he could bring all the men in the room to prove
that the corporal was telling a falsehood; the
answer was:—" I would sooner take the word
of the junior lance-corporal, than believe the
oaths of all the privates in the regiment."

Take some examples of this. In 1849,
Corporal Jones, of the Tenth Hussars, was mounting
guard, and, being rather nervous, was trembling
when the adjutant and sergeant-major were
parading him: so he was ordered to fall back,
and was sent to his room for being drunk. This
was at six A.M.; at three minutes past six he
was in his room, a large one, where between
thirty and forty men slept. All these men said
that he was sober; and, on the court-martial,
he called upon them as evidence for the defence.
For the prosecution there were the sergeant-major
and a sergeant, who swore that the
corporal was very drunk. The men in his room
swore that he was sober, both before going on
parade and after he came off. But their evidence
was not admitted; the President saying that he
was not tried for being drunk five minutes before
six, or three minutes after six, but for being
drunk at six o'clock precisely. Accordingly he
was found guilty, and sentenced to be reduced
to the ranks. What would the world say to
justice so administered in civil cases?

Under the mask of a court-martial, more injustice
has been perpetrated in the army, than any
man out of it can imagine. During the Peninsular
War, the unjust sentences pronounced, and
the cruel tyranny practised by these tribunals,
were beyond conception, and even now they
scarcely can be credited; for instance, what
would be thought of this now-a-days? The
Marine Officer, in his Sketches of Service, tells
this story:—The commanding-officer of the
Ninth Regiment of Foot, who ruled chiefly
by fear, after the defeat of the enemy at
Roliça, established a permanent court-martial
in the regiment: a kind of sitting provost
commission. The men serving on this were exempt
from the other duties of the corps. One day a
soldier of the regiment, for some irregularity,
was sentenced by this court-martial to be flogged.
The regiment being on the march was halted,
the halberts were stuck up, the proceedings of
the court-martial were read, and the culprit was
ordered to strip. A generous sergeant of the
regiment then recovered his musket, and said,
"May it please your honour, the culprit is
guilty, but he is a brave soldier, and if your
honour will take me as a security for his future
good conduct, I will answer for him with my
body, and if he commits any future offence ]
will be ready to offer myself up to receive the
sentence of the present court-martial." "You
mutinous rascal," said the commanding-officer
in a rage, "I'll teach you manners!" His arms
were taken from him, and he was sent a
prisoner before the permanent court-martial
who not only reduced him to the ranks, but
sentenced him to be flogged for interfering in
favour of a fellow-soldier. When writhing at
the halberts he ground his teeth, and
muttered "I will have blood for this!" The man's
heart was broken, but the commanding-officer
remained "an officer and a gentleman" as before.
Sergeant Teesdale, in his letters addressed
to the people of England in 1835, told that:
"During our stay in Bremen, which was for
about six weeks, we had a parade to attend
morning and afternoon. The officers commanding
companies received orders from Major B.
to inspect their men closely, and turn out
to the front such as they found dirty. A
square was then formed for punishment, and
those who had been found fault with were
marched in, tried by a drum-head court-martial,
and flogged to a man, without reference to
character. There was no remission of sentence,
not a lash excused. I have known from ten
to fifteen, or twenty-five, flogged at a parade on
this frivolous pretext, and the practice was
continued on every parade until it was put a stop
to. At one of the above flogging parades, when
we had been nearly two hours witnessing the
horrible scene of bloodshed, and when the hands
and feet of every soldier in the regiment were
benumbed with cold, from remaining such a
length of time in one position, a brave old soldier,
whose character was unimpeachable, happened to
cough in the ranks. He turned his head a little on
one side to discharge the phlegm, and was
instantly ordered into the centre of the square,
stripped of his accoutrements, and placed in front
of the halberts. He went through the mock form
of trial by a drum-head court-martial. Major B.
swore he was unsteady in the ranks, and on the
ipse dixit of that tyrant he was sentenced to fifty
lashes. After the brave veteran was tied he
implored hard for mercy, adding that, 'he had
been twenty years in the service, and was never
till then brought to the halberts.' The pale,
worn, and dejected appearance of the man, from
age and length of service, was in itself enough
to excite compassion and sympathy, even had he
been guilty of a crime. His appeal was useless;
he had every lash of his sentence, and he never
looked up afterwards."

Courts-martial may be divided under three
heads: as general, district, and regimental. The
first are assembled by authority of the Queen:
or, abroad, of the officer commanding-in-chief.
General courts-martial consist, as we have seen,
of not less than a President and twelve members.
District courts-martial are ordered to assemble
by the officer in command of the division or
district, and are composed of an officer and six
members. Regimental courts-martial are ordered
to assemble by the officer commanding the regiment.
A regimental court-martial is a farce.
There is no Judge-Advocate to tell the court
what the law is. The man, in many cases, has
been virtually tried and sentenced before he is
brought to the tribunal. It is a well-known
fact in the army that one soldier found another's
sentence in the colonel's handwriting before the
man had been tried, that he boldly produced this
paper at the court-martial, and that the
regimental court-martial was therefore dissolved.
Commanding-officers who thus dictate to the
President and members of regimental courts-martial,