That the discipline was immensely strict and the punishments correspondingly severe followed necessarily from the nature of his system. The military code took cognisance not only of purely military offences, but of many moral delinquencies, even in time of peace, which if now visited with the like severity would make the list of defaulters as long as the muster-roll. Swearing was checked principally by fine, drunkenness by the wooden horse. This barbarous engine, imitated from abroad, consisted simply of a triangular block of wood, like a saddle-stand, raised on four legs and finished with a rude representation of a horse's head. On this the culprit was set astride for one hour a day for so many days, with from one to six muskets tied to his heels; and that degradation might be added to the penalty, drunkards rode the horse in some public place, such as Charing Cross, with cans about their necks. A soldier who brought discredit on his cloth by public misconduct paid the penalty with public disgrace. Fornication was commonly punished with the lash, the culprit being flogged so many times up and down the ranks of his company or regiment according to the flagrancy of the offence. It is small wonder that men forced by such discipline to perpetual self-control should have scorned civilians who allowed themselves greater latitude, and despised a Parliament which, in spite of many purgings, was never wholly purged of loose livers. Towards the unfortunate Royalists the feelings of the Parliamentary Army after 1645 were of unutterable contempt. It was not only that it felt its moral superiority over the unhappy cavaliers; it mingled with this the keenest professional pride. No sergeant-major of the smartest modern cavalry regiment could speak with more withering disdain of the rudest troop of rustic yeomanry than did the Parliamentary newspapers of the prisoners captured at Bristol.[198] It is instructive, too, to note the patronising tone adopted by Reynolds towards the army of Turenne, his criticism of the discipline that was "good, for France," and his observations as to the proverbial inefficiency of a French regiment at the end of a campaign. Beyond all doubt the English standing Army from 1646 to 1658 was the finest force in Europe. It is the more amazing that Cromwell should have suffered its fair fame to be tarnished by the rabble that he sent to the West Indies.