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.”

spanking paddle with a blank pistol shell that goes off when you hit somebody

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

  1. bodack commented on December 17th, 2011:

    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.

  2. SpankBoss commented on December 18th, 2011:

    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!

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