556 



Iteynarks on ike Abstract Tables, ^^c. [No. 30, 



to substitute dismissal from the service for the punishments which 

 Courts Martial award. So that there are three modes by which 

 men are removed from the service for crimes; some soldiers being 

 discharged by sentence of Courts Martial ; some, in consequence of 

 having been sentenced by the Courts Martial, or by the Civil Courts 

 of the country, to punishments, which, from their degrading nature, 

 rendered those on whom they were inflicted, unworthy of remaining 

 longer amongst soldiers ; and some discharges are the punishments 

 substituted or commuted by the superior authorities for those award- 

 ed by the Military Courts. 



As the benefits and rewards of service should be commensurate 

 with its punishments, to allow the latter to exert their fullest influ- 

 ence, and with the view of exhibiting the extent of the punishment 

 inflicted by discharging a soldier, it may be mentioned that the pay 

 of the Native Armies of India, particularly those of Bengal and 

 Bombay, is greatly above the amount earned by their relatives or 

 others of their own class of society, employed in the occupations of 

 civil life. This is the case, even, when the soldier first enlists, and 

 his pay is afterwards, at stated periods, increased. Besides this, 

 every private soldier may obtain a commission, the Native officers of 

 the regular army, Jemadars and Subadars, rising, exclusively, from 

 the ranks. They also receive medals, when decreed to the army, 

 and they are admitted into two military orders, viz. : the Order of 

 Merit, M'ith the title of Bahadoor, into which the privarte equally with 

 the commissioned officer may be admitted ; and the Order of British 

 India, with the title of Sirdar Bahadoor, for Native officers of distin- 

 guished services. It will be observed from this that discharge from 

 the service is a severe punishment and in this light the Native sol- 

 diers regard it. 



The code of 1845, and that of 1848, are, both, more minute in 

 their specification of crime, than the code of 1827 ; but from the 

 nature of military service, and the closeness of the links in the chain 

 of discipline, a soldier, committing himself, generally infringes more 

 than one article, and when attempting, therefore, to classify the of- 

 fences which led to the discharge of these 2,419 Madras Native sol- 

 diers, the graver crime has been the guide to the arrangement, as it 

 doubtless had been to the sentence of the Court Martial. 



It will be seen from the table that of the 91 articles providing for 



