There is scarcely a more marked difference between the condition of a master and a slave than there was thirty years ago between the state of an old cadet and a neux. On joining the Academy at my fourth half I became an old cadet, and possessed all the rights and privileges of my exalted position. I had now full liberty to wear my chin-strap up, to go out without straps to my trousers, to fag any last-joined or second-half cadet, and, in fact, to do very much as I liked. I was second in my room, the head of the room being a corporal one batch senior to me; the third of the room was a second-half cadet, and the fourth a last-joined.
It was now my turn to send for various last-joined cadets, and call upon them to sing songs, make odes to the moon, and speeches in favour of fagging; and I must own that there was very great delight in exercising this authority. Among the last-joined in my division were two of Hostler’s boys, who were considerably more advanced than I was when I was at school with them. Now, however, there was a great gulf between us, and I found it necessary to let them know it, for their education had been very much neglected, as they actually gave me a familiar nod and said, “How do, Shepard?” when they first met me at the Academy, they being in plain clothes and last-joined, I in uniform and an old cadet.
Although I followed the usual routine of fagging the neuxes on every possible occasion, I strictly avoided what I had considered cruelty when I was myself a neux; so that such amusements as angles of 45 degrees, flipping round tables, climbing stools, etc, I set my face against, and endeavoured to discourage in others.
I made up my mind to work this half-year very hard, and to try and prove to all my friends that I had some brains and could pass examinations well. There was a prize given for mathematics in the class in which I was; but this was almost certain to fall to the cadet who was first in my class the last half-year. I, however, hoped to hold my position of sixth in mathematics, if not to take some places, and thus to show that it was neither by fudging nor by a fluke that I had passed so well at the last examination. I had now every opportunity for working; I was not worried by fears of being fagged or disturbed in any way, and could be as quiet as I liked in my room. When a neux got rather forward and seemed likely to pass an old cadet, there was immediately a pressure brought to bear on the junior to prevent him from working. I had not been forward enough in my first or second half to be a dangerous competitor, so I never was warned to leave off “swatting,” but others had been. In the same class with me there were no cadets more than one half junior to me, so there was no reason to bring the “old cadet” influence to bear, even had I thought such a proceeding right, which I did not, so we all worked on our merits.
Perhaps, as far as exciting incidents happened, my fourth half-year was the most barren of all. The routine through which I had passed had caused me to thoroughly enjoy what would otherwise probably never have been looked upon as an enjoyment. To go to bed and know that I could go to sleep with no risk of being disturbed for the purpose of going to some room to sing, or make speeches, was in itself a luxury, and I believe in afterlife there are few people who so thoroughly enjoy themselves as those who in their younger days have had to rough it on service or in savage or uncivilised countries.
Sitting, as we are at present, in a snug room, the windows rattling and the house actually shaking with the south-east gale blowing, we feel the greatest satisfaction in comparing our present condition with that of some years ago, when we were tossing about in the Bay of Biscay in a leaky vessel, short of water and provisions. As we hear the rain dash against our windows at night, and remember that our roof is waterproof, we feel a singular pleasure in thinking what a comfort it is not being in our old bell-tent in the far South, through which the rain would come like a sieve, and which sometimes required us to go out in the rain and slacken the peg-lines, in order to prevent their contraction by wet from pulling up the pegs and dropping the wet tent on us. By comparisons we to a great extent learn to appreciate and enjoy, and the comparison between my position during my first, and fourth half-year, as a cadet was such as to make me thoroughly enjoy my life.
There was much in those days that cadets had to complain of, but which defects have since been remedied. Formerly any cadet seen smoking was liable to discharge. If a cadet were seen to enter a billiard-room he would stand a fair chance of being rusticated. Trifling offences were also not unfrequently treated as most grievous crimes, and favouritism, that fatal enemy to all discipline, to all true energy, and to all satisfaction with the service, was not unknown at the Academy.
As an example of the severe punishment sometimes inflicted formerly for apparently light offences, a cadet, head of a room, had not reported the second of his room for marking his cupboard by means of a needle arrow blown from a tube. The cupboard of course was marked and slightly damaged, and the head of the room was given seven days’ arrest for neglect in not reporting the case.
There was in those days a sort of struggle going on between the cadets and the authorities, relative to cadets being put on their honour to own to certain offences committed by them, and which there was no evidence on which to convict them other than their own confession. The cadets were advocates for the system of honour, which may be explained by the following case:—
On the Common there was a house which had on its gates some grotesque figures in stone. These figures attracted the attention of the cadets, who periodically used to remove them, and place them on another gate. When the parade was formed the officer on duty used to call, “Fall out the gentlemen who removed the figures from the house on the Common!” and instantly the culprits would fall out, and would receive a much lighter punishment than if they had been discovered without their own confession.