have been "swished" in May, and be a
guardsman in July, when if insulted he will
not fight "after eleven to-morrow" with a
pair of fists, but will desire to shoot or horsewhip
his antagonist. The transition is rapid,
but it is complete. Now it appears to me,
that however healthy and elevating an occupation
brushing clothes for his seniors may
be for the British school-boy, this task better
becomes the valet than the Gentleman Cadet;
and when associated, as it was in my time at
Woolhurst, with much punishment from
missile weapons hurled at the valet-cadet by
seniors who are lolling on their beds, it grows
to be degrading. To be obliged to put yourself
in a convenient position to be kicked by
a "fifth form," may at the public school be
"roughing it" (it is that); perhaps it may
"make a man of you;" but to be compelled
to lift up those tails conferred by Majesty,
that an old Cadet (an individual who founds
his despotism on the fact that he has held up
his own tails for about two years) may
project you into space with his right foot, is
only slavish. There used to occur cases of
opposition to this tyranny; few enough, for
they were useless. In such cases it has been
made necessary for the authorities by
interference to protect some Woolhurst Hampden,
after he had been brutally and dangerously
beaten, set upon at times when his aggressors
could not be recognised, sent down to hospital
again and again. Such a youth has been
made sometimes a "cadet-corporal" while yet
a junior (an otherwise unprecedented occurrence)
in order to put him out of harm's way;
because the person of a corporal is sacred, and
an outrage on it is punished by expulsion.
Finally, after all pains, such Cadets have been
recommended "to be withdrawn" by the
officials themselves, who were obliged to give
up their own contest with that system of
bullying which they themselves had so long
indirectly favoured or permitted.

What "fagging" is at the public school—
carried to an inordinate and almost
incredible extent—such was "neuxing" at the
Royal Military Academy at Woolhurst. The
most savage brutality was but too often
exercised by those young and irresponsible despots,
into whose hands the cadet corporals
themselves were ever ready enough to play. A
demand for a victim to torment was commonly
made to one or other of those on duty,
and a "last joined" was thereupon remitted
from his place of study to undergo the
triumphs of their ingenuity. To have to stand
on one leg upon a high stool; and, having
attained that position, to be pelted with
clothes-brushes and dirty boots is bad; but,
when high stool was piled upon high stool—
for the rooms are very lofty—and a neux
was set upon the topmost one to take his
shower-bath; when finally, the bottom stool
was plucked away, the sport became extremely
perilous. "An angle of forty-five degrees" is
in the abstract neither pleasant nor
unpleasant; but, for a boy to be placed with
his head at the top of a line formed by a row
of very small open cupboards, one below
another, and then, his feet being gradually
drawn away, to have that small head bumped
as many times as there are doors, in its
descent, is not the way to make him eager or
capable in the science of his mathematics. To
carry a "baby" for a mile or so uphill is,
though unpleasant, a domestic act; but when
that baby happens to be a stone bottle of
ardent spirits called baby for shortness and
secresy, carried for others, it is, indeed, a
weary burthen. At night, and after the gates
were closed, many and many a wretched
neux used to be compelled to fetch the
baby from a public-house at least a mile
away—often through rain or snow—descending
and ascending, as he went or came, a
ha-ha wall which was no laughing matter; it
being ten feet high. And the excitement of
each trip was pleasantly enhanced by the
knowledge that the trespasser if discovered
would, in all likelihood, be expelled.

I have only mentioned expulsion; but
there were many minor punishments. There
was the Black Hole; a horrible place, wherein,
as our legend ran, it was necessary to
contest with rats for the bare life. Culprits
went into it treble their usual size, with seven
pairs of stockings on, and layers of waistcoats,
as though furnished for a winter at the North
Pole. Very violent some of these culprits
were. Daring Hauty being offered consolation
by the sergeant, cast it at that official's teeth,
and ceased not to howl while in durance, for
about nine hours out of the allotted twentyfour,
his hatred and defiance of authority.
Muddles, a broken corporal, began his
imprisonment recklessly drunk, and was hauled
out at its close, a still more pitiable object.
He had concealed a brandy-flask about his
person, and strengthened himself further with
it during his affliction. Arrests too, of
various degrees, were of frequent occurrence;
they entailed confinement to the offender's
own apartment—if that is one's own which is
shared by three others—and attendance at all
extra drills.

Certainly the regular, without the extra
drills, might have been thought severe enough
already. Gentlemen Cadets could not have
their breakfast, or dinner, or tea, or get
up, or go to bed, or enter their respective
academies, without "falling into line," and
"dressing," and "standing at ease," and
"breaking." It would vex the heart of any
man of business to know the frightful amount
of time that was wasted at the Royal Military
Academy at Woolhurst, in simply assembling
and getting into a perfectly straight line
simply that we might be dismissed. The
time absorbed in raising the hand by a
semicircular wave to the cap-front, when in any
sort of communication with any kind of
superior officer, was almost incalculable.
No request, report, answer, explanation, or