" HOOLIGANISM " AND "RAGGING."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Sia,—Those who care for the character of officers and gentle- men who hold the King's commission must be grateful to you for your note in the Spectator of June 27th. It is very remarkable that brutal assaults, softened into " hooliganism " in Whitechapel and " ragging " in the Army, and that con- duct described by Lord Roberts in the House of Lords as "disgusting and degrading," and by yourself as "nasty and brutish," have never been visited upon the culprits. True it is that, in the case of the Grenadier Guards, their Colonel was removed from his command, as a sort of "whipping-boy," the perpetrators of the outrages have gone absolutely scatheless. Presumably, therefore, the military authorities do not cons.s er that they acted otherwise than as officers and gentlemen. The charges, too, before the recent Court- Martial were so framed as to exclude the trial of issues con- nected with the chief misconduct of the prisoners. The Judge- Advocate said :—" The beating, ducking, and blasphemy were not issues which were raised by the charges which were now being tried. The authorities took the view that, in regard to those matters, Stanford had obtained a satisfaction with which he was content." Upon this I ask, What do we care about the "content" of Mr. Stanford? Surely the proper question for the authorities was whether the proceedings of the civil Court, terminating in the "content" of Mr. Stanford, exhibited conduct unworthy of officers and gentlemen. As indicating the wide prevalence of an unsatisfactory tone in the Army, it may be noted that the officers tried by the Court-Martial were from five different regiments,—and those, too, of the
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