The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-11 00:00:00

vbernina mt.
LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1651.

For many a weary year have the opponents of the
" base, brutal, and bloody" system of flogging in the
army exerted themselves to improve the character and
materiel of our army, by rescuing the back of the
soldier from the indelible imprint of the degrading
lash, and thus to render the service one into which a
better class of men would willingly enter—men of
bravery, men of character, men of morality, men of
honour, wbo had hitherto been deterred from en-
listing by their knowledge of the fact that the
moment they donned the distinctive mark of the
soldier they were liable to be flogged. Slowly, very
slowly, did the opponents of floggingprogress, yet they
did progress sufficiently to encourage them to perse-
vere in their laudable endeavours. The powers of
regimental court-martials. to order flogging were
restrained within narrow limits, and courts-martial of
a higher order were virtually, if not really, restrained
from ordering the infliction of lashes by thousands,
that is to say, from ordering men to be tortured to
death under the lash, a power which they had pre-
viously not unfrequently exercised. Still the power
of inflicting the punishment of flogging remained,
and was fully exercised, any proposal to substitute for
it any other less degrading and less indelible punish-
ment was scouted by the old bigots, military and civil,
who find it easier to flog than to think. It was in
vain that the Gallant General Sir CHARLES NAPIEB,
after a careful consideration of the subject, and after
bringing the experience of forty years as a regimental
officer to bear upon it, declared that he objected to
flogging, because it was torture which indelibly
branded a man, and endangered his life, and that he
was of opinion that it could be safely abolished in
time of peace, because it was then an act of
needless severity. It was in vain that it was shown
that the punishment of flogging had been frequently
resorted to in order to enable an ill-educated officer
to gratify his personal and political spite against a
soldier under his command, of whose superior abili-
ties and superior education he was envious ; it was in
vain that in one instance, at least, a soldier was
flogged to death and a coroner's inquest held on his
mangled remains—still flogging in the army was not
abolished. It is true that in this latter case public
indignation was so aroused that the number of lashes
that could be inflicted was reduced to fifty
and a pledge was given that the practice of
flogging should be done away with as much as pos-
sible, and some other punishment substituted in its
place, a pledge which we believe has been faithfully
kept, inasmuch as wherever it is possible imprison-
ment has been substituted for flogging, and with the
best possible effect, as appears from the report re-
cently made to the Secretary at War by Lieutenant-
Colonel JEBn, the Inspector-General of Military
Prisons.

From that report it appears that in 184.5, the year
previous to the establishment of prisons, the number
of convictions by courts-martial was 9,954, and 652
corporal punishments .were inflicted. In 1850, the
convictions were 9,306, and the corporal punishments
238. The effective force was about the same in each
Sear ; in 1845, 125,252, and in 1450, 125,119. Last
year there were 495 lashes inflicted by the visitors for
serious offences, and the number of prisoners ad-
mitted into military prisons was 3,565. In comment-
ing on these facts as illustrative of the good effect
produced by substituting imprisonment for flogging
as a punishment for military offences, Colonel JEB3
says :—" If the views of the most experienced officers
in her MAJESTY'S service as to the deterring influence
of corporal punishment were correct, a great increase
of crime in the army might have been anticipated as
the necessary consequence of limiting the power of
courts-martial, and materially diminishing a mode of
punishment deemed to be the most efficacious for the
maintenance of discipline. It is, however, satisfactory
to see that the result has not been unfavourable, and
though it may partly be attributed to the encourage-
ment given to good conduct, the better class of men
who have entered the service, and the partial dis-
charge of some of the worst characters, yet, taking all
this into account, I think experience ha. sufficiently
shown that imprisonment for military offences has
answered the expectations that were formed
,of it."

We think that Col. JEBB might have fairly attributed
the result wholly and entirely to the diminution
of the infliction of corporal punishment, inasmuch as
but for such diminution " the better class of men "
would have never entered the service, and had they
not entered the necessities of that service would have
required the retention of the worst class, of whom'the
army has recently been purged. After the undoubted
success of this experiment, which has extended over a
period of six years, we trust that we shall never
more hear quoted, in support of the necessity of re-
taining the punishment of flogging in the army, the
authority of any booby colonel, who boasts
(stupid fellow) that he was flogged at school, and
contends that therefore it is necessary to retain the
punishment in the army. We shall quote hence-
forth against the authority of the booby colonel the
authority of the sensible Colonel JExB, as set forth in
the report referred to. Neither shall we any more,
we trust, find a flogged and flogging magistrate libel-
ling the army from the bench, by declaring that our
soldiers would be cowards and our army suffer defeat
were they not flogged into courage and discipline.
Does this man remember, when he thus indulges in
idle and offensive prate, that the army which conquered
at Valmy was an unflogged army, that of the vic-
tors of Jemappes not one was ever liable to the
degradation of the lash, that the flogged army of the
Duke of Yoax was defeated in Holland by the un-
flogged army of the French Republic, and that Ma-
rengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, Eylau, Friedland,
were all gained by unflogged troops, who in each
instance defeated the well-flogged troops who were
opposed to them ? The worse than inutility of the
flogging system having been proved, and the experi-
ment of the substitution of imprisonment having suc-
ceeded, we hope that during the next session of
Parliament we shall see the punishment of flogging
in the army abolished by law.

The harrowing effects of pestilence and famine
combined—the fearful sufferings of the Irish people
during the continuance of the potato blight, have
received the most powerful illustration from the
census returns for the sister kingdom, which have just
been published. It is impossible to obtain more au-
thentic evidence as to the frightful state of affairs
in that much afflicted land than is afforded
by the important document aboVe alluded to.
The simple array of figures speaks trumpet-
tongued as to the horrors of that eventful period.
It was not merelfthat the people were decimated, that
every tenth person was cut off from the population.
Such a visitation can convey no adequate idea of
the loss of life in what were termed, par excellence,
" the distressed districts," and we believe that we are
by no means exaggerating the awful facts of the case
in stating that, in many localities in the south and
west of Ireland, at least one-half of the inhabitants
perished from want of the common necessaries of life,
even of the very coarsest description, or from diseases
engendered by the absence of sufficient food; while
the more unfortunate survivors endured privations
of the most heartrending description, far beyond
aught which the untutored imagination can conceive.
In this favoured and happy country, a single death '
from starvation excites the deepest sensation through-
out the length and breadth of the land. The people
stand
aghast at the mere possibility of such an oc •
currence. It is at once decided that there must have
been some serious error in some
quarter, and woe to