The influence of example is great, especially when exercised by those whom we are taught to look up to and respect. A change in the habits of officers will go far to produce one in those of their men. French officers, of whom we are sure that no British officer who has met them, either in the field or in quarters, will speak without respect, feel a pride and a pleasure in the instruction of the soldier, and take pains to induce him to improve his mind, holding out as an incentive the prospect of promotion. And such interest and solicitude produce, amongst other good effects, an affectionate feeling on the part of the soldier towards his superiors, which, far from interfering with discipline, makes him perform his duties, often onerous and painful, with increased zeal and good-will. For the want of this kindly sympathy between different ranks, and of the moral instruction which, by elevating their character, would go far to produce it, our soldiers are converted into mere machines, unable even to think, often forbidden so to do. We are convinced that attention to the education of the soldier, introduced simultaneously with short enlistments and abolition of flogging, would speedily create in the army of this country a body of non-commissioned officers, who, when promoted, would disgrace no mess-table in the service. With the prospect of the epaulet before them, they would strive to improve themselves, and to become fit society for the men of higher breeding and education with whom they hoped one day to be called upon to associate. For, if it be painful and unpleasant to a body of gentlemen to have a coarse and ill-mannered man thrust upon them, it is certainly not less so to the intruder, if he possess one spark of feeling, to find himself shunned and looked coldly upon by his new associates. The total abolition of corporal punishment is, we consider, a necessary preliminary to promotion from the ranks on an extensive scale. We were told four years ago, in the House of Commons, during a debate on the Mutiny bill, that there were then in the British army four colonels who were flogged men. Many will remember the story related in a recent military publication, of the old field-officer who, one day at the mess-table, or amongst a party of his comrades, declared himself in favour of corporal punishment, on the ground that he himself had never been worth a rush till he had taken his cool three hundred. During a long war, abounding in opportunities of distinction, and at a time when the lash was the universal punishment for nearly every offence, it is not surprising that here and there a flogged man got his commission. But, in our opinion, not only the circumstance of having been flogged, but the mere liability to so degrading an infliction, might plausibly be urged as an argument against promotion from the ranks. Let the lash, then, at once and totally disappear; replace torture by instruction, hold out