The Sun. — 1844-11-12 (London, England)

PUBLICATIONS.  of what he intended to express was this: that he had been suspected of writing a letter in a newspaper, respecting the state of the regiment, some two or three years ago, and that he had ever since undergone such unremitting persecution, as rendered life intolerable, and he therefore, by the commission of this crime, hoped for death, as a termination to his sufferings. He did not name any one as his persecutor, but intended merely to remind the court, that rational beings were not in the habit of acting as he and others had done, without some cause. This man was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment with hard labour, and a month's solitary confinement every four months. Had private H-- committed suicide, instead of making a show of striking his captain for the purpose of being put to death, a coroner's inquest would, I think, have returned a verdict of temporary insanity. It is notorious that this man sought death as a release from continued suffering. Flogging has been long the principal secondary punishment in the British army. In are early part of the last century it was inflicted by means of rods, and by hired executioners ; but that mode having fallen into disuse, the present system was adopted, namely, by drummer with the cat-of-nine-tails. During the rebellion in Scotland in 1745, the cat was much employed by the army, to extort evidence, as well as to punish soldiers. 'We learn by the Jacobite memoirs, that a sentry, who had been convicted of allowing a prisoner to escape, received 500 lashes with it. The punishment of flogging has been employed and defended, apparently as if it were calculated to expiate or atone for crimes. Flagellation was no doubt approved by public opinion, so long as it was in accordance with the prevalent religious ideas. The Church pointed out corporal inflictions as a means of salvation ; and the repentant sinner believed, that by penance and bodily suffering, he should recover peace of conscience. Corporal inflictions were not then disgraceful, they being considered to possess an expiatory character. But this belief in the efficacy of flagellation and severe fasts has long disappeared. Public opinion in our day brands the punished criminal with an almost indelible disgrace ; and perhaps the degrading character 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 character 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 aclass 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-martial 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, vol. 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 European regiment was stationed in the island of Amboyna, 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 forthwith 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 executing them mercy is essentially required. The converse appears to have obtained in the above cases, the punishment having been more severe than was warranted by either former usage or express regu ON