at bottom more humane than the neglect which a small boy suffers at an American school.
The boys are kept very much together in each house by their meals and the early hour of "lock-up" ”

“ And soon it crept out that a lot of the fags were in league, and Flashman excited his associates to join him in bringing the young vagabonds to their senses; and the house was filled with constant chasings, and sieges, and lickings of all sorts; and in return, the bullies' beds were pulled to pieces and drenched with water, and their names written up on the walls with every insulting epithet which the fag invention could furnish. ”

“ Does the 'fairie' or 'fag' really exist? This question has been asked time and again. There is no doubt but that this type of degenerate is a reality. [Unprejudiced science has not yet decided the matter of the degeneracy of the androgyne in general, as I have already shown in detail. There exists as much evidence that the bisexual is a superman or genius as that he or she is a degenerate. The truth of the matter probably is that degenerates are no commoner per thousand among bisexuals than among the sexually full-fledged, but that geniuses occur far oftener.] ”