parade, after a previous flogging. " My back is like a piece of raw beef, sir, after the last fifty you gave me, and I can't bear the weight of my pack." " Take another fifty, then," retorted the brutal officer, " and see if it will do your back any good." In army annals arc many instances of men being lashed until they were unable to stand straight for a month, of cords being fastened so tight that the flesh was cut to the bone, and in more than one instance men have lost their hands through the cords which fastened them to the halberds being so tight. These horrible tortures were inflicted on the private soldiers up to a recent date. In 1879, the writer had a "cat" exhibited in the English Parliament which had caused the death of a soldier, a few months prior to that date.

There is one instance of punishment being meted out to a superior officer for brutality of conduct. In 1802, General Wall was tried, convicted and executed for the murder of a soldier by flogging. The occurrence took place twenty years previously, when the General was governor of Jamaica. Such punishments brutalized the men and did but little, if any, good. When a man had once been subjected to the indignity of the "cat," he lost much of that finer feeling which ennobles men in every rank of life, and many would often strive to be as bad as they could be, knowing that the punishment would be about the same. During the last half century a more hu mane system has been adopted with good effect, and soldiers are treated a little more like human beings, though the lot of a pri vate soldier is not one to be envied.