Item 5 - Letter from Thomas Atkins addressed to 'My very dear friend'

3 ff, with enclosure, 3 ff.

C... [Colombo?; see also faint postmark]. - Discussions on school birching with an officer's wife, a clergyman's daughter 'with a good deal of the demi monde about her'; encloses her press cutting on practices in girls' schools [no longer press cutting]; further discussion of her flogging practices (including a beating of Atkins himself) and reading matter. Describes beating of himself and [?] Gordon at school by Dr Phillott and hie wife; further information as to their habits gleaned from a niece who lived with the Phillotts and was once punished even more severely for spying on them; Mrs Phillott the harsher of the two; her usual practice; question of discipline and other effects of flogging upon children.

With enclosure giving Charles Atkins' description of a flogging episode with an American woman alleged to have taken place at Singapore, inc. refs. to her cruelty towards slaves, her background and physical appearance [in Thomas Atkins' hand ?]