Padding the trousers
Padding the trousers was a trick boys used in the 19th and 20th century when they knew to expect corporal punishment.
Corporal punishment, in those days, was commonly given to boys in the form of a caning (or in the U.S., a paddling) administered to their clothed backside. The fact that the trousers remained up, that an implement was used, and that the punishment was often given hastily made the trick possible.
The boys secretly slipped a flat object under the seat of their trousers so that the chastisement would be absorbed by it and the result was no pain at all. To avoid suspicion, the boy would, of course, need to act, pretending to feel the pain sharply.
According to the references to that practice in literature and imagery, that object was often a book, an exercise book, or sheets of (news)paper. In rarer cases, the boy might have found the time to change and put on several underpants.
Risk of discovery
The padding trick was not without risk though: If found out, the boy could expect a severe extra punishment for attempting to cheat his way out of his deserved correction. If he was unlucky, after the discovery of a concealed object his punishment might have been given with his trousers down, so that his trick backfired: instead of an extra layer of protection, he had to endure the chastisement on his bare buttocks, ending up with no more protection whatsoever.
In some schools, institutions like reformatories, and in places that administered judicial corporal punishment, the teachers/disciplinarians/officers were instructed to routinely check the trousers for padding before any punishment commenced.
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