The Court-Martial held upon Lieutenant a Beckett at Dover ended
last Saturday, as was generally expected, in his honourable acquittal,—a result which has given universal satisfaction. Mr. a Beckett, a young Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, was charged with abstracting two marked half-crowns from the regimental canteen. The case for the prosecution rested entirely on the evidence of Master-Gunner Acheson, who, in consequence of sundry unde- tected defalcations, had placed marked coins in the grocery till, two of which were found on Mr. a Beckett when he was searched. For the defence it was pointed out, apart from the entire absence of motive—Mr. Is Beckett had a substantial balance at his bank—that he offered no objection to being searched, that the other marked coins were not found on him, that his rooms, in which he left his clothes about with the keys and money in them, were easy of access to waiters and others, and that the tills themselves could be tampered with. It was contended, in short, that Mr. Is Beckett was the victim of a plot by which the real defaulters had contrived to- plant suspicion on him by dropping the marked coins in his clothes. Farther inquiries are pending, and will result, we sincerely hope, not only in the discovery of the culprit, but in the reform of certain unsatisfactory features in the regimental canteen system. We want to see our Army placed on a busi- ness footing, but that does not necessitate the, making of our officers into shopmen and cashiers.
Previous page
