had served fifty-three years
with great credit to himself, and fought in many an honourable field.
He had come over to Jubbulpore as president of a native general
court-martial, and paid me several visits in company with another old
officer of my regiment who was a member of the same court. The
following is one of the many conversations I had with him, taken down
as soon as he left me.

'What do you think, Sardar Bahadur, of the order prohibiting corporal
punishment in the army; has it had a bad or a good effect?'

'It has had a very good effect.'

'What good has it produced?'

'It has reduced the number of courts martial to one-quarter of what
they were before, and thereby lightened the duties of the officers;
it has made the good men more careful, and the bad men more orderly
than they used to be.'

'How has it produced this effect?'

'A bad man formerly went on recklessly from small offences to great
ones in the hope of impunity; he knew that no regimental, cantonment,
or brigade court martial could sentence him to be dismissed the
service; and that they would not sentence him to be flogged, except
for great crimes, because it involved at the same time dismissal from
the service. If they sentenced him to be flogged, he still hoped that
the punishment would be remitted. The general or officer confirming
the sentence was generally unwilling to order it to be carried into
effect, because the man must, after being flogged, be tumed out of
the service, and the marks of the lash upon his back would prevent
his getting service anywhere else. Now he knows that these courts can
sentence him to be dismissed from the service--that he is liable to
lose his bread for ordinary transgressions, and be sentenced to work
on the roads for graver ones.[3] He is in consequence much more under
restraint than he used to be.'

'And how has it tended to make the well-disposed more careful?'

'They were formerly liable to be led into errors by the example of
the bad men, under the same hope of impunity; but they are now more
on their guard. They have all relations among the native officers,
who are continually impressing upon them the necessity of being on
their guard, lest they be sent back upon their families--their
mothers and fathers, wives and children, as beggars. To be dismissed
from a service like that of the Company is a very great punishment;
it subjects a man to the odium and indignation of all his family.
When in the Co