rules of prison discipline, they may be punished, but not without trial. The commander who should order every prisoner charged with improper conduct to be shot or hung would be guilty of a high offense against the laws of war, and should be punished therefor after a military trial. If the culprit should be condemned and executed, the commander would be as free from guilt as if the man had been killed in battle. It is manifest from what has been said, that military tribunals exist under and according to the laws of war, in the interest of justice and mercy. They are established to save human life and to prevent cruelty as far as possible. The commander of an army in time of war has the same power to organize military tribunals and to execute their judgments that he has to set his squadrons in the field and fight battles. His authority in each case is from the laws and usages of war. Having seen that there must be military tribunals to decide questions arising in time of war betwixt belligerents who are open and active enemies, let us next see whether the laws of war do not authorize such tribunals to determine the fate of those who are active but secret participants in the hostilities. In Mr. Wharton's "Elements of International Law," he says: "The effect of a state of war, lawfully declared to exist, is to place all the subjects of each belligerent power in a state of natural hostility. The usage of nations has modified this maxim by legalizing such acts of hostility only as are committed by those who are authorized by the express or implied command of the State, such as the regularly commissioned naval and military forces of the nation, and all others called out in its defense, or spontaneously defending themselves in case of necessity, without any express authority for that purpose." Cicero tells us in his offices, that by the Roman feudal law no person could lawfully engage in battle with the public enemy without being regularly enrolled, and taking the military oath. This was a regulation sanctioned both by policy and religion. The horrors of war would indeed be greatly aggravated if every individual of the belligerent States were allowed to plunder and slay indiscriminately the enemies' subjects without being in any manner accountable for his conduct. _Hence, it is in land-wars irregular bands of marauders are liable to be treated as lawless banditti, not entitled to the protection of the mitigated usages of war as practiced by civilized nations._