“Yes,” replied Howard, “they would if what was done was brought before them in any way; but it rarely happens that they hear of these things.”
“But don’t the boys—the fags—complain to the authorities about such ill-usage?”
“If they did, the life they would lead would be unendurable. Every cadet, old and young, would cut them, and they would be bullied to such an extent that I don’t believe any boy would stay at the Academy. He would be considered a sneak; and if a cadet once gained such a name it would be all over with him.
“A case once happened when I was a neux,” continued Howard, “where a cadet told his mother of some of the things he had to do as a neux. His mother foolishly wrote to the Captain of the Cadet Company about it, and said she hoped he would see her son was not put to perform menial offices. The captain of course had to treat the matter officially; there was an inquiry, and it resulted in the head of this cadet’s room being rusticated for a half-year. Well, the result was that the neux became a marked man; he was fagged, and thrashed, and sent to drill so often, that he could not stand it, and at last ran away from the Academy. It’s of no use for a cadet to attempt to go against the stream; he must grin and bear it.”
“I should think it would entirely break a boy’s spirit,” said my father, “and ruin him for life.”
“Not a bit of it,” replied Howard. “It is not that I advocate bullying; but I have never seen very much harm done by it. That it ought to be stopped I think there is no doubt, for I believe that of all the despotic tyrants in the world a boy is the greatest. To him there is a delight in tyrannising; and bully he will. Usually it is size and strength that makes the bully; and this is its worst form, and is known to exist everywhere. Now at the Academy it is not size or strength that gives the right to fag, but seniority only. The smallest old cadet may kick or fag a last-joined giant.”
“It is a bad, brutal system, and ought to be put an end to,” said my father. “If I had known the extent to which this system was carried at Woolwich I never would have let Bob go there.”
“I’m very glad you didn’t know then,” I replied, “for the worst is over now, and I’ve really only another half-year of it, and then I shall be tolerably free.”
“What I believe ought to be done,” said Howard, “is to separate fagging from gratuitous bullying. Nothing is more offensive in society than an unlicked cub, and you find many of these in places where men don’t belong to either service, or have never been to public schools. I believe, from what I have read in Marryat’s novels, that in the navy there is far more bullying with the youngsters than there ever has been at Woolwich; and I fancy also at our principal public schools there is plenty of it. The generality of boys are not so sensitive as we older people are, and we give them credit for feeling much as we should; whereas I know now that I look back with rather a sense of satisfaction to the bullying I went through, and the manner in which I stood it. You see, Mr Shepard,” continued Howard, “we men in the army have to lead a roughish life of it; we don’t always live in drawing-rooms, or mix with ladies; so a soft, delicate, sensitive sort of fellow, who can’t stand a little bullying without crying out for help, is not the sort of man we want for an officer. Now I can see that Bob there is twice the man he was when I first knew him, and he is more fit to battle with the world, than he would have been, if he had merely stopped at home translating Herodotus and catching butterflies.
“I’ll tell you another advantage there is in having fagging at Woolwich. When an officer gets his commission in either the Artillery or Engineers, his seniors never play tricks on him, or attempt skylarking—all that was done with when the officers were neuxes at the Academy. In the Line, how ever, unless an ensign joined from Sandhurst, and had passed through a phase of bullying, he was the victim of various practical jokes; and then there was no regular time at which these practical jokes ceased. Now it is not the right thing for a commissioned officer to be made the butt for the jokes of his seniors; still the ensigns are sometimes so raw, so self-sufficient, and require to be put in their proper places so much, that their seniors have no hesitation in bullying them for a time. It is far better, to my mind, that a cadet about fifteen should be subjected to a system of bullying—if you like to call it so—than that an ensign in her Majesty’s service should be. Fancy, too, what a set of fellows we might get in the service if they were not knocked into shape by their companions! Why, look at your neighbour’s son, Hynton, who may some day be a baronet! He’s nearly twenty, and is little better than a lout, because he has never been to school, but has always had a tutor at home. He is conceited, stupid, and thinks, because he is tall, stout, and strong, that he may do anything. He would have been made into a capital fellow by a little course of fagging when he was a youngster?”