end." Never was there a more transparent,
or, it may be said, a more ignorant fallacy.

If there be one thing that redeems the many
short-comings of British law, it is the excellent
golden and most precious rule of excluding everything
irrelevant, and narrowing the point at issue
as much as possible. Centuries of experience
have discovered that the sure way of hiding
truth under a bushel is to let in details of every
kind and degree, but, with a fatuity which is the
result of complacent ignorance and inexperience,
our military legislators have chosen to adopt
precisely the opposite course. The Robertson
court-martial, however much it was to be
deplored in one sense, illustrated this in the most
delightful way, and was the reductio ad absurdum
of the system. In that trial there were properly
but one or two questions to be tried; before
the trial was over there were some fifty or sixty
questions before the court. A good illustration
of the embarrassment to which this " letting in
all the truth " led to, was this, or nearly this:
An officer, who was giving evidence against the
prisoner, referred incidentally to some transaction
that took place in an English town long
before, as an illustration of the prisoner's
misconduct; the prisoner denied the truth of this
insinuation, and called witnesses to prove his
denial. The officer whose credit was thus
impeached brought his witnesses. This actually
led to the credibility of these witnesses, and thus
at the end of many profitless days the court
found itself lost in a jungle of statements and
counter-statements, trying Captains A and B
and C, instead of the prisoner, and literally
miles away from the original issue. In a civil
or criminal court, the prisoner's counsel would
have simply cross-examined the first witness as
to his statement about the English town, and
by that powerful engine have shown the little
value of the statement.

But what shall be said of the clumsy and
effete method of examination, as laid down
in the Queen's Orders and Regulations, and
scrupulously carried out? The question is first
written down on a slip, then carried across
by an orderly to the president, then read by
the president to himself, then read aloud to
the court, then answered, and then written
down by the prosecutor; or, if objected to,
it is handed back to the questioner to be
re-written; or, if still persisted in, it causes
the court to be cleared and a debate with closed
doors. What can be the value of a cross-examination
on such a principle, where a perjured
witness has handsome opportunity for deliberation?
The whole bloom and essence of every question
must be worn off by such a series of handlings.
And yet the military books insist, with a gravity
almost ludicrous, on the attention to be paid to
the demeanour of witnesses, than which, they
tell us, nothing is more important. The
excuse for this clumsy procedure is, " that everything
must be recorded " for the information of
the commander-in-chief. If this be the true
view, it might be conceived that a short-hand
writer would do the work much more
effectually. To this end, too, are enforced some
minute directions as to there being no
erasures, for an answer once put becomes, as it
were, sacred and almost eternal; it may not
be erased, but the correction may be added to
the proceedings. This mumbo-jumbo is absurd
enough, and belongs to the middle ages, and
is properly begotten of that imp, Red Tape,
which rules in military government more than
in any other known government whatever.

But if this procedure be ridiculous, can
there be anvthing more illogical or unjust than
the proceedings that follow the finding? First,
there is the old-fashioned mystery of secresy,
and the unhappy prisoner is kept in suspense
for weeks. This, to be sure, is of necessity,
for the commander-in-chief or his delegate is
supposed to be reading through all the
proceedings. But with what view? To see if
he be satisfied with the finding of the court.
What a mockery is this! A grave investigation
made by a jury of thirteen " intelligent men,"
on their oaths, all to be set aside at the whim or
caprice of a single man. The only logical
conclusion is, that the court below is not a jury,
but merely mechanical instruments for taking
evidence, and saving the commander-in-chief
that trouble. This is a monstrous and a
dangerous power to put into the hands of one
man, and its monstrousness and danger have been
too often illustrated within our own memory,
where there has been interference to save friends
and favourites. The true footing on which the
matter should be put is this:—if there have been
anything wrong and irregular, the commander-
in-chief should have the power of sending the
case back for a new trial, or he should have the
prerogative, analogous to that of the Home
Secretary, of advising the Queen to mitigate the
punishment or to pardon the offender; or better
than all, there should be a court of military
criminal appeal. No one can imagine the
abuses that have taken place, not at home here,
where the wholesale eye of the press watches
over the officer and soldier on his trial, but in
India and the colonies, where ignorant generals,
invested with an authority they are incapable of
understanding or wielding, make the most
astounding endorsements of the finding of
courts. They " confirm," but do not " approve;"
they " approve," but do not " confirm," and fall
into the wildest extravagances. It is time
that the whole system be overhauled, and the
rough besom of reform set to work. It were
better that the military reformed themselves
than that outsiders took up the task. And
there is a useful precedent for them. Nearly
twenty years ago, a legal system that was
sanctioned by many centuries of custom, that
was, in fact, the whole fabric of law itself—the
time-honoured system of pleading and procedure
in the courts—was found to be too old-fashioned,
slow, and cumbrous, for the times. The lawyers
stepped in, fell to work, pulled down the old
crazy château with all its winding passages
and crannies, its priests' hiding-places in which
many a poor victim was stifled, and set up a