Star.
London, England, 1828-03-11 00:00:00

MUTINY If LLIMOGGING.

Sir A. GRANT presented the Report of the Mutiny Bill.
Lord NUGENT rose to propose a new clause, to
prevent corporal punishment in the army, except in
certain cases. He admitted that it was the preroga-
tive of the Crown to controul the army, and to issue
orders for its due regulation and discipline. He did
not wish to interfere with this prerogative—but he
would ask, was this a mode of punishment that ought
to be resorted to? Was it calculated to raise the
spii it and character of the soldier ? Was its tendency
to effect the good that was desired ? He thought not.
But he should be asked, %hat remedy had he to
propose? what mode of punishment had he to sug-
gest as a substitute ? If a substitute for the degrading
lash could be proposed, he assumed that no one would
object to prohibit the use of flogging in the army. Ii
was an unfortunate thing that in arguing this question,
he was obliged to resort to " comm. n places." He con-
tended that the use c.f the lash tended to break the spirit
and degrade the mind; and that it was 'calculated to
sully the high honour of the army, which they were so
anxious to sustain. How grievous must that man's feel-
ings be who had triumphantly fought with his regiment
against the enemy, yet who bore about him the stripes
f shame! Could that man exult, like his brethren in
arms? To show its inutility, his Lordship mentioned
that the practice was prohibited in the Highland regi-
ments—so shameful was it deemed to have been- ex-.
posed to the lath ! There was another evil resulted fronli
this practice—it contributed to confuse the gradations
of punishment. There had been two and three
hundred lasf•es awarded for comparitively trivial of-
fences; while not many more could be given for the
heaviest offences punished with the lash. Heretofore
as many as one thousand lathes had been awarded.-
Ihe man. after receiving a certain number of lashes,
was conveyed to the hospital, and afterwards brcught
back to receive the remainder of the sentence. That
disgraceful practice, he understood, was discontinued.
In the clause which he intended to propose, be sug-
gested the policy of preventing flogging in the army,
except in cases of drunkenness %hen actually on service,
of thefts and frauds, and of assaults with intent to com-
m:t felony. The practice was a national reproach,
and it was calculated to vulgarize the mind. He would'
not detain chi! House longer; but he conjured the
House, for the sake of the service, to entertain his

