THE CAT IN THE CUPBOARD.
In speaking on the motion of our friend Mr. Williams for returns of the numbers of British soldiers and sailors who, in the year of Christianity 1859, had suffered torture by flogging, Colonel North is reported to have made the following remark:-
“If the honourable Member for Lambeth,or any other of the civilians who were always crying out against flogging, would only devise some other punishment which, while severe, would keep the soldier but a short time from his duty, he would earn the gratitude of the whole Army?”
Before attempting to earn the gratitude of Colonel North, and the whole of that army in which he is a commanding officer, Mr. Punch would fain expostulate with the gallant Colonel, on a certain form of words occurring in the above-quoted passage. What does Colonel North mean in talking of “the civilians who were always crying out against flogging?” The late Charles Mathews, in one of his entertainments, used to create much laughter by exclaiming, on a particular occasion, “Confound that boy, – he’s always tying his shoe!” The force of this exclamation lies in the word “always;” which implies a complaint of weariness and consequent irritation. These are, perhaps, the feelings which Colonel North means to express when he describes certain civilians as “always crying out against fogging.” Everybody who is at all concerned with a class of gentlemen as a bore; or, as many of them are accustomed to pronounce that appellation, a baw.
Bores, however, or baws, Colonel, are usefil things in their way. To bore is the property of a gimlet; and the bore, otherwise called baw, often succeeds in ultimately penetrating the very heart of a wrong. The Press is one of those baws, or bores, that have been always crying out against flogging. It incurred the disdain of the supercilious gentry by so doing, on the occurrence of the last gross case in point. You heard Mr. Sidney Herbert, the other night, state the result. According to report, he said:-
“As to the case that recently occurred, and excited some discussion, the Commander-in-Chief was not in England at the time, he arrived two days afterwards. I immediately called his attention to it. The Duke of Cambridge ordered an inquiry into the case; and the result was, that the officers conducting the punishment were severely reprimanded. Another result of the inquiry was, the issuing of the general order that has been before referred to.”
If the Press had not cried out against flogging in this instance, would the case have attracted any notice, and would the general order mentioned by Mr. Herbert ever have been issued to limit torture by the lash? Yet how boldly the Press was accused of exaggeration and hollow sentimentality; and how contemptuously it was informed, that stripes would of course draw blood, and that blood would naturally trickle down to the ground, and form a puddle there!
Will Mr. Punch be rewarded with the gratitude of the whole Army for the suggestion, that perhaps a good substitute for flogging might be found in the long-continued stoppage of an offender’s pay? What punishment could be more severe – if that is what you want? Think of the suffering which is inflicted by the Income-Tax! To the stoppage of pay might be added reduction of rations, and the stoppage of them also in the event, and during the continuance, of refusal to do duty.
And ought not Mr. Punch, by this suggestion, to earn the gratitude of the Navy as well as the Army? Pay is the main consideration which mans the Navy; would not the privation of it be a sufficiently formidable punishment? According to Lord Clarence Paget, out of the whole Channel Fleet only three per cent of the men have been placed in the class liable to corporal punishment. British sailors therefore do not seem to include a very large proportion of blackguards; and if the cat were altogether thrown overboard, would it be missed?
The whole merchant marine ought long ago to have gone to the deuce, if tough old commodores are right, and flogging is essential to discipline in the Royal Navy, and the Royal Navy is like a certain place which is not to be mentioned by Mr. Punch, and in which the crew can be kept under control only by terrific punishment. If this were the case – which surely it is not – we might reasonably be told to go to that place of we want to man our Navy.
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