Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — A Novel Punishment. [ARTICLE]

A Novel Punishment.

The English papers are occupied just now with one of the most amazing exhibitions,of snobbery ever seen in the British army. A young officer, having got drunk and behaved disgracefully iu public, has been (sentenced by the l)*fke of Cambridge to wear his ly for one year. That soldierclothes are considered as equivalent to a convict’s garb, and the shame of wearing them when not on duty is regarded as equivalent to that which the striped jacket or the galley-brand brings upon anothet class of offenders. Nothing, says the New York Tribune , in commenting on this affair, could more plainly mark the difference between the English and continental points of view in respect to military service. A German is as vain of his uniform as he is of his nationality. He would as soon think of blaspheming Bismarck as of speaking disrespectfully of his pickelhaube. The Austrian trails his saber proudly through the graveled walks of the «40lksgarten, and the Magyar would scorn to deprive the world of the privilege of admiring his shapely legs in their skin-tight integuments. Among the Latin soldiers there is the same matter-of-course acceptance of the theory that an officer of the army should not object to wearing its distinctive apparel. But in England the fashion has been set, by those who are more swell than soldierly, that an officer shall never be seen in harness except on parade, and it has attained the force of a social law. Still, it is none the less surprising that the Commander-in-Chief should commit the blunder of joining in this movement against the uniform, by making it an absolute badge of disgrace. After .his recent sentence no officer not under condemnation will dare appear off duty .in his army-clothes, lest he should be mistaken for the j young booby who is compelled to wear them. Ajcbbicak officers in the Egyptian army, collectively and individually, are very popular, and have all manner of courtesies shown them. And they reciprocate fay drawing their salaries with charming manly regularity.