I usually found that they had
undergone previous imprisonments, and had been severely punished
within a short time of their enlistment. I urged that, in the first
two or three years of a soldier's service, every allowance should be
made for youth and inexperience, and that during that time faults
should, whenever practicable, be dealt with summarily, and not visited
with the heavier punishment which a Court-Martial sentence necessarily
carries with it, and I pointed out that this procedure might receive a
wider application, and become a guiding principle in the treatment
of soldiers generally. I suggested that all men in possession of a
good-conduct badge, or who had had no entry in their company defaulter
sheets for one year, should be granted certain privileges, such as
receiving the fullest indulgence in the grant of passes, consistent
with the requirements of health, duty, and discipline, and being
excused attendance at all roll-calls (including meals), except perhaps
at tattoo. I had often remarked that those corps in which indulgences
were most freely given contained the largest number of well-behaved
men, and I had been assured that such indulgences were seldom abused,
and that, while they were greatly appreciated by those who received
them, they acted as an incentive to less well conducted men to try and
redeem their characters.

[Illustration: THE THREE COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF IN INDIA.
GENERAL SIR FREDERICK SLEIGH ROBERTS.
GENERAL SIR ARTHUR E. HARDINGE. GENERAL SIR DONALD MARTIN STEWART.]

The reports of commanding officers, on the results of these small
ameliorations, after a six months' trial, were so favourable that I
was able to authorize still further concessions as a premium on good
behaviour.

The Madras Presidency abounds in places of interest connected with our
earlier struggles in India, and it was possible to combine pleasure
with duty in a very delightful manner while travelling about the
country. My wife frequently accompanied me in my tours, and enjoyed as
much as I did our visits to many famous and beautiful places. Madras
itself recalled the struggles for supremacy between the English and
French in the middle of the eighteenth century. Arcot reminded one
that it was in the brilliant capture and still more brilliant defence
of the fort at that place that Clive's soldierly genius first became
conspicuous. Trichinopoly and Wandewash made one think of Stringer
Lawrence's and Eyr