cause to complain, had the old system of the army been continued; it is however due to the character of the present Commander in Chief to notice, that under his direction the punishment of flogging has been much diminished; regimental courts martial, composed of five officers (possibly infants), are now restricted in their sentences to the infliction of three hundred lashes; formerly double the number was deemed a moderate punishment; and there is good reason to believe, that the discipline of a regiment, and the capacity of a commanding officer, is no longer considered in the direct, but on the contrary, in the inverse ratio of the number of lashes inflicted:[1] we need not say that the general state and conduct of troops has proved the policy of the alteration, we have only to hope that the improvement will be extended, and that the English army will not long be subjected to a degrading and barbarous torture, from which less moral men, and much worse soldiers, are exempted in every other service in Europe. It is necessary, however, that till this very desirable reform is effected, some observation should be made on the mode of inflicting this punishment.
It is generally supposed that the surgeon who is present at a military execution, is responsible for its consequences; this is not legally true, and it is physiologically impossible; the punishment is too uncertain in its operation to allow of any medical assistant's ascertaining the boundaries of danger; moral feeling, age, strength, nervous irritability, climate, previous disease, organic defects, and other circumstances, many of which it would be impossible for the most skilful to detect, and least of all by mere view of the
- ↑ In this opinion we are further confirmed by the debate in the House of Commons, March 1823, on the case of Colonel Allen.
