Kentucky Gazette

MILITARY PUNISHMENT.
FROM THE ARGUS.

A writer in the Monitor denies, that the cropping of soldier's ears has been practised on the Missouri frontier, or that any other unusual punishments have been inflicted by the officers on that station. The Editor of the Kentucky Gazette repeats the charge, and says, "there is now a citizen in this town who was lately a soldier in the army of the United States, and who has in his pocket an honorable discharge, who asserts that last winter he witnessed the punishment of cropping off both ears, inflicted by Col. Chambers at the Council Bluffs: on a soldier named Jack Holden, who shortly afterwards died, and as was believed, under the consequences of the wretched operation."

Here is a charge sufficiently explicit to found an inquiry upon. What is the present practice of the army we know not; but one of the Editors of the Argus can never forget the impression made on his mind by seeing a soldier during the last war, who had had both of his ears cropped at Plattsburgh. He wore a handkerchief round his head to conceal this indelible mark of infamy: but often removed it to satisfy the curiosity of his indignant countrymen. The tip of each ear was taken off, leaving them about the size of a quarter of a dollar.

If this mode of punishment still prevails, it is the imperative duty of government to punish the tyrants who inflict it. It would not be too severe if they were sentenced to loose their own ears. But we hope, nay, we believe, that the Editor of the Gazette has been misinformed and that no such punishment has lately been inflicted on the soldiers of our army. But the subject deserves, and doubtless will receive, the severest scrutiny.