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'l'EXAS STATE LIBRARY
these principles become disregarded and contemned by the army, then do the military, cease to be supporters of civil liberty- they be- <!ome the tramplers upon the rights of man, and tyrants to the peace- ful citizen- We have scarcely witnessed a single arrest of any any ;(sic] individual disconnected with the Regular service, which was not more or less accompanied with unnecessary violence and insult- 'l'his the Guards have no right to indulge in. However prejudiced they may 1 be against the Citizen or the volunteer, they should not be allowed to .gratify their personal passions under the cloak of duty. If it becomes their duty to arrest an offender, let them do it without the exhibition ·of malice; let them· do it with firmness; but not with a violence dis- proportioned to the occasion. There seems to be some uncertainty and doubt as to the proper causes for arrest. If simple drunkeness is an adequate reason for dragging an individual to the guard house, there are many of the Regular ofiicers, daily laying themselves liable to the punishment. Indeed if such be the case, one half of the army, as well as the citizens would be obnoxious to arrest. How then does it happen that so many are permitted to escape, whilst the volunteer & the unfriended. Citizen, are seized upon, and treated like felons for no other offence than that which is habitually practiced as an accom- plishment by some in the higher rank? Why punish the plebian and let the patrician go? But the distinction so obviously drawn between the Regular & the Volunteer service, as well as between the high & the low, is not the subject of our present remarks- Our object is simply to remonstrate against the habit of accompanying arrests for trivial and venial offences, with brutality and personal outrage. A Regular soldier gets drunk; he is taken care of and treated with human- ity. When a volunteer or citizen is found in the same situation; he is collared like a criminal; dragged along like a dog; and if he at- tempts to remonstrate at the violence, the remonstrance is construed into resistance and furnishes a good pretext for punching him with the breech of the musket, and for what other insults the soldiers may think proper to bestow. It is of this abuse of power that we com- plain. We do not complain of the appearance and parade of the sol- •diery in the streets; but we do object to their arbitrary and violent interference in matters where the rights of others are not invaded nor the laws of the count [r]y violated- A soldiery is not the best guar- •dians of sobriety and good beha~or; yet if it be really believed that. the morals of the people should be improved, and that the bayonet is ligitimate instrument of reformation, then let the work begin in the ,right place; let it begin in the higher ranks, nor waste its energies upon a few unthinking and resistless victims- As one instance of un- necessary insult on the part of the soldier, we take the liberty of nam- ing an incident that occurred with Col. Kinny. He had been directed by a centinel, the nearest route to the RiYer, and in attempting to pursue it, he unconciously passed a few feet over the line of the en- campmt, when he was suddenly stopped by another ccntinel. This was certainly proper and we fully approve it; But the manner in which it was done was as violatiYe of duty as it was disgraceful to the service. Instead of apprizing the intruder of his trespass in re- .spectful terms, the centinel hauled out in the following language, or
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