once saw the folly of which the cornet had been
guilty, but he was obliged to uphold the authority
of that officer. The latter magnified the offence
as much as possible, and, to make a long story
short, the colonel ordered Benson to be confined
in the cells for seven days. The sentence was
carried out, for, although the colonel gave the
comet several broad hints to beg the man off,
he would not take them. From that day forward,
Bill became one of the most careless soldiers in
the regiment, and was never out of the defaulters'
list. He took to drinking, lost his good-conduct
marks, and was discharged about two years afterwards
with a pension of threepence a day less
than he would have had if the cornet had never got
him into trouble. I don't defend his conduct for
answering an officer in the ranks. I am too old
a soldier for that. But I maintain that Bill's
punishment was brought about quite as much
by the irritating language of the cornet as by
any fault of his own.

When I read in the papers how difficult it
is now-a-days to induce men to enlist, or how
many men take their discharge after their ten
years are over, I am often tempted to take up
my pen, and tell the Secretary at War, or his
Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, some
of my experiences. For stealing, repeated
disobedience of orders, insolence to a superior, and
such crimes, dismiss a soldier publicly and with
great ignominy; if a man be careless, slothful,
unwilling to do his duty, turn him out of the regiment
shamefully; increase the pension a soldier can
earn, to a shilling a day after fifteen years' service,
and a penny a day for every subsequent year he
is in the ranks; reduce the term of enlistment
from ten years to seven; let every year in India,
the West Indies, or any other bad climate,
count as double time towards pension; do all
this, and the country will never want recruits for
the army, nor will many good soldiers leave
the service after their first term of service is
over.

The non-commissioned officers, in their way
of addressing their men, are often as much to
be blamed as the officers; and yet if they did
otherwise, they would be set down by their
superiors as wanting in smartness, and perhaps
would never rise to higher rank. This is, however,
the one great aim of many amongst the non-
commissioned ranks, and is the cause of an
immense deal of evil in the service. I have
repeatedly heard corporals and sergeants speak
to the men — or to some particular man upon
whom, in the language of the barrack-room,
they are "down" — in a manner that would not
be tolerated in the humblest employment of civil
life.

That the punishments of our army should be
severe, I have already expressed my opinion;
but I hold that they ought not to be so vexing
to the men, nor so degrading as many of them
now are. Even if a soldier has taken a glass too
much, but is not on duty, and, when he returns
to barracks, goes to bed quietly, why interfere
with him? I have seen in some infantry
regiments — in cavalry corps they are not so fidgety
—an orderly corporal of each company at the
barrack-gate, stationed there to observe and mark
down the names of any men who returned in
the least the worse for liquor. Very often the man
was just drunk enough to be quarrelsome if
meddled with; and, before he was captured, he
would, perhaps, knock down the men of the
guard, and use language the reverse of
complimentary to his superiors in general, and the
sergeant of the guard in particular. Here there
would be a clear case for a court-martial; and
the soldier would be sentenced to three or four
months' imprisonment, and loss of any good-
conduct marks he might have obtained in the
service.

Extra drill, extra riding-school, and such-like
punishments, should never be resorted to when
it is possible to avoid them. Because the
invariable effect of these is to make a soldier hate
what he should take a pride in. I don't think
we have any mode of punishment so good as
what I have heard described in the French army
as the salle de police. This is simply a place of
detention, to which a soldier is ordered for one,
two, three, or any number of days up to a month.
The prisoners are kept together during a part
of the day, but are not allowed to speak one
to another. For refractory men I would have
solitary cells, in which they might be confined
at the discretion of the commanding officer,
from one to fifteen days. If that did not bring
them to their senses, it would be far cheaper to
dismiss than to keep them. Our cumbersome
machinery of military prisons I would abolish.
They cost a very great deal, and do very little
good. In these establishments the men are
exercised at what is called shot drill — that is, a
man has, in company with half a dozen or more
of his fellow-prisoners, to lift and carry shot, by
word of command, from one socket to another
in the same square. The continual stooping, lifting
the shot, stopping again to deposit it, facing
about, marching a fern steps, and then stooping
again to renew the process, goes on for two hours
at a time, with two out of fifteen minutes to
rest. The drill takes place three times a day, and
is so severe, that the men are perfect cripples
for the first week or two, owing to the most
intense agony from racking pains in the loins,
legs, arms, and chest. The punishment is too
severe for military offences, and not severe
enough for deliberate crime. I have known
many men ruined in health for the rest of their
lives by five or six months of this work; but I
never yet knew a soldier reformed by his
sojourn in one of our military prisons. For the
money these cost, or for less, I believe we
might establish, in Canada or elsewhere, a
regiment to which soldiers should be sent for the
purpose of reforming them: thus giving them
a chance of recovering themselves apart from
their former comrades.

A great mistake is made in supposing that a
soldier when off duty must at all times be
perpetually steady, always sober, even staid. There
are young men in our ranks, just as there are
in the navy, or among any set of men. If