Slap Sticks And Stuffed Clubs
This 1930 catalog of special equipment for scaring the crap out of new initiates at your local fraternal organization is a tremendous eye-opener. (As a nerd-boy from way back, all I can say is, I’m glad the grand era of these organizations was long gone before I came along.) The illustration below comes from this page and features a “spanker” that is “the lightest weight made” but which accomodates “an automatic firing device so that when a candidate is spanked, a 32-calibre blank cartridge is discharged.”
You can tell the fun times have started, because the candidate just banged his head on the floor and is enjoying a festive concussion! I’m so happy to be a member!
More prosaic spanking tools are listed lower on the page, including your basic good old fashioned spanking paddle:
SLAP STICKS
D450 — Slap Sticks, sizes 2×28 inches; with shaped handles, made of good grade lumber
And a line of padded clubs for “larraping” people with:
STUFFED CLUBS
D452 — Stuffed Club, substantial material, tightly stuffed; just the thing for larraping candidate
It is interesting that it is on page 71 of the catalog. So what else is in the catalog? I am afraid to think about it.
Words cannot describe. You’d have to look — I gave you the link.
One thing I remember — an electric branding iron, plus a fake electrified branding iron apparatus, so that you can show the poor sap a glowing iron, then do the blindfold and the hocus pocus, then apply the fake and and make him think he’s being branded. Hardy har har, cleanest fun ever!