roughly dealt with. Off goes the " bumptious
young cornet" to the office, inquires for the
editor, and on his appearing calls him " a d—d
blackguard," knocks him down, and then falls
upon him with a horse-whip, which he had
brought with him with a view to hostilities.
Twice he assaults the helpless editor in his
prostrate condition, and then retires to a
carriage, in which three of his brother-officers are
waiting, to congratulate him, doubtless, on his
spirited behaviour.

It is to be hoped that we do not number
many youths, of the Cornet W. type among the
"gentlemen" by whom our army is so fortunate
as to be officered. The cornet's small esteem
for the feelings, bodily or mental, of a native
are, however, by no means to be regarded as
exceptional. The writer has now before him
an account of a still more outrageous instance
of such brutish indifference than that just
quoted. This present case is, indeed, one of
those in which it is difficult to bring oneself to
believe—nothing less, in fact, than the case of a
young officer (a lieutenant this time) making use
of the living body of his native servant as a target
for the trial of certain experiments in gunnery
practice in which he was engaged. But the
story deserves to be told thoroughly. It is too
good—or too bad—for curtailment.

At a court-martial at Agra on the 24th of
April, 1862, Lieutenant G., of her Majesty's
Bengal Infantry, was arraigned on a charge of
"feloniously, unlawfully, and maliciously shooting
at one Meer Khan with a gun loaded with
gunpowder and a bullet of hard clay or earth,
with the intent then, and there, and thereby, to
do him some grievous bodily harm." This
gentleman was found guilty by the court, and
sentenced to three months' imprisonment, but,
strange to say, recommended to the merciful
consideration of the commander-in-chief,
because, " although the facts averred in the
charge did occur, the court is of opinion that
but little criminality attaches itself to the
prisoner, who, they fully believe, was only guilty
of error of judgment and of boyish folly." To
this the commander-in-chief makes a very proper
reply, furnishing, at the same time, some
particulars in connexion with the case which are
rather calculated to startle the stay-at-home
Englishman who is not fully acquainted with
the uses to which " natives" are sometimes put
by " officers and gentlemen" in India. The
remarks of his excellency are to the following
purpose:

"The commander-in-chief is unable to accede
to the recommendation of the court, the sentence
being already too lenient. It is shown by the
evidence that Lieutenant G., in despite of the
remonstrances of his servants, and by threats of
maltreatment, compelled Meer Khan to sit down,
covered with a quilt, whilst he fired at him.
The excuse set up, that this was done merely
to ascertain whether a ball of hard dry clay
would penetrate the quilt or be broken against
it, cannot be listened to, for it was quite
unnecessary in making such an experiment for his
own amusement to peril the life of a human
being. One shot broke, but the second wounded
the servant in the leg, and laid him up for a
time. If the shot had struck Meer Khan in
the eye or temple, it might have deprived him
of sight, or proved fatal. The commander-in-
chief is quite at a loss to understand how the
court can excuse such a premeditated and selfish,
outrage on humanity as a ' boyish folly.' His
excellency cannot believe that if the act had
been committed on any friend or relation of
any member of the court they would have come
to the same conclusion. The prisoner had some
time before been punished by the magistrate
for having discharged a loaded pistol at a policeman;
a fact which renders still more untenable
the excuse of ' boyish folly.'"

Now, what are we to expect of the future
career of a young gentleman such as this?
That he will prove a credit to his profession,
and be likely to turn out a valuable officer in
after-life? Yet this is the kind of personage
who, according to our present system, may in
the natural course of events, and if he happens
to be possessed of money enough to buy his
way up, have the safety and welfare of British
troops—your troops, fellow-householder, and
mine—entrusted to his care.

Let us now turn from these instances of
mere dull barbarism to one or two specimens
of persecution of what may be called a less
material character. Distinctly or indistinctly,
most of us have some sort of recollection of the
Robertson court-martial and of what was
familiarly called the " Dawkins row," two
celebrated causes, which had at least this one
element in common, that both Captain Robertson
and Lieutenant-Colonel Dawkins were men who
had managed to become vastly unpopular in
their respective regiments, and against each of
whom a very determined attempt was made to
force him to retire. Their unpopularity,
however, arose from different causes.

There seems no reason to doubt, and this is
the most curious feature of the Robertson case,
that if this gentleman and Colonel Dickson,
had fought a duel, the captain might have held
his position in the regiment entirely unmolested.
But no duel having taken place after Colonel
Dickson had in the hall of his club called
Robertson a liar and a coward, shaken his fist
at him, and promised to horsewhip him "in
front of his regiment," and no apology being
obtainable from the colonel, the unfortunate
captain was pronounced by those whom it
concerned to have been wanting in spirit, and was
treated accordingly.

It is a very difficult thing in these days to
come out of a personal altercation with flying
colours, and certainly Captain Robertson did
not succeed in doing so. He demanded apologies
of his adversary, it is true, in a variety of
ways. He even on one occasion sent a friend
to demand a hostile meeting—though one sees
this part of the business only dimly, through a
veil or mist of some density. At all events no
meeting came off, no apology was made, Colonel