clause instead of that now constituting the 24th section
of the Mutiny Bill; namely, to prohibit flogging, or
other corporal punishment in the army, except in the
cases which he had mentioned.
Mr. J. SMITH, in seconding the motion, dwelt at
some length on the demoralizing and degrading conse-
quences which were attached to the system of flagella-
tion. He had made inquiries with respect, to the effect
which the practice of whipping had on 'arose indivi
duals who %ere thus punished at the close of each Se..
sion at the Old Bailey; and he had learned from the
tespectab e and intelligent individual whom he had
consulted, that he had observed, during the whole time
in which he had held the office of principal keeper of
Newgate, that the individuals so punished were, for
the greater part, in his custody again before the ex-
piration of twelve months, after they had been so ex-
posed to the public gaze. This was not surprising ;
roe after a wretched individual had received so public
and so indelible a disgrace as that of flogging, it was
quite clear that no decent individual would associate
with him, and that no respectable person would employ
him. He was convinced that the effect of continuing
this punishment in the army had an equally baneful
effect. Considerable relaxation had, of late years, taken
place in the system ; and lie believed that as the minds
of men became more refined and expanded, it would
be left off altogether. In some parts of Europe this
species of punishment had been entirely remove.';
and he hoped that, for the sake of the country, and
for the sake of humaniy, it would be put an end to in
the British army.
Sir J. SEBRIGHT defended the practice as abso-
lutely necessary. He should continue to hold the opinion
till he beard horn persons of more experience than the
mover and seconder of the amendment, that the disci-
Ipline of the Army could be maintained without conti-
Inuing the power now sought, in part, to be abolished.
He had seen a good deal of service, and he declared the
necessity of retaining the power as a dernier resort.
Sir HUSSEY VIVIAN was also confident that the
British army could not be managed without keeping up
this discipline. He could not but deprecate the constant
recurrence, Session after Session, of such discussions as
these, the dangerous tendency of which must surely be
obvious to every man of common reflection. The
Noble Lord had talked of its being impossible to pass a
barrack gate without being she eked by witnessing the
agony and laceration of some offenders undergoing this
punishment. Why, what was the fact ? The infliction of
it was becoming every year more and more unfrequent.
An Hon. Gentleman said that the effect of the retaining
such a punishment in the army caused the British sol-
dier to crouch to his officer like a spaniel at the beck
of his master. New, whether or no, the punishment
had prejudiced their spitit and effectiveness, he would
leave it to their achievements eluting the last war to tell
(Cheering)—and as for the crouching, it might have
been said, with much more truth and reason, that they
resembled their native bull.dogs—full of heart and
high courage, and only requiring now and then the
hand of the master to keep them in and prevent them
from doing mischief to their neighbours—(Hear). The
official situation he occupied had enabled him to procure
some returns, from which he would read a passage, in
order to show how much the number of punishments
was now decreasing in the army. The return from one re-
giment (it was not necessary to designate these regiments)
was, in one year, 68 defaulters, 4 Cour is Martial, 1 man
punished : from another, 70 defaulters, 19 Courts Mar-
tial,2 men punished; from another,3s defaulters,4Courts
Martial, 2 men punished ; from another, 21 defaulters,
one man punished; from another. 40 defaulters, 16
Courts Martial, four men punished. With the exception
of two cases, none of these punishments had exceeded
one hundred lashes; and most of them were under that
amount of infliction. The House was to understand,
that in every regiment a book was kept, in which the
name and offence of every defaulter was entered. The
number of these defaulters, therefore, represented the
number of offences in the regiment. As to what had
been said in respect to the French army, the compari-
son was not a fair one, he held, on many accounts.—.
The manner in which the men were drafted into that
service was essentially different from the mode observed
in our drafting. Men of great knowledge and of highly-
respectable conneziOns also very frequently entered the
French ranks, and in their case such offences as we
punish with flogging were net likely to occur. Indivi-
duals, too, of obis descriptisn, as he had been informed
by an Officer of high rank in the French army, were
found to exercise an extraordinary influence over their
comrades. Their punishments were far more formidable
than ours ; they punished with death, or the /router, or
transmission to a condemned regiment, or spare diet
and imprisonment, or removal to remote garrisons,
where their duty lasted for life. Now, what was the
comparative effect of these two different systems? The
House knew well linw our men bad acquitted themselves
in the field; and as for cone ano in quarters, let any
man go to the South ref France, eW,lse would hear
that, by the French themselves, their own troops were
everywhere complained of—the English everywhere
hailed as deliverers—(blear, heat). It he wanted a proof
of the error into which men unacquainted with those
topics were sure to fall if they attempted to deal with
them, he should find it in this very motion of the Noble
Lord. Oddly enough, it omitted all notice of the more
'serieus-military offences, for which military punishment
was always inflicted—such as disobedience of orders,
sleeping on pest, &c. and excepted from the abolition,
which it otherwise requited, of flogging, those very
cases—theft, assault, and felony, for which flogging was
nor, and could not, by law be administered—the law
requiring all offenders in these respects to be handed
over to the civil power—(Hear, hear). Then, as to the
feeling of the man for his officer, which had been repre-
sented as one of unmixed fear and dislike, the fact
really was, owing to the exemplary cc nduct of all
British officers at the present day, that the soldier looked
upon him as his father, and the officer invariably proved
himself to the soldier to be his protector. Fur his own
part, the most trying moment he (Sir H. Vivian) had
ever experienced, was when he was obliged to sever
himself from a regiment in which he bad served 20 years,l
which he had commanded for ten.
Mr. WILBRAHAM said, he considered the practice
'of flogging disgraceful to the British Army, and was
often shocked at seeing men who would have readily
faced the artillery of the enemy, carried off the parade
when punishment was inflicting an their comrades,
unable to endure the sight. He considered it highly,
honourable to Lord Combermete, that he had abolished
flogging in the Indian Army ; and he thought it extra-
ordinary, that while the natives of India, and of all the
counties in Europe were governed without flogging,
that British soldiers only should continue to be treated
like dogs—(Wear, hear).
Mr. WARBURTON condemned the practice of
flogging, and thought the punishments of the French
army might be introduced into the English with great
advantage.
Colonel LINDSAY considered that the principle of
military is)unishment was necessary to be retaiped in the.
littish srstn7, although it should be seldom resorted tn.

~y.

