The unprincipled obstinacy of some individuals even triumphs openly in the success of their imposture. A trooper in the 12th pretended that he had lost the use of his right arm; and, after resisting for a great length of time severe hospital discipline, he procured his discharge. When he was leaving the regiment, and fairly on the top of the coach, at starting, he waved his paralytic arm in triumph, and cheered at the success of his plan. Another soldier, who pretended that he had lost the use of his lower extremities, was reported unfit for service, and was discharged. When his discharge was obtained, he caused himself, on a field day, to be taken in a cart to the Phœnix park, and in front of the regiment, drawn up in a line, he had the cart driven under a tree; he then leaped out of the cart, springing up three times, insulted the regiment, and scampered off at full speed. A third soldier, of the name of Hollidge, pretending to be deaf and dumb after an attack of fever, never for one moment forgot his assumed character, till his purpose was attained. Being useful as a tailor, he was kept for five or six years subsequent to this pretended calamity, and carried on all communication by writing. On one occasion, whilst practising firing with blank cartridge, an awkward recruit shot Hollidge in the ear, who expressed pain and consternation by a variety of contortions, but never spoke. Not having been heard to articulate for five years, he was at last discharged; he then recovered the use of speech, and a vacancy occurring shortly after, he offered himself to fill the situation, namely, as master tailor to the regiment. That species of blindness, thus feelingly described by Milton, “So thick a _drop serene_ hath quenched these orbs,” and which is that in which no manifest alteration takes place in the eye, has been produced by the application of belladonna. Nyctalopia, or night blindness, was frequently feigned in Egypt, and nearly half of a corps were, or pretended to be, afflicted with it: as the troops were employed in digging and throwing up fortifications, this state of vision was found of not so much consequence. In transporting the earth, a blind man was joined to, and followed by, one who could see; and when the sentries were doubled, a blind man and one that could see were put together, and not perhaps without advantage, as, during the night, hearing, upon an outpost, is often of more importance than sight.