The second positive evil I shall notice, is the effect produced upon the soldiery. By means of the Military Academy, the door to promotion is effectually closed against the men; the cadets having the exclusive right to preferment, and there being already seventy supernumerary officers and the number annually increasing. The soldier, thus excluded from promotion, has no incentive to bravery or good conduct; all he has to desire is to shirk danger and hardship as much as he can, without incurring the risk of punishment. Does not this state of things necessarily degrade and demoralize the army? Who would enlist into such a service? None but the desperate and the vicious. Having no hopes, they can be influenced only by their fears--the ties which should unite them to their leaders are all broken, and their obedience, instead of the submission of respect or affection, becomes the base servility of apprehension, and a desire to escape bodily suffering. The officers can regard such men as little better than brutes, to be controlled by fear and force, while the men look upon their officers as tyrants, to whom they are compelled to yield an unwilling obedience. What motive or feeling in the soldier can be appealed to as incentive to good conduct? Ambition, hope, pride? All are crushed and blighted. Conscience? Its voice is powerless with such men. Fear alone remains--the fear of personal suffering; and to this the officers appeal. Hence, despite your laws, corporal punishment has been, and continues to be, and, I fear, will continue to be, inflicted. True, it is prohibited; but has the prohibition banished it from the army? No; nor can it, until you so change the organization that the soldier will have other motives of action besides a fear of punishment. A late court-martial has exemplified the operation of these feelings in the army. A soldier who had been committed to the guard-house for some misconduct, was brought out by an officer and severely beaten with a sword. The officer was arraigned before a court-martial for unofficer-like conduct in thus beating the soldier in violation of law and of the rules and articles of war; and the court-martial, although they found that the act was committed as charged, decided that no criminality was attached thereto, and honorably acquitted the accused. When the proceedings were reported to the commanding general, he disapproved of the decision, and ordered the court-martial to reassemble to consider the case, and demanded of the court by what law or order a soldier could be taken from the guard-house and beaten with a sword; and if there was none, that then the accused should be punished according to law. The court reassembled, and reaffirmed its decision; and, the proceedings being reported to the War Department, were again sent back for recommendation and reconsideration, and the decision shown to be entirely erroneous. But the court-martial refused to change its