When the duties which our soldiers tette tallied upon to
perform were taken into account, he was at a loss to
know how these duties could be efficiently discharged
without the existence of a strict code, although the
severity of that code should he called into action es rarely
as possible. The punishment of flogging was now fat le,s
prevalent in our army than formerly. This was in a great
degree attributable to the discussions upon the subject in
that House—(Hear, heat)—especially to the Motions
upon the subject brought forward by the Honourable
Member for Westminster (Sir F. Burdett). He would
'ask what the Noble Lord (Nugent) would subsitute foe
this punishment, in cases of gross insubordination?..
Even upon the principle of humanity, he thoight the
practice of flogging should n. 4 be altogether abo.
lished—for if it were, even according to the argument
of the Honourable Gentlemen who were for abrogating
it, the punishment of death would. sometimei bt in.
flitted, where the punishment e f flogging now pri:
vailed. Capital punishment would thus be inflicted as
punishment for crimes which were now considered not
to deserve it— (Hear, hear). In foreign armies, as
the Austrian and in the Russian armies, flogging lie.,
trailed, and was infl•cted at the caprice of non-corn;
missioned officers,*which was not the case in our service.
Seeing, as he did, that the British army Was able to beat
the army of any other nation to which it had been ever
opposed—he was unwilling to alter the discipline under
which our army had been brought to its present state of
perfect order, and by which it had been enabled toifight
triumphantly in every contest in which it had been en-
gaged--(Hear, hear).
Mr. HUME did not think flogging was so very good
and so desirable a thing as Hon. Gentlemen seemed to
think it. It was asked, would they have an army with-
•out discipline? Decidedly not ; but he would have
punishment of a less degrading character than being
tied up and flogged at the halbeits. In France, in the
Netherlands, In Prussia, in Wit temberg, the practice of
flogging was discontinued ; in 4ustria alone did it
continue, and there it was neither so disgusting nor
so barbarous as it had been for years in the British
Army. But was there no discipline kept up in any
of those armies ? No man in his senses could dream of
any such thing. What he wished was, that such a danger-
ous power,should not be allowed to any man or set of
men. He wished punishment to be less severe, but more
effectual ; and he thought the abolition of flogging
would be the means of making it as much so as could
be desired. He had the authority of Lord Combermere
fur saying, that corporal punishment was infamous, in
as much as he had issued orders, that no soldier in India
who should be flogged should hereafter remain in the
army. He did not believe the British soldiers tequi.ed
the lash to screw up their courage; but be was saisfied
it tended to barbarize and degrade them.
Colonel WOOD thought, that although corporal
punishment was not allowed in foreign armies, the dis.
cipline of them was preserved with greater severity than
in ours, because the infliction of capital punishment e as
mote frequent. The Noble Lord who had introduCed
this subject had attributed to him an argument which
he had never used. That Noble Lord had made him
say, that as boys were flogged at school, he saw no
reason why soldiers should not be flogged. Now, no
such argument had ever fallen from his lips.• The
whole study of his life had been to do away with cor-
poral punishment; and if he took credit for any thing,
it was this, that though he had been at the head of a
very large body of men, there had been fewer in•
fictions of corporal punishment among them than in
any corps in the service. He admitted that this kind
of punishment, as far as old soldiers were concerned,
never corrected the offence for which it was inflicted ;
but then it frequently, deterred others from committing
the same offence. The British army bad been contrasted
with the armies of other countries. Kr his part, he
thought the British soldiers, who had beaten all the
armies that had been brought against ihem,had military
character enough.. As soon as they e ere disembodied,
too, they fell into the mass of the people, and did not,
as in France, form a particular class of the ccmmunity,
and still preserving their military character, think them-
selves of a superior order to the rest of their fellow
subjects.
Sir H. VIVIAN explained. •
Lord PALMERSTON said, that some of the punish.
ments used on the Continent, which it was wished to
have adopted here, it would be impossible to introduce,
from the nature of our institutions. Solitary imprison.
anent, for example, wanted military fortresses, and if
the soldier was imprisoned in the ordinary gaols of the
country, the associates he would there meet with would
not be likely to amend 'his future conduct. But it was
a great mistake to suppose, that there were no corporal
punishment in fcreign services; but the difference be.
tween them and those inflicted in England was, that
they depended on the will of the officers, whilst in
England it first required an inquiry by Court Martial—
(Hear). That foreign example was not one, he thought,
to be looked up to in this country. There were other punishments
in foreign countries which would still more revolt public opiuita
than Sagging. The practice, for example, of parading men about
the streets with cannon balls attached to their legs, or of exhibiting
them publicly, as condemned to public works, would never suit this
country. The fact was, that it was impossible, particularly abroad,
to preserve the discipline of a large body of armed men, with.
root having the means of inflicting prompt punishment. Im-
prisonment, and the other substitutes suggested for flogging, were
not of that nature. The Noble Lord who had originated that
discussion, proposed to abolish corporal punishment, except
fur certain offences named in a clause he introduced fur the
purpose. Now that happened to be the offences which, under the
Mutiny Act and the Articles of War, were cognizable by the orti•
nary tribunals of the country, in all cases where it was possible to
have recourse to them. So that he proposed to retain corporal
punishment in cases already provided for by law, and to abolish it
in the more urgent cases, which the ordinary tribunals could not so
well reach. The Mutiny Act was brougbt in, because the ordinary
proceedings at law did not furnish sufficiently prompt and efficacious
means of putting down a mutiny. It would be better at once to
take away the power altogether, in order that the result might be
speedily seen, than leave it, as the Noble Lord now proposed, to be
exercised in cases where it would not be needed, whilst be did nut
allow it to be used in cases of a more dangerous description:.
General DUFF protested egoism any hasty attempts to remodel
an army which bad driven the invincible legions of France from one
end of the world to the other.
The House was then cleared; but no division took place, and the
amendment was negatived.