MORE MILITARY TORTURE.
IT excites both disgust and horror to read the account, given by a correspondent of the Times, of another of those dreadful exhi-
bitions of military torture with which the Army is but too familiar. The frequency of these revolting scenes, after the nation has, as with one indignant voice, expressed its abhorrence of the barba- rous and cruel practice of military flogging, is an insult to public decency. The imbecile conduct of the Government in yielding to the tyranny of the Horse Guards, and the truckling connivance of the loud-tongued patriots of Westminster at the continuance of this degrading and worse than useless punishment, are sufficient proofs that nothing will be done by the regimental martinets to put a stop to it, unless they are deprived of the power to flay the backs of the wretched victims of their sanguinary laws. The people must demand—resolutely demand the abolition of the flogging system. On this occasion, several of the men fainted, unable to endure the loathsome, the sickening sight. What must have been the sufferings of the poor wretch under the lash ? No words can ex- press them. The cells of the Inquisition never resounded with groans and shrieks wrung from more intolerable anguish. It is marvellous that officers and gentlemen can degrade themselves to doom a fellow creature to such horrible torture ; or, if an apology can be found for them in the force of custom, that they can wit- ness the flesh torn from the back of a human being, while his powers of endurance are meted by the nicest calculation, and not sink with shame, though pity does not move them. Of what materials, too, are they supposed to be made, who are expected passively to stand by and see a comrade mangled, for a fault to which the frightful severity of his punishment is so dispropor- Coned as to render him comparatively innocent ? Do men take leave of their nature when they become soldiers? The quality or amount of the crime is beside the question : a man deserving of such punishment (if one there be) is not fit for the Army. It were more merciful for the culprit to be shot dead than to en- dure such a punishment, and afterwards to linger out a degraded
existence, his self-respect gone, deprived of all honourable incen- tive to duty, sunken in the eyes of his comrades, debased to the level of a brute, and cowering like a beaten hound before the glance of his tyrants. The damning evil of this punishment is that it is powerless to reclaim the offender: the soldier who has been flogged is incurable. If we mistake not, the Scotch Fusileer Guards, under Colonel BOWATER, has supplied the last two or three victims to military torture. It is a well-known fact, that flogging is as frequent in some regiments as it is rare in others. The necessity for flogging is supplied either by imperfect discipline or a tyrannous and intem- perate commander. The worst officers flog the most. These are oft-repeated arguments, Otis true—shame on the Government that has allowed them to become trite I—but they gain accumulated force by the frequency of the necessity for their repetition. When the matter was last before Parliament, it was pretended that it would be dangerous to relinquish the lash until a substitute was provided. Then, what measures were taken to provide a substitute, after Mr. ELLICE'S broken pledge that the practice should be abolished ?—Drunken Colonels are not flogged; though their intemperance may produce ten times more evil than that of a private soldier.
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