“The sapper companies have fortunately established a respectable character, and are well thought of in this army. The epaulettes have been adopted as distinguishing them from the infantry. The sapper’s duty requires much more intelligence, and much more previous training, than that of a common infantry soldier. He is better paid and better clothed, and ought to conceive himself happy at being permitted to wear a distinction showing that he is a sapper. Such, no doubt, will be the view taken of the subject by every non-commissioned officer and sapper who feels any way interested in the welfare and respectability of the corps. “The sooner men who have not this feeling are got rid of the better. They are unworthy of belonging to this army. (Signed) “JOHN OLDFIELD. “Major of Brigade.” On the 19th June, private Alexander Milne of the corps was found in a wheat-field, near Raismes, murdered! A number of the men of his company had been in the habit of breaking out of their quarters after tattoo roll-call, and spending the time of their absence in gambling. Some were said to have been playing with the deceased on the night of the murder. Strong suspicion attached to the card-party, but as the perpetrator of the deed could not be discovered, the Duke of Wellington, convinced that the murderer was in the ranks of the corps, ordered _all_ the sappers and miners with the army, both near and distant, to parade every hour of every day from four in the morning till ten in the evening, as a punishment for the crime; and as the order was never rescinded, it was enforced—with only a slight relief—until the very hour the companies quitted France.[240] Several of the officers and many of the men were worn out and laid up with fevers by the rigour of the penalty, and its execution fell with singular hardship upon one of the companies which, quartered with the division encamped near St. Omer, was, at the time, seventy miles away from the place of the murder! ----- Footnote 240: The orders issued for the infliction of this discipline were as follows:— “Head Quarters, Cambray, 25th June, 1818. In consequence of the circumstances connected with the murder of Alexander Milne, of Captain Peake’s company, which have appeared upon the proceedings of a court of enquiry, the Field Marshal has directed that the rolls of the royal sappers and miners may be called, until further orders, in their several cantonments every hour from 4 in the morning until 10 at night, all the officers being present; and that a daily report thereof may be made to head-quarters.”