PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
10
been aiding or assisting in their commis-
sion.
(3.) Those who have inflicted on persons not attacking them, or in willing conflict with them, wounds or grievous bodily injuries, or those who have been aiding or assisting
in such commission, or have counselled it.
(4.) Those by whom rape has been committed or attempted, or women or children have been indecently assaulted.
(5.) Those who have been specially ordered by the Government to be tried for high treason or other capital crimes.
13th. Courts-martial under Martial Law are to conform, whenever circumstances permit, to the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Army (p. 222); Article 13 of the Orders respecting Courts martial, by which all evidence is to be taken on oath, and recorded as nearly as possible in the words of the witness in the order in which it is received by the Court; and also to the 18th Article (page 224) of the same Regulations, by which it is directed that the proceedings are to be submitted for the approval and confirmation of the General or other officer vested with authority to confirm the sentence; aud in the case of sentences of death, unless the public safety or the security of the troops employed should make it indispen- sable that they should be executed at once, the 10th Article of the Rules and Regulations for Her Majesty's Colonial service relating to Courts- martial under the Mutiny Act, should be applied also to Courts-martial under Martial Law, and sentences of death should not be executed until they should have been approved by the Governor.
14th. So much of the 116th Article of War as directs that no sentence of death shall pass with- out the concurrence of two-thirds, at least, of the officers constituting the Court-Martial under the Mutiny Act, shall be observed also in respect of sentences of death by Courts-Martial under Martial Law.
15th. Corporal punishment is not to be inflicted unless under sentence of court-martial; and so much of the 118th Article of War as limits to fifty the number of lashes to be inflicted by sentence of court-martial under the Mutiny Act; shall be
observed also in respect of sentences to corporal punishment by courts-martial under Martial Law; and the instrument by which the corporal punish- ment is to be inflicted shall conform to the model of cats in use in the army.
Such being the rules projected in pursuance of
the desire expressed by Sir H. Storks, and in consequence of the opinion delivered in the Report of the Royal Commission, there remained to be con- sidered a further question :—whether, in deference
to a further opinion expressed by the Commis- sioners, a rule should be added prohibitory of the flogging of women. The opinion of the Commis- sioners on the subject is in these words:
"Under
any circumstances the infliction of corporal punish- ment on females is to be reprobated."
The subject is one which it is not easy to approach from any other side than that of the feeling by which this judgment of the Commis- sioners was prompted; but in the cases in which the offences of women cannot be reserved for trial by the ordinary tribunals without incurring some
of the consequences of the impunity of crime, it is not to be forgotten that all suffer alike by that impunity, and that too much consideration for guilty women may be identical with too little consideration for innocent women.
Whenever the offences of women do not demand summary punishment, they should be reserved for trial by the ordinary tribunals. Where punishment by court-martial is necessary, imprisonment beyond the term of Martial Law being beyond the autho- rity of these Courts, the alternatives are impunity,
or corporal punishment, or capital punishment. If for crimes of cruelty and violence committed by women all other prompt punishment is made impos- sible, the effect might be that it might be thought necessary, and indeed that it might be really and truly necessary, to resort more frequently to capital punishment. And it may be a question whether it
is better that capital punishment of women should be more frequently resorted to, or that corporal punishment of women should be permitted. And moreover, if one half the population of a proclaimed district knows itself to enjoy an immunity, or at least is in no fear of prompt punishment, for any
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