Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/144

 should, when any obscurity exists, give the man the benefit of the doubt, for it is better to be imposed upon for a time than run the risk of refusing admission to a man actually unwell,and who might die in the lines. The sepoy is at no period of his service so apt to malinger as when he has served long enough to be entitled to his pension, for he has perseverance enough to induce stiff joints, contraction of muscles and tendons, and shrivelled limbs, by sitting doggedly in one posture. On such occasions, I have seen both natives and Europeans convicted of gross malingering by chloroform, the contracted joints that resisted all means of extension immediately becoming relaxed. Eck mussuck thunda panee, prescribed a posteriori, is with sepoys a fundamental cure for many doubtful ailments, and can do no harm.

12. GENERAL CHARACTER OF SEPOYS.—I believe I am correct in saying that in no army of the world is there less crime and less punishment than in a regiment of native infantry. Courts martial are therefore very rare. Flogging, though at one time abolished and since made legal, is so uncommon that I have never seen a sepoy flogged. Their fidelity to their colours is as conspicuous as their good conduct in cantonments and their courage in the field. During the late Punjaub war, the strongest temptations were held out to them to desert; but, I believe, not, half-a-dozen