ABSTRACT
Sir—Most joyfully do I observe that you have taken the occasion of the late Court Martial to draw public attention to the state of the British Army as regards the treatment of the junior Officers, and also that the subject has attracted the attention of other papers unconnected with the Service. Allow me to answer, for the information of civilians, certain interrogatories in the Times. “Is it a common practice for Officers to bring women of ill fame into their Barracks? And is it a common practice for young Officers to sit up gambling half the night, almost within hearing of their Commanding Officer?” Yes, Sir. We Military know that such practices, and worse, are of daily occurrence, and I shall add some circumstances of my own knowledge as proofs. I dare not give any clue, but trust that the consciences of some may shrink at their deeds being thus brought forward. In one Regiment three Officers kept regularly their mistresses in their quarters. The Major, having seduced a person of rather better condition, and not yet abandoned to the streets took a lodging for her in the immediate vicinity of the most respectable inhabitants. The Colonel interfered as to the establishment of one of the boys (about 22), because, he said, it was unpleasant for his wife, if she went to the window, to see Ensign —’s woman at the opposite one. In another Regiment a lad of 19 brought a girl to his quarters to keep her a few days, and she helped herself to all the money he had in his desk. This was hushed up, as the Regiment was under a General who was particular as to the regulations of the Barracks; but no effort was made in either case to save the boys from the ruinous consequences of these excesses. The effect of these practices upon the Privates may be imagined. I shall state one case as a sample of their painful influence. A young Private married without leave, but, after a time, he applied for the indulgence of his wife being admitted into Barracks. He was stoutly refused, and asked why he was such a fool as to marry? He was at this time servant to a young Subaltern who kept a mistress, and he daily carried her luxurious meals from the Mess, his own wife being starving! The common excuse, “we can’t pry into Officers’ private habits,” has no foundation whatever. Does any Field Officer, from the General to the Major, hesitate to watch and enquire into the minutiæ of dress? I have known an elderly Commanding Officer follow a younger one for a mile into the country to discover if he was in proper uniform; and many who did not scruple to use any means to detect offences of that kind, while they were blind to the grievous sins which are ruinous to body and soul, and which might often be checked by kind and fatherly remonstrance. Will any one dare to say, in these days, that vice and immorality are a necessary condition to the position of a British Officer, or deny that they must impair its efficiency? Why cannot the Army, especially under a female Sovereign, be regulated like that of Gustavus Adolphus two centuries ago? Because the senior Officers dare not (some of them for very shame) condemn the practices they indulge in themselves; and, where this is not the case, they shrink from being called Methodist old women, milksops, &c.
