12 SEPTEMBER 1874, Page 21

Reminiscences of a Soldier. By Colonel W. K. Stuart, C.B.

2 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)—This is one of the most curious pictures of mili- tary life that we have seen; the strangest medley conceivable of things horrible and things ludicrous, stranger than any novelist has ever put together, and yet bearing in the very style of the narrative the strongest 'evidence of its truth. Colonel Stuart entered the service nearly fifty years ago, being then just fifteen, and as he tells us, such a child in appearance, that his first public appearance in uniform caused so much ridicule as kept him a prisoner to barracks for a month. He served for a considerable period in the West Indies, then in Jersey, then in Ireland, and finally, in India, where he distinguished himself at the storming of Thansi, one of the best known events during the Indian Mutiny. Of all his reminiscences, the West Indian are the most characteristic and amusing, though not without a very strong element of the tragic mingled with them. "Tom Cringle's Log," as well as more than one of Marryat's novels, give us very vivid, not to say astonishing, pictures of life in the West Indies, but a novelist would scarcely venture on the realities which Colonel Stuart describes. Where, in fiction, could one find the match for Major Bunratti, who inspects the detachment attired in calico dressing-gown and straw hat ; who makes half the men in barracks drunk by a bounty of twenty dollars, and then orders a man who is Insolent to him to be bound hand and foot and thrown into a pond; who drives all the men wild by rousing them night after night to repel an imaginary enemy, till his subordinate officers are obliged to have the drum-heads smashed iv, and finally dies of delirium-tremens ? About flogging some edifying stories are told. "Three hundred lashes" was a common allowance in those days ; and indeed, Colonel Stuart tells us of one old rascal who boasted of having received thirty-six hundred lashes. About courts-martial our author has a very decided opinion, not a little confirmed by recent events in the same latitudes, and as coming from an old soldier, peculiarly valuable. The obvious in- attention of the judges to the proceedings is bad enough ; but far more scandalous is such a case as that in which members of a Court about to

sit were heard vowing vengeance against tho accused, and naturally gave a verdict which was annulled by the authorities at home, as being "in direct contradiction to the evidence brought before the Court." Another of these remarkable distributors of justice sentenced a man at his first trial to seven years' imprisonment, and being ordered to reconsider their finding, acquitted him, on the ground that the man- slaughter of which he was accused (he had killed an officer who grossly insulted his wife) was "justifiable homicide." Altogether, Colonel Stuart has good reasons for thinking that courts-martial are not quite certain to do justice. He thinks better of the West Indies than most men who have lived there, not agreeing with tho old officer who, when asked whether it were bettor to drink wine or water, answered :—" We embarked about thirty officers. I should say half were water-drinkers, and half wine. The water-drinkers are all dead, and I am the last of the wine- drinkers." His own experience was quite different. His regiment in eleven years lost not more than five officers and two hundred and eighty-three men, many of the latter by violent deaths. Another opinion may have some value. An Irish convict, ho tells us, may be good man, an Englishman a tolerable one, but a Scotchman is sure to be "a ruffian of the vilest description." Our author is of mixed Scotch and Irish descent. He adds some practical chapters, to which his long experience—the experience of a man who evidently took great interest in his work—gives much value. Altogether, the book is well worth reading.