The Sun.
London, England, 1836-04-02 00:00:00

MILITARY PUNISHMENTS

On Wednesday last we endeavoured 1-•
o sao by a refe-
rence to authentic details, that the • •
. statement in the report
of the Commissioners, that " 'death by shooting was the
hinge on which the wrl,-' .
.01e system of discipline in the French
army turned... as wholly untenable. At the risk of up.
peartam 'tedious, which we believe is the last of the flippant
,ttarges brought against our persevering inquiry into this
important question, we shall mention a point which, in the
accumulation of evidence, we omitted to urge when consi-
dering the comparative severity in the French service and
in our own. In the evidence of M. Le Baron de l'Ostcnde
the following passage occurs i—
" In the case of an offence of a civil nature committed upon
the property or persons of civilians, is the soldier tried by the
civil courts or the military courts ?—lf a soldier and :v civilian
are accomplices in the commission of an offence, then it is tried
by a civil court ; but if one or more soldiers, without civilian
accomplices, commit an offence, though it be a civil offence,
such us theft or any other offence towards an inhabitant of the
town, he is tried by a court. martial."
So that into the account of the military punishments in
the French army must he taken the number of civi/offences
committed by soldiers and punished by martial law. For
instance, in the list of capital punishments quoted by us on
Wednesday there were only two for crimes committed in
France in an army of 398,9.81 men. And what were these
crimes ? In both instances attempts to kill—offences which,
unless committed on parade, would in England be tried by
the civil tribunals. But. we need scarcely press this point
further. If, in a nation in which the military character of
the people is so extensively fostered. as it is among the
French, secondary punishments are found adequate to the
maintenance of discipline in one of the largest standing ar-
mies in the world, we can conceive no platisible argument
for continuing corporal punishment among ourselves. The
pretence of a superior class filling the ranks of the French
army we have already considered. We have stated that a
service justifying secondary punishments, equivalent to trans-
portation and expulsion with ignominy from the British
army, is not and cannot be composed of a class of men so far
superior to the labouring and manufacturing population of
England as to justify the distinction existing in the question
of punishment by the lash. That by the law of conscrip-
tion some young men of respectable families, yet unable to
purchase substitutes, enter the ranks is true ; but it is cear
from the evidence of the French officers, that wherever pe-
cuniary means exist, the services of substitutes are pur-
chased, and we should be glad to know in what respect such
substitutes are superior to the class of persons voluntarily
enlisting in the English army ? On this point Colonel
Keate deposes as tbllows :
" Even in the case of conscription, it would be necessary to
give the conscript, the person ballotted, the power to find a
substitute ?—I do not know how that is managed iu foreign
armies, where there is no corporal punishment.
" Arc you not aware that in France, where the army is re-
cruited by conscription, there is a power in the balloted matt
to obtain a substitute ?—I should suppose so.
" Supposing a ballot to be established here, do you not
think that in a great number of instances the balloted man
would find a substitute?—Most likely.
" And that substitute would be the same description of men
as we have now ?—Yes ; therefore I should still conceive it
necessary to retain the power of corporal punishment."
To us it appears that the sequitur of the gallant Colonel
is as applicable to the substitutes in the French army as it
can be to the volunteers in our own. If we are to be told
that the besetting sin of drunkenness constitutes the un-
favourable distinction in our own army, we may refer to the
evidence of Colonel Brotherton, commanding the depot at
Maidstone, an officer having relatives in the French army,
and one who has lived with the regiments there, and had
ample opportunities of judging of the general character of
the service. This officer deposes as follows :
" Did the crime of drunkenness appear to you to have be-
come more frequent in the French army of late ?—lt
" Have you ever heard any of the officers of the French
army give any reason for the increase of that offence ?—I
heard local reasons assigned at Tours, which I did not consider
adequate. The officers told me that I must make some allow-
ance for the troops then in the garrison, who had just come
from the north of France into the wine country of Tours. I
did not admit that reasoning, for I know that spirits are so
cheap in the north of France, that I have heard officers in the
south dread marching to the north on account of the eau de
vie being so cheap there. It is evident that drunkenness has
of late crept into the French army a good deal ; and it ap-
peared to be treated, comparatively, with impunity, as their
officers saw them drunk in the streets without noticing it.
Now, although we do not speak to a drunken soldier in the
streets, we take measures to have him sent to the barracks-"
In their anxiety to establish this their favourite point—
namely, the distinction between the class of recruits in the
French army and our own—the Commissioners have suf-
fered themselves to be betrayed into a line of examination
certainly injudicious, if not disingenuous. Take, for ex-
ample, the following passage from the examination of Colonel
Brotherton ;

Do you take recruits for the East India Company ?—..No,
only for the King's service ; and the riding establishment er
.
the army is also under my command, cignp&ied of old R^l,
We have the depts of I'm TV44nonits of British ,t e i.s.
are now in Kal cavalry which
" cyl you tuici that theso
tion of recruits 'i•egiments °Vain hotter
the other re&itueuts should say not a
descri
bettcr s',l, though a very peoultar description of recruits;
men who are anxious to giNt out of the country, either
reason.
r
having quarrelled with their families, or for some otherre. oo
"Men of a superior class in life?—Very superior; I had

- -
the son of a Pcer of the realm come to me IN iftin the last fit"
months.
" In such cases as these do you find these men mcn amer a.
ble to discipline and order than men of a lower class of lire?
—I am sorry to say that I think the worst description of sol-
dier is a decayed gentleman, or a man born in a better sphere
of Ire.

