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He had started a school for the sons of Brethren at 51 Bateman Street, Cambridge. May God bite 
into the bones of men the pain of that hell on earth (I have prayed often) that by them it may be 
sowed with salt, accursed for ever! May the maiden that passes it be barren and the pregnant 
woman that beholdeth it abort! May the birds of the air refuse to fly over it! May it stand as a curse, 
as a fear, as an hate, among men! May the wicked dwell therein! May the light of the sun be 
withheld therefrom and the light of the moon not lighten it! May it become the home of the shells 
of the dead and may the demons of the pit inhabit it! May it be accursed, accursed --- accursed for 
ever and ever! 
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And still, standing as I stand in the prime of early manhood, free from all the fetters of the body 
and the mind, do I curse the memory thereof unto the ages. 
It was a good enough school from the point of view of examiners, I dare say. Morally and physically, 
it was an engine of destruction and corruption. I am just going to put down a few facts haphazard as 
they come to my memory; you may form your own judgment. 
1. We were allowed to play cricket, but not to score runs, lest it should excite the vice of 
"emulation". 
2. Champeny told me, a child of not yet twelve years old, that he had never consummated his 
marriage. (Only the very acute verbal memory which I possess enabled me years after to recall and 
interpret his meaning. He used a coarser phrase.) 
3. We were told that "the Lord had a special care of the school and brought to light that which was 
done in darkness," etc., etc. Ad nauseam. "The instrument was on this occasion so-and-so, who had 
nobly come forward," etc., etc. In other words, hypocrisy and sneaking were the only virtues. 
Naturally, one of several boys who might be involved in the same offence would take fright and save 
his skin by sneaking. The informer was always believed implicitly, as against probability, or even 
possibility, with complete disregard of the testimony of other and independent witnesses. 
For instance, a boy named Glascott, with insane taint, told Mr. Champney that he had visited me 
(twelve years old) at my mother's house during the holidays --- true so far, he had --- and found me 
lying drunk at the bottom of the stairs. My mother was never asked about this; nor was I told of it. I 
was put into "Coventry", i.e. no master nor boy might speak to me, or I to them. I was fed on bread 
and water; during play hours I worked in the schoolroom; during work hours I walked solitary round 
and round the playground. I was expected to "confess" the crime of which I was not only innocent, 
but unaccused. 
This punishment, which I believe criminal authorities would consider severe on a poisoner, went on 
for a term and a half. I was, at last, threatened with expulsion for my refusal to "confess", and so 
dreadful a picture of the horrors of expulsion did they paint me --- the guilty wretch, shunned by his 
fellows, slinks on through life to a dishonoured grave, etc. --- that I actually chose to endure my 
tortures and to thank my oppressor. 
Physically, I broke down. The strain and the misery affected my kidneys; and I had to leave school 
altogether for two years. I should 
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add in fairness that there were other accusations against me, though, as you shall hear, almost 
equally silly. 
I learnt at last, through the intervention of my uncle, in a lucid interval, what I was supposed to 
have done. I was said to have tried "to corrupt Chamberlain" --- not our great patriotic statesman,