The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-13 00:00:00

Corporal inflictions were not then disgraceful, they
being considered to possess an expiatory character.
But this belief in the efficacy of flagellation and se-
vere fasts has long disappeared. Public opinion in
our day brands the punished criminal with an almost
indelible disgrace ; and perhaps the degrading cha-
racter of corporal punishment is more sensibly felt in
the army than in civil life, owing to the circumstance
that it is exclusively inflicted on private soldiers.
Even those who defend the suitableness of flogging as
a punishment, practically admit the degrading cha-
racter of the infliction, by refusing to take a whipped
offender into the public service ; he is also liable to be
refused employment in civil life. By this means,
Prince Oscar inquires, "Is there not thus formed a class
of Pariahs, or modern outlaws, who are obliged to
-.consider themselves as being in a continued state of
warfare with society ?"
For a long time the cat-of-nine-tails has not been
used in the British army except by the sentence of a
court-martial, and in the presence of a medical officer.
At what particular date the formality of a court-mar-
tial became essentially necessary, I have not learned.
In a general order, which was issued in Canada on
the 14th of November, 1759, it was announced that
"any soldier that is found drunk will receive twenty
lashes per day, until he owns where he got the liquor ;
and his allowance of rum will be stopped for six
weeks."—(" Historical Journal of the Campaign in
North America," by Capt. Knox, rol. ii., p. 206.)
No court-martial seems to have been required in
carrying the above punishment into effect; and it is
obvious that the cat was to be used as an instrument
of torture, with the view of extracting evidence.
Until 1837, there was no limitation to the extent of
the sentence of a general court-martial; "bounds
were not set to show the maximum of punishment ;"
everything, in this respect, was left to the discretion
of the court. The following is the largest amount of
punishment which I have known inflicted upon a man
for one and the same crime :

In 1813 or 1814, when a wing of the Bengal Eu-
ropean regiment was stationed in the island of Am-
boyna, three men belonging to the corps were tried
by a court-martial for marauding and ill-treating the
natives. Each of the three men was sentenced to
receive fifteen hundred lashes. A punishment parade
being formed, and immediately after the reading of
the sentence, one of the prisoners sprung forward,
seized the drum-major's sword, and called upon the
men in the ranks to come forward in his favour—a
request to which they did not respond. He was forth-
with secured ; and having been lashed to the triangles,
he received the whole amount of his sentence, fifteen
hundred lashes well applied. The other two prisoners
received each the same number, equally well inflicted.
In the framing of laws rigor is necessary, but in exe-
cuting them mercy is essentially required. The
converse appears to have obtained in the above cases, the
punishment having been more severe than was war-
ranted by either former usage or express regulation.
The prisoner who was first punished was subse-
quently tried for his mutinous conduct in the square
of the corps, and having been condemned to death, the
sentence was inflicted by his being shot with musk,

.etry.

USE OF SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS
Mr. Joseph Sturge has published the following
letter in justification of the firm of Joseph and
Charles Sturge, corn-factors, Birmingham, not to sell
barley for malting :
To C. D., Corn Exchange, London.
Birmingham, 11th Month, sth, 1844.
Esteemed Friend,—Thy letter of the 4th ultimo
has the following remark on the notice contained in
our last Monthly Circular :—" The singular resolu-
tion you have come to, as to not selling malting bar-
ley, has been much canvassed here to-day. I regret
it much, and the more so as I can discover no good
and sound reason for it." This observation, and some
other circumstances, induce me to give a further ex-
planation why this resolution was adopted, believing
that thyself, and many other of our friends, though
differing in opinion, will not condemn a course which
results from a conviction of duty.
Intemperance produces such an incalculable amount
of vice and misery, that I consider it right N use my
influence to promote the principles of total abstinence.
This I feel the more bound to do, as nearly twenty
years' personal experience, and much observation in
this and other parts of the world, has convinced me
that fermented
_liquors are not necessary to health,
and that those who refrain even from what is termed
the moderate use of them, are in consequence capable
of more bodily and mental exertion, and exempt from
many maladies which afflict others.
In accordance with these views, our firm has alto-
gether declined the sale of malt, or the supply of any
grain to distilleries, and converted to other uses
cellars which many years ago we let to wine and
spirit-merchants. Our continuing to take commis-
sions for the sale and purchase of barley for the pur
pose of malting, has for some years caused me much
uneasiness; and I have recently been so fully con-
vinced that it is wrong to do so, that I must have
withdrawn from our concern had it not been relin-
quished. The belief that we are responsible for the
means of acquiring, as well as for the use we make of
our property, and that we cannot exercise too rigid
watchfulness over our own conduct, is compatible
with perfect charity towards those who differ with us
in opinion.—l am respectfully,
JOSEPH STUItGE.
IR

.NTERIOR OF AN -ISII CittiN.—ln the winter time,
when the inclemency of the weather is so great as to
render it impossible for the inmates to endure the cold
with open door, and they are-, consequently, obliged to
shut it, the interior is so full of smoke that you cannot
see a couple of feet before you. In the dark evenings,
a stranger coming into one of these cabins would have
some difficulty, unless the turf happen to he throwing
out a large flame, to tell whether or not there were any
fire in the place. Then the floor, if floor it may be called,
of these wretched abodes, is well nigh as muddy as the
wall on the outside. The road, indeed, often has the
advantage of the cabin ; for in a frosty night, or when
the weather has not been rainy for seine time, the road
is dry ; but the Irish peasant's cabin is perpetually in a
muddy state. The potatoes are all washed OA the floor,
and the quantity of water, in this and other ways, which
is spilled on the floor, keeps it in a state of constant
muddiness. Nor is this all : the cow, where there is
one, and the pigs and poultry—invariable accompaniments
to a cabin—all sleep, and eat, and drink, in the same
place as the peasantry themselves. I leave the reader
to imagine to himself what must be the condition of the
interior of an Irish cabin, when it is thus no better than
a menagerie on a miniature scale—the poor peasant him
self being scarcely in a more favourable state than the
animals by which he is surrounded. The inmates of the
cabin—l mean the rational part of them—have seldom
anything worthy the name of bod on which to lay them-
selves when they retire to rest. They lie down, like the
pigs, or the dog, on the wet floor, partially protected,
perhaps, from the effects of the damp by two or three
pieces of board ; but more frequently by only a little
straw. The whole family mingle together in the night-
time, without regard to those delicacies which distin-
guish the sexes even among the poorest classes in this
country. But let me guard against being here mis-
understood: it is not the choice of the peasantry, but
the necessity of the case—their cabins being exceed-
ingly small places—to which we are to ascribe this
promiscuous association of the inmates, without distinc-
tion of age or sex, when they retire to rest. To the
credit of the character of the Irish peasantry be it
spoken, the results which some persons would anticipate
from this, never, or very rarely, take place.— Impressions
of Ireland and the Irish.