" In your opinion, which is the best description of recru't ?
—The common agricultural labourer.
Would you prefer such to the s9us of tradesmen, who hare
been taught to read and write, and received a certain de.
gree of education ?—By far. I have observed that the fewer
men that road or write in a troop or company, the better be-
haved they are.

In what way da these gentlemen's sons show their unfit-
ness for the service ?—ln the first place, they do not mix so
well with the remainder as if they were on a level with them,
and I experience some degree of perplexity in dealing with
them. If they show anything lilac gentlemanly feeling, you
cannot apply, without reluctance, the sime means of coercing
them as applied to men of a different- chats.
In the instance I
have mentioned I wrote to the father of the yoUtv g,elitlernatt,
•stating that I should wish him to reconsidPr the subject before
I sent his sent to India as a private soldier.
" Was be discharged in consequence of that ?—No. 1.-ie went
to Ind:a as 'a private Dragoon, the father perscreting in, his
determination.

" Are you at all aware of what sort of a scrape he hai get
into besides being in debt ?—I really do not know. I recently
had a lady who came down in her carriage with be: own son
to place him with me as a recruit. I asked her to tell me wbat
was his prevei!ing vice, and she candidly told me that he was
a robber ; but from the father of the other young gentleman I
never could obtain any direct information cf the sort; he
merely said that his son was
.‘ a finished blackguard.' I cer-
tainly found him wanting in proper pride, but he has sometimes
cried before me, which I thought shoe;ed not a total absence of
feel hag. "

Now, we ask, can any thing he more shallow or insin-
cere than this style of examination ? The " better descrip-
tion of recruits," the `-4 men of superior class of life," are
sneered at, by implication, in the line of questioning adopted
by the ComPnssioners. But a moment's reflection must.
make tEs matter plain to every one. We, and others,
anxious, by the removal of a degrading stigma, and by con-
current. measures of an elevating nature, to render the posi-
tion and character of the soldier deserving of general sym-
pathy and respect, have urged that by such means a better
class of men would be induced to enter the ranks of the
British army. But we are not aware that " decayed gen-
tlemen," exhausted roues, outcasts from their families,
robbers," and " finished blackguards," were ever repre-
sented by us as forming a part of the " better description"
of our countrymen. It is the honest, industrious, and re-
spectable portion of our youthful population who, though
not connected with the gentry, are yet in the en:oyment of
that sterling self-respect in a great degree distinguishing the -
middle classes of England—this portion of the population
it is that we contend-would be available for the recruiting
of the army, if the measures we advocate were adopted.
In many instances the Commissioners asked the officers ex-
amined whether recruits, when enlisting, take into conside-.
ration the subject of their liability to the lash. To this
question it is replied invariably, " No, they do not,"—an
answer which appears to afford marvellous satisfaction to the
Commissioners. But, giving this answer its full effect, what.
does it prove? . Does it prove that the liability to the lash
is not. a consideration deterring .young men of respect-
able families from enlisting ? By no means. It only
proves that the class of persons who now enlist evince no
anxiety on the subject—a class of persons, be it remem-
bered, designated by the witnesses as the very lowest of
our population ; or, to use the words of Colonel Middle-
ton, " the very dregs of society." Our argimient is, not
that respectable persons now apply and queition the recruit-
ing officer as 'to the existence or prevalence of the punish-
ment of flogging, but that, with the fullest consciousness on
tl6 point, they arc deterred from offering their services at
all. And we cannot but express our regret that a report
submitted to his Majesty, and by his Majesty's gracinus
command presented to both Houses of Parliament, should
have been characterized by an absence of that Calm and
candid consideration, wanting which the labours of this el'
any other commission must of necessity prove nugatory.
Another question which is asked during the course of these
examinations is, whether the men gook upon a soldier who
has been punished as a deg,r'l-.'red man, and shun his corn-
puny on account of the 11::,ggin,6 which he has undergone.
It has never been said by the 'advocates of the abolition
of the
PunisbnyTht. Oa the contrary, their great objection
is, that wl•fie it hardens the delinquent, it awakens a senti-
ment_ of sympathy for his sufferings in the breasts of his
comrades, which feelinm is certainly not likely to make them
shun his society, though it is well calculated to cause them
to forget his offence in their natural horror at his -punish-
ment. On both these points the evidence of the majority
of the officers examined is conclusive. Colonel Henry
Booth, himself opposed to the practice, though favourable
to the continuance of the power of flogging, speaks as fol-
lows as to the effect produced by the punishment on the
man undergoing it :
" As to the indiiidual himsclf, do you think it hardens his
character, or makes him a worse soldier afterwards ?—I think
the more frequently a man receives corporal Punishment the
worse be becomes, and more hardened and• reckless of his
character; but if he has only received corporal punishment
once for an offence, it may have a good _effect in reclaiming
him. When it is frequently resorted to, it makes a man care-
less ; he thinks himself degraded, and his character•irretriev-
able."
So also Colonel Burrell:—

