1849.] Remarks on the Alstract Tables, 



56S 



The average age of all the discharged men was only 23 years 

 and 3 months, and their average service 4 years and 9 months? 

 they had, therefore, been enlisted when only 18 years and 6 

 months old. 



Military commanders, and Medical officers of armies have repeat- 

 edly objected to the entertainment of too young soldiers, and, in 

 recent times, none have more strongly pointed out the inefficiency 

 of this kind of troops, and the great value of old soldiers, than the 

 Emperor Napoleon, and, His Grace the Duke of Wellington; and 

 the same is strongly insisted on in the writings of M.M. Cochej 

 KirckhofF, and Inspector General Marshall. The chief objection 

 which has hitherto been offered, however, has been the physical in- 

 ability of young men to undergo the fatigues of field service, but we 

 observe, from these tables, that there are grave objections to their 

 enlistment, in a moral point of view ; for, in the 5 years from 

 1842-43 to 1846-47, while 569 were discharged for disease and 

 physical unfitness, whose average age was 21 years and 5 months, 

 and their service 3 years and 4 months, 663 men were discharged 

 for crimes, whose ages, only, average 23 years and 7 months, and 

 their service 4 years and 10 months, 



• The diseased and physically unfit men, had been entertained 

 when 18 years of age, and were discharged again at the age 

 of 21 : but the soldiers have been discharged for crimes at a some- 

 what later period of life, having been enlisted when 18 years and 9 

 months old, on the average, and discharged at the age of 23 years 

 and 7 months, a difi*erence of age at the time of their discharge of 

 2i years. 



The ages at which the greatest tendency to crime, and to disease 

 occur amongst the native soldiers, may, however, be nearer each 

 other than this, for, while sickly men come immediately under notice, 

 (and the result of sickness being, generally, calculable, diseased or 

 broken men are at once got rid of) moral sickness, i. e. the vices 

 and crimes of young men being considered more obscure, a young 

 soldier's first off*ences are gently dealt with, and his discharge is ef- 

 fected, only, after repeated admonitions and severer punishments 

 have failed. And, therefore, although 21 years be the average age 

 at which the native soldiers have been discharged for sickness, and 



vol/. XV. KO. XXXVI. 1 



