220 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



in capitals ! It appears that the progress of this feeling is by no means 

 upon the wane, although it modifies itself according lo particular cir- 

 cumstances. Moliere says, in one of his plays, " He is an infernal vil- 

 lain now, for hark, he talks of God ;" and so it is, in proportion as people 

 lose a sense of his perfections, they babble of them. Thus, the other 

 day, at a meeting of a society over head and ears in debt, the following 

 pious resolution was moved, seconded, and carried nem. con. 



" Resolved That the thanks and gratitude of this meeting be presented, 

 through the officiating minister, to Almighty God for his presiding care and pro- 

 tection of this society through unexampled trials and difficulties, and that he 

 will be pleased to continue his protecting influence to this society." 



MILITARY MARTYRDOM. At the moment we are writing, an inquiry 

 is being instituted into the circumstances of a case, which, rich as our 

 military records are in the details of oppression and suffering, is, we will 

 venture to say, unparalleled in its kind. We refer, of course, to the case 

 of the private in the Scots Greys, Sommerville. The punishment of 

 flogging, barbarous and brutal as it is in itself, has frequently been most 

 brutally and barbarously exercised; men have received dozens, nay, 

 hundreds of lashes, for offences, which would have been more properly 

 punished by the loss of a dinner or day's pay. But never before were a 

 set of officers found, hardy, heartless, and desperate enough, to award 

 two hundred lashes, one hundred of which were actually inflicted, for 

 for what? for writing a letter to a newspaper, at a crisis of universal 

 alarm, declaratory of sentiments that ought to animate the whole army, 

 and are, assuredly, indicative alike of his patriotism, his independence, 

 and his intellectual superiority to the station which he filled. It is pre- 

 tended, indeed, that the letter had nothing to do with the lashes that 

 Sommerville was punished for refusing to mount an unmanageable horse 

 a second time, having given him a trial, and becoming convinced, that to 

 mount him again would not only be to fail in his endeavour, but most 

 probably, to endanger his life in the attempt. The dilemma in which 

 Major Wynham and his myrmidons find themselves, is pretty palpable, 

 when they are driven to defend their conduct by a confession like this 

 by a statement, that places them in almost as odous and awkward a 

 light, supposing it to be the true one, as the original accusation by an 

 admission of a severity of punishment, for a disobedience which human- 

 ity perceives to be a natural and pardonable one, that makes us blush for 

 humane, refined, enlightened England, who has so long beheld the 

 savage and demoralizing working of the system ; who has so long seen 

 the lustre of her name tarnished by the existence of this relic of a brute- 

 like barbarism ; who has so long witnessed to what a state of perfect 

 discipline other armies can be brought without it, and yet, who has 

 hesitated to wipe out the blot upon her proud character, by universally 

 and simultaneously demanding the unqualified and immediate abolition 

 of the law. 



It is as clear, however, as that the torture was awarded, and that one 

 half of it was inflicted, that this disobedience was the mere pretext for 

 punishment that the gallant soldier was foredoomed that he was 

 ordered to do what could not be done and tried, on the ground of a 

 refusal which one of his fellows was suffered to make with impunity. 

 The real offence was, the possession of an independent and generous 

 spirit superadded to which, is the power of expressing his sentiments 

 in' a style that must make his officers alarmed for the credit of their 