-.‘ Upon the soldier himself, is the effect of it rather to --
harden him than to deter him from commtting the same-of._'
fence again ?—That depends upon the character of the ityrte
vidual. Oa some men who are punished there is not ;tlso •. -
slightest effect produced; others are desponding and
rited after- it, and apparently affected by the exhibition they
have made."

As to the impression upon the soldiers witnessing the
punishment, our readers may remember that we quoted. a
few days ago the opinion of Sir Henry Fane, to the effect
that the punishment mast be appalling, because the younger
soldiers fainted away in the ranks at beholding it. Similar
evidence is given by more than one gallant officer ; but the
two following answers may suffice—one from the examina-
tion of an officer, the other from that of a sergeant-major :
" In cases of corporal punishment, when inflicted at Chat-
ham, do you conceive that those punishments have had more
effect in the way of example ?—1 do think so; because, on the
occasion of the very List corporal punishment we had there,
now some time ago,•there were a great number of recruits pre-
sent to witness it, and I dare say as many as 25 or 30 of them
fell out of the ranks, and some actually fainted, though the
punishment was extremely slight—the man received only 100
lashes."

" Has corporal punishment a great effect on the men who
witness it, by way of example ?—lt has. I have seen a num-
ber cif men faint, particularly the young men."
Now, to us, pretending to no more profound judgment
on the subject than every human being is competent to
exercise, it does appear self-evident that a punishment, the
bare sight of which produces such an effect as that deicribed,
must be too shocking to the sensibilities of our common
nature to admit of its exercising a truly salutary influence
on the minds of those witnessing it. When _C4--tbil
yr-
buthnot tells the Commissioner-, that from 12 to 16 men
were obliged to leave the square while the corporal punish-
ment was going on, and this decidedly from terror, and not
from disgust at the sight of the punishment, the gallant
officer draws a distinction which we think it would be diffi-
cult to substantiate. That terror is inspired by such a
spectacle we cannot doubt, but equally certain do we feel
that it must excite unmitigated disgust.
We now conceive that this part of the question, namely,
the nature and effects of corporal punishment, may be safely
left to the good sense and the good feeling of our fellow-
countrymen.' We have certainly not sought to heighten
the colouring of a subject by its very nature sufficiently ab- '
}torrent to the popular sympathies.. We have contented
ourselves by stating facts, on the authority of the report
which the Commissioners have laid
.before his Majesty ;
and, as we have had no object so much at heart as the per-
manent interests of the army, which we feel to be deeply im-
plicated in the settlement of this question,-we shall not
stop short at the consideration of corporal punishments.
only, but shall request the public attention to certain
points of discipline mentioned by Sir Henry Hardinge and
others, which we think should be calmly determined on, at
the same moment.that corporal punishment is finally abo-
lished.-7'intes.

Ma. O'CONNELL.—The lunatic asylums through-
out the country must be enlarged. We all know the melan-
choly effects produced in certain temperaments by violent
emotions of the mind, and we lament to perceive decided
symptoms of these eff:ets among the more morbid of some of
the poor defeated Tories. The Editor of the Hull Parket
had a very violent paroxysm yesterday. The immediate ex-
citing cause is, we learn, intimately connected with Mr.
O'Connell's visit. When he heard how great was the en-
thusiasm with which the Liberator's arrival was hailed, our
unfortunate friend became raving mad. He was, of course,
very incoherent, and not a little abusive, as will be seen by
the following outbreak One of the paltriest scribes
among his countrymen talks of his (Mr. O'Cor..-Jell) receiv-
ing renewed assurances of British symltath!," in the native
town of Andrew Marvell.' Shade of '_,,drew Marvell! hear
this; and LA some one of your desn'endants blight with your
honest but withering scorn bo!lir''..e advocated and the advocate.
They talk of Andrew 2stikr7eil they ! aliens in birth, in cha.
ra:ter, in priprinciple,genius !—they, who sympathise with
your natiw about as much as the self-mutilated lirah-
-0a1,7
e 1
otom
t}- mission house of England's Church. They !"
Tv:lE LATE
loss.els'tiiimeated a t
between of propertyBo at t,OO
and only to the amount of one-third is insured.
1,000/•
, has already been subscribed for the relief of the unfor-
Lunate sufferers.
ilafioroet
The, marriage of Madame Malibran with M. do
Boriot took place on Tuesday last, at the mayory of the
socond arrondissement of Paris, upon which occasion they gave
1,000 francs to be distributed to the poor. Madame de Be-
riot has set out for London, to fulfil an engagement with the
manager of Drury. lane- Theatre.—Morning