The accused, whoever he may be, is paraded first before his company, squadron, or battery officer, and the charge against him is read out. First evidence is taken from the superior officer who makes the charge, and second evidence from anyone who may have been witness to the occurrence which has caused the trouble. Then the accused is asked what he has to say in mitigation of his offence, and if he is wise, unless the accusation is very unjust indeed, he answers--“Nothing, sir.” Then, if the case is a minor one, the company or squadron or battery officer delivers sentence. If, however, the crime is one meriting a punishment exceeding “seven days confined to barracks,” the case is beyond the jurisdiction of the junior officer, and must be sent to the officer commanding the regiment or battalion or artillery brigade for trial. In that case, the offender is paraded with an escort of a non-commissioned officer and man, and marched on to the verandah of the regimental orderly room when “office” sounds--almost always at eleven o’clock in the morning. When the colonel commanding the unit--or, in case of his absence, his deputy--decrees, the offender is marched into the presence of his judge; the adjutant of the regiment reads the charge, the evidence is stated as in the case of trial by a company or squadron officer, and the colonel pronounces his verdict. Acquittals are rare; not that there is any injustice, but it is assumed, and usually with good reason, that if a man is “wheeled up” he has been doing something he ought not to have done. Then, too, the soldier’s explanations of how he came to get into trouble are far too plausible; officers with experience of the soldier and his ways come to understand that he can explain away anything and find an excuse for everything. It is safe, in the majority of cases, to take a harsh view. However, the punishments inflicted are, in the majority of cases, light: “jankers,” though uncomfortable, is not degrading to any great extent, and the man who has had a taste or two of this wholesome corrective will usually be a more careful if not a better soldier in future. “Cells” is a different matter. Not that it lowers a man to any extent in the estimation of his comrades, but it is a painful experience, practically corresponding to the imprisonment with hard labour to which a civilian misdemeanant is subjected. It involves also total loss of pay from the time of arrest to the end of the period of punishment, while confinement to barracks involves only the actual punishment, and, unless the crime is “absence,” there is no loss of pay. Drunkenness is punished by an officially graded system of fines, as well as by “jankers” or “cells.”