The Express.
London, England, 1855-01-11 00:00:00

EXPRESS, THURSDAY EYEN!NG, JANUARY 11, 1855.

srosesesy, If they are, how happens it that they
were trilogy dispensed with in the Alecto, the
Apollo, the Bloodhound, the Castor, the Ceylon,
the Crescent, the Crocodile, the Cygnet, the
Dasher, the Dolphin, the Fantointe, the Fia-
guard, the Frolic, the Harlequin, the Juno, the
Lily, the Linnet, the Madagascar, the Medea,
the Makes, the Minden, the Naiad, the Nereus, the
North. Star, the Peignin, the Phaeton, the Phonix.
the Plasma., the Pinto, the Porteus, the President,
the Prince Royal, the Prometheus, the Racehorse,
the Mimeo, the Royal George, the St. George, the
Stromboli, the flume°, the Scorpion, the Swift, the
Tartarus, the Torch, and the Victoria and Albert?
In 1852, also, there is a still greater number of ships
from which we are happy to say the return is nil.
In them there were no bleeding backs and men
screaming with agony; but, as there is only one re-
turn from many of them, we will not quote any more
names of the ships which deserve inch honourable
mention. We will merely say that many of those
Which make the return nil in 1853 make the same
return in 1834. We have quoted the names of all
ships in which there was no flogging in 18.53 in order
to show that under every circumstance in which a
man of war is placed, at home or ►broad, as a guard
ship or sea-going, little or big, some one is found in
which flogging has been for the year 1853 wholly
dispensed with.

Let us ask, too, without the intention of incrimi-
nating particular commanders—for it is the system
we condemn, though under such a system the
esprit* of individuals has much room to play bloody
pranks—how it is that in the whole year 1853, com-
prising four returns, we find in the Britannia, carry-
ing 120 guns, and having 1,000 men and boys, only
5 persons punished, and only 180 lashes inflicted,
while in the Brisk, of 14 guns, and perhaps a crew
of 150 men, in a part of the year comprised in three
returns, 7 persons are punished, and 222 lashes are
inflicted ? Or how does it happen that in the Queen,
a great ship of 116 guns, only 10 persons were pun-
ished, and 144 tubes were inflicted, if any were, for the
return does not say, in 1853 ; while in the Salamander,
a little sloop of 6 guns, 14 persons were punished,
and 417 lashes inflicted? In many ships there is nol
flogging, in many others there is very little, and in
others again there is a great deal, so that the bloody
backs are distributed in very different proportions in
different ships—five in the great three-decker
Britannia, one to every twenty-four guns; and seven
in the little single-decked Brisk, one to every two
guns : ten in the great three-decked Queen, one
and a fraction to eleven guns; and fourteen in the
little mingle-decked Salamander, two and • fraction
to every gun. We might quote similar instances,
but we spare our readers the horrid recital. If
flogging, however, can be done without in one ship it
can by careful management be done without in all;
and if it be almost dispensed with in a great many
ships, in no one can there be any justifiable pre-
text for inflicting it in such quantities as in the
little Salamander and the little Brisk, and several
other ships.

Under such a system can we wonder that the Army
and the Navy are so much behind the age—that they
have to learn the art of war from the barbarous
Russians P From all the relations of civil life, trom
those of master and servant, employer and employed,
teacher and scholar, parent and child, from every part
of civil society, except the most degraded classes.
where the husband still too often lifts his hand
against the wife, we have dismissed corporal punish-
ment as dishonouring and degrading. It was even
put a stop to in our gaols till it was re-
♦ived by a recent act, as a supposed cure
for the vanity which sought notoriety from
raising the hand against the Sovereign. But it
is still retained in the Navy as the common punish-
ment for venial offences, such as drunkenness and

disobedienoe, and for undefined and undefinable
' offences, inch as insolence and mutinous conduct. It
is a striking illustration of the great truth expressed
by Mr. MACAULAY, in one of his speeches on parlia-
mentary reform, though in his mouth it was a mere
rhetorical and party flourish, enunciated for a pur-
pose, and not the representation of an abiding faith,
"that barbarism belongs to the government, and civi-
lisation to the people." The barbarism we have de-
scribed is in her MAJESTY'S Navy, the improvement
in manners, to which it is a contrast, is in the people.
This is a state of things, as Mr. MACAULAY added,
which cannot last; and the more the barbarism is
cleansed out of her MAJESTY'S Navy, the more the
Navy will be in accordance with the civilisation of
the people, and the more it will be worthy of
respect and honour.—Daily News.

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