The very fear of a Householder Parliament is doing good.
On Thursday night the House of Commons, by a vote of 152 to 127, accepted an amendment to the Mutiny Bill prohibiting corporal punishment—that is, we presume, flogging and brawling—in time of peace. In war time no other secondary punishment than flogging is possible. This decision will make executions more frequent and mom necessary in the Army ; but the change is, nevertheless, a good one. The fear of being flogged kept away whole classes of recruits, and tended, as we saw in Jamaica, to brutalize the tone of our fighting services. Every decrease in the number of lashes has been followed by an improved tone in the Army ; and in India, where flogging was practically abolished under Lord Clyde, no evil result ensued. Discipline, to be efficient, must be terrible, but in this century it must be honour- able too.
