Punishments therein pre scribed. Peremptory articles; The penalty necessarily awarded on conviction under the second article is, in an officer, public and severe reprimand; in a soldier, forfeiture of twelve pence for the first offence, and a similar forfeiture and to be laid in irons for four and twenty hours for the second and subsequent offences. The peremptory punishment under the remaining articles is confined to commissioned officers only, being in each case cashiering, except three months' suspension under the one hundred and eleventh; and that applicable to a chaplain, on conviction under the fifth article,―to be discharged. The offences punished may be thus described : Art. 2. Not attending divine service; indecent or irreverent behaviour there; using an unlawful oath or execration: 5.-Misconduct, or vicious behaviour in a chaplain derogating from the sacred character with which he is invested. 19. Traitorous or disrespectful words against his majesty or any of the royal family: 20.-Persuading to desert; entertaining and not reporting deserter : 21.-Drunkenness on duty under arms : 22.-Breaking arrest: 23.-Sending flag of truce to the enemy without authority: 24. Giving a parole or watchword not received, without good and sufficient cause : 25.-Spreading reports in the field calculated to create unnecessary alarm in the vicinity or rear of the army: 26. Using words in action or previous to going into articles; 28.-Quitting ranks in action under pretence of Pe emptory securing prisoners or horses, or taking care of wounded : 29.-Leaving guard, picquet or post; becoming prisoner by neglect, or disobedience, or passing 30.-Seizing, or appropriating, contrary to existing action of exorbitant prices for houses or stalls 33.-Neglecting or refusing to deliver to the civil magistrate, or to assist in the apprehension of officers or soldiers, accused of crimes punishable by law: 34.--Impeding or refusing to assist the provost mar shal, or other officer legally exercising authority: 35.-Being concerned in any fray, and disobeying, drawing upon, or offering violence to another officer, though of inferior rank: 36.-Demanding unnecessary billets; quartering wives, children, or servants in houses, without consent of occupier; taking money to free from billeting:2 37.-Protecting any person from creditors, on pre tence of being a soldier; protecting a soldier in any manner not allowed by the mutiny act: 43.-Knowingly making a false return or report; through design or culpable neglect, omitting or refusing to make or send the same to a superior officer, authorized to call for such return: 44.-Making a false muster of man or horse; knowingly allowing or signing a false muster roll, certificate, or return; conniving at untrue (1) Mut. Act, Sec. 2. Y (2) Mut. Act, Sec. 65. Peremptory articles; Not attending divine service, &c., unlawful oaths. documents; concealing or omitting facts, directed to be stated, to excuse any officer or soldier from muster or duty:' 45.-By any false statement, certificate, or document, or omission of the true statement, attempting to obtain for any officer or soldier, or other person, any pension, retirement, half-pay, gratuity, sale of commission, exchange, tranfer, or discharge: 46.-Being privy to any false entry or erasure in any account, description book, attestation, record, discharge, or other document, whereby the real services, causes of discharge or disability, wounds, conduct of, or sentence of courts martial upon, any person, shall not be truly given; wilfully omitting to report or record facts relating thereto, according to existing regulations: 47.-Wilfully making false return, report or statement of arms, ammunition, clothing, stores, or provisions; by false document, conniving at em. bezzlement; by producing false vouchers, or in any other way, misapplying public money for purposes other than those for which it was intended: 48.-By concealment or wilful omission, attempting to evade the true spirit and meaning of orders and regulations relating to the foregoing points: 111.--Commanding a corps and not crying down credit of soldiers. A few remarks on some of the preceding articles of war may not be misplaced: Art. 2.-The penalties incidental to these offences were, till the alteration of the articles2 of war of 1833, applicable summarily upon the order of a superior or commanding officer; now, however, the article declares that they (1) Mut. Act, Sec. 45. (2) The present still retains the shadow of the old article of war, which may be traced to the ordinances of war of the earl of Essex in the reign of Charles the First, and perhaps still farther back. shall follow on conviction before a general or regimental court martial, as affecting an officer or soldier; consequently, a trial in the ordinary mode is necessary; the sentence can only be carried into effect on approval, and the reprimand need not necessarily be before the court martial, as previously enjoined. words. Art. 19. The offence contemplated by this Traitorous article is the utterance of loose or malignant words unconnected with facts. Traitorous words, accompanied by an overt act, may be evidence of treason.1 on duty. Art. 21.-Drunkenness on duty under arms, Drunkenness is the only offence contemplated by this article; drunkenness in an officer off duty, or on duty and not under arms, is punishable, in the discretion of the court, under the seventieth article.2 false reports. Arts. 25, 26 & 27.-It may be observed as to Spreading the twenty-fifth article, that the violation of it consists in spreading, by words or by letters, reports calculated to create unnecessary alarm by spreading such reports. To convict on this article, as it stood until altered in the articles of war for this year, it was necessary to prove that the reports were false, falsehood forming the essence of the offence; but it would be now (1) See Treason.—Index. (2) It has been held by successive judge advocates general that this article does not preclude a commanding officer from trying a soldier drunk on duty under arms by a regimental court martial without the permission of the superior officer, and by virtue of the fifty-third article of war-in those cases where discipline would admit of such course. It will be obvious that there would be few circumstances under which this would be desirable; and that, where the offence was committed on a garrison or general duty, or where it had been reported to superior authority, it would be manifestly improper for a commanding officer to have recourse to a regimental court martial without having obtained the previons sanction of the competent authority. Improper disclosures, offence not effect be produced; sufficient to prove that the reports are calculated to create unnecessary alarm, although not necessarily false.1 It is sufficient to maintain a charge grounded complete, unless on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth articles to show that the words used have a tendency to create alarm or despondency. The offence defined in the twenty-seventh article is not complete unless a certain effect be produced; to procure a conviction under it, it is necessary not only to prove the disclosure of the numbers, position, magazines, or preparation of the army, for sieges or movements; but also that, by such mischievous disclosures, effects injurious to the army, and the public service, were produced. Though the article designates the disclosures as mischievous, yet it does not contemplate such conduct as an offence, until it create injurious effects, the result alone giving point to the act : without proof of the injurious effects produced by disclosure, a charge built on this article must. fall to the ground. It is probable that the probable origin twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh articles had their origin in the following order of the duke of Wellington, dated Celorico, 10th August, 1810, or that they originated in the causes. which produced it, as the express words of each Order of the Duke of Wellington, of twenty-bfth and twenty seventh Articles; (1) Lieutenant S H., of the 43rd reziment, and Lieutenant J. H., of the 7th royal fusileers, were together arraigned at Moimento de Beira, in June, 1812, for "conduct unbecoming the character of officers, in spreading false and injurious reports tending to create aların and terror among the inhabitants of Espenhal :" lieutenant J. H. was fully and honorably acquitted; lieutenant S. H. found guilty. The sentence was public reprimand. The result of convietion on a similar charge must, had the article now under consideration existed, have led to cashiering: though, as in the case of lieutenant S. H., the spreading false reports may not have arisen in malevolence, but with a view "to amuse himself at the expense of the terrors of the people of the country."-G. O. Villa Verde, 2d July, 1812. |
