I'm sitting here considering what you've proposed: 1) So the actual perpetrator does get others in trouble but the "authorities" figure this out and are able to identify him/her. So why didn't they just take the rod to him/her? 2) Certainly true and this could be one of the reasons it was stopped. I would think that such teachers would be fired, however, if using corporal punishment to take out their own frustrations was frowned upon. It would be interesting to find out how many teachers who overused paddling were fired.