What more striking proof can there be of the hallowing influence of home associations on the mind of the Highlander? When serving in foreign lands he never forgets his native village, his father’s home, and the good name bequeathed to him as his only inheritance. His great ambition is to do nothing to disgrace that name or to forfeit the good opinion of the little community to which he expects some day to return. “What will they say at home?” is the first thought that occurs to him after a hard-fought field; and a feeling of honest pride springs up in his heart as he thinks that the deeds of himself and his comrades will be talked of in the circle he lived in before he became a soldier. Lord Clyde and other generals knew how to turn this feeling to the best account, and no man will ever make a good soldier who has no social ties and no regard for public opinion. It is pleasing to add that the same honourable feeling still subsists in the 78th, and that such men as Havelock and Outram have borne testimony to the good effects produced by it. It deterred the regiment, when first raised, from the commission of crime, and thus saved them from the disgrace of corporal punishment. For many years flogging was unknown; it was not till 1799 that an offence meriting this punishment occurred. The miserable offender was at once tabooed by his comrades, who felt themselves disgraced by his conduct, and avoided him as if he had the plague-spot; so that, driven to despair, he might have been tempted to lay violent hands on himself if the colonel had not interposed in his behalf. Knowing that no change could be effected in the feelings of the men, he deemed it best to send him home to England, where his crime would be unknown, and he might thus have an opportunity of retrieving his character. It happened as he expected: the man justified the colonel’s decision and turned out an excellent soldier, whereas if he had been allowed to remain in the regiment he would have been lost. Thus justice tempered with mercy was the saving of this soldier, as it had been of many others. Would that all commanding officers displayed the same humane and considerate spirit in the treatment of those under their command! The entries in the defaulters’ book would be fewer in number, and the _morale_ of the British army higher than it is at the present day.