# "Her father has threatened to horsewhip me on the steps of my club!" Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632 "2012-04-02T21:44:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/21 "2012-04-03T17:35:33Z")
check definition number 2 of schlepping in Urban Dictionary. I think that a father finding someone schlepping his daughter is more likely to lay down a beating with a tyre-iron, than merely finding someone schtupping her. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/22 "2012-04-03T19:04:31Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > More of a pre-Victorian thing than a Victorian one, apparently, and by Wodehouse’s own time, as you noted, the custom had dwindled to little more than a joke. But it definitely used to be a thing. Certainly that’s Victorian. She took the throne in 1841, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/23 "2012-04-03T19:11:04Z")
Captain FitzRoy, R.N., and Mr William Sheppard had been Tory candidates at the Durham election before falling out - the details of their various grievances need not concern us here, but in August 1841 the two met outside the United Services Club in the Mall, Sheppard having apparently contrived the meeting with witnesses. Sheppard brandished a whip over his head and said, “_Captain FitzRoy, I am not going to strike you. But, consider yourself horsewhipped._” FitzRoy struck back with his umbrella and, after an exchange of blows Sheppard fell. A friend of Sheppard cried “_Don’t strike him, Captain FitzRoy, now he’s down!_” and so the affair ended. Both published, at great length, their versions of the long-running vendetta. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/24 "2012-04-03T19:18:39Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Seeing as gentlemen would carry horsewhips everywhere because they actually rode horses it’s not really very strange. Did they really ride everywhere in Victorian London? Hansom cabs seem to have become widespread by the [1860s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansom_cab), after which point I can’t imagine most people wanted the bother and expense of maintaining horses in the city. Certainly there were numerous horse-drawn freight wagons, public trams, and larger carriages, but I can’t imagine that anyone was cantering or trotting about London on the back of a horse. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/25 "2012-04-03T19:27:34Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Certainly that’s Victorian. She took the throne in 1841, after all. I think he’s referring to the fact that even at the time of that horse-whipping, it was considered a relic of a previous time. From the contemporary account in the link: > [@](#): > > Having thrashed the author, Carrington stood over him in the street and shouted, “You may feel yourself disgraced.” \*\* The fashionable world reveled in “a row of the 18th Century kind.” \*\* So although that instance of whipping was certainly Victorian, witnesses at the time thought it a “row of the 18th Century kind.” ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/26 "2012-04-03T19:39:19Z")
In the book _Flashman, Flashman dishonors a mill owner’s daughter and refuses to marry her until her uncle threatens to take a whip to him in the public streets._ The disgrace of such a thing causes Flashman to marry the girl. I think that back in the good old days, a man who submitted to a lashing lost all credit and his position in society. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/27 "2012-04-03T21:28:09Z")
I was reading an old sci-fi novel, [Caesar’s Column](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar's_Column). Towards the beginning of the book, a beggar accidentally spooks the horse of a coach driver, he dismounts from the coach with his whip and begins brutally whipping the beggar in the middle of a public park. The protagonist takes the whip from the coachman and begins whipping \*him \*in response. At which point a policeman sees the commotion and comes after the protagonist, thinking he started the whole thing. This happened in the middle of a public park, and nobody seems to pay much mind to the public whippings, and the author treats it with such a dry matter-of-fact-ness that it seems like something completely ordinary. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/28 "2012-04-03T22:25:55Z")
Sherlock Holmes threatens to take the horsewhip to the bad guy for deceiving a lady client in one of the short stories; I think _A Case of Identity_. He makes some comment to the effect that if the lady had had a brother, the villain would have been horsewhipped, then notes that his own riding crop is available and offers to make up the deficiency. The villain flees. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/29 "2012-04-03T22:32:00Z")
A horse whip would be an everyday item for any family with carriages or wagons. It would be a easy weapon to grab if you wanted to punish someone. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/30 "2012-04-04T00:39:54Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Did they really ride everywhere in Victorian London? Hansom cabs seem to have become widespread by the [1860s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansom_cab) but I can’t imagine that anyone was cantering or trotting about London on the back of a horse. Plenty of people ride motorbikes even though we have cars. AFAIK, yes it would have still been common to see people on horseback in the 1860’s. If it’s a sunny day and you owned a horse, why would you take a hansom cab, unless you were with company? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/31 "2012-04-05T08:07:10Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > [“James Gordon Bennett was publicly horse-whipped this morning, by Frederick May, brother of the girl to whom Bennett was engaged to be married.”](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/gordon-bennett.html) I’m a thankin ye. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/32 "2012-04-05T09:43:08Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Certainly that’s Victorian. She took the throne in 1841, after all. 1. ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/33 "2012-04-05T10:27:42Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I’m a thankin ye. ’ Is that you, Alvin? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/34 "2012-04-05T11:37:44Z")
Funny how back in the day the guilty party would be a “gentleman” or of the aristocratic class, but now it would be kind of thing we only associate with “trailer-trash” types. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/35 "2012-04-05T12:26:09Z")
Much more recently (1980s? early 90s?), a judge famously said that Alan Clark MP should be horse-whipped, after Clark slept with the judge’s daughter and his wife, and his other daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/36 "2012-04-05T18:43:07Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > Funny how back in the day the guilty party would be a “gentleman” or of the aristocratic class, but now it would be kind of thing we only associate with “trailer-trash” types. I read an interesting book once, _Honor and Violence in the Old South_ which pointed out how violent and suspicious antebellum Southern culture was. And then I read _Albion’s Seed_, which traced many aspects of southern culture to the English aristocrats who settled in that area. ---
**Author:** ![ethelbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/37 "2012-04-05T19:20:38Z")
One of my favorite quotes from “In the Heat of the Night” is when Rod Steiger says to Sidney Poitier; “Boy, it would give me a world of satisfaction to horsewhip you, Virgil!” ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/38 "2012-04-05T21:19:18Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > Much more recently (1980s? early 90s?), a judge famously said that Alan Clark MP should be horse-whipped, after Clark slept with the judge’s daughter and his wife, and his other daughter. A horsewhipping, then a medal, jeez. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/39 "2012-04-12T03:02:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > And Trollope’s [1858 novel _Dr. Thorne_](http://www.classicreader.com/book/434/21/) treats the scenario as a quite realistic contemporary one: On the other hand, if you’ve read his novel _The Three Clerks_, you will remember that one of the three main titular characters attends a dance where one Monsieur de la Barbe de l’Empereur gets danced to death by a robot in human female form. Apparently the robot goes haywire and keeps the monsieur dancing to the point of exhaustion. And we know that never happened. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632.md?page=1)