Some contributors in the discussion thread on crutches (if you see what I mean) bring up other ambulatory aids by-the-by, and Bad Jim says:

Can anyone who remembers the 19th century think of canes as anything but a weapon?

The 19th century? What about the 1970s? I remember being caned at school. On the palm of the hand, though, rather than the backside. I think I was about six or seven. (This was in Ireland, by the way.) I also remember the news percolating down to us kids at some point[1] that such things would no longer be allowed in schools, and some of us telling the teachers “You can’t smack us anymore because capital punishment is abolished!”

fn1. Google informs me that corporal punishment was abolished Irish schools in 1982, when I was nine.