Punishment of

ing against

laws relating to enlistment.

the satisfaction of a court-martial to be summoned on his rejoining Her Majesty's service, that he was not taken prisoner through his own wilful neglect of duty, and that he rejoined as soon as he could and ought to have done.

51. Every person subject to this Act who shall wilfully act persons offend- contrary to any of its provisions in any matter relating to the enlisting or attesting of recruits for Her Majesty's army shall be liable to be tried for such offence before a general, district, or garrison court-martial, and to be sentenced to such punishments other than death or penal servitude as such courts may award.

Enlistment and re-enlistment, and transfer to another corps abroad.

Soldiers willing may be transferred to suc

52. It shall be lawful for any justice of the peace or person exercising the office of a magistrate within any of Her Majesty's dominions abroad, and in any colony for any other person duly authorised in that behalf by the governor or officer administering the government of such colony, and beyond the limits of Her Majesty's dominions for any British consul or person duly exercising the authority of a British consul, and in Her Majesty's dominions in India for any person duly authorised in that behalf by the Governor General or lieutenant governor or other officer administering the government of any presidency, division, or province, and within the territories of any foreign state in India for the person performing the duties of the office of British resident therein, and for any other person duly authorised in that behalf by the Governor General, to enlist and attest or to re-engage within the local limits of their several authorities any soldiers or persons desirous of enlisting or re-engaging in Her Majesty's army; and it shall be lawful, notwithstanding anything contained in the statute twentythird and twenty-fourth Victoria, chapter one hundred, for any person so authorised in Her Majesty's dominions in India, or within the territories of any foreign state in India, to enlist and attest within the local limits of his authority any persons desirous of enlisting in Her Majesty's Indian forces. Any such magistrate or person as aforesaid shall have the same powers in that behalf as are by this or any other Act of Parliament given to justices in the United Kingdom for all such purposes of enlistment and attestation; but no such magistrate or other person authorised to enlist and attest as above mentioned shall be a general officer or hold any regimental commission; and all such appointments, past and future, and everything done or to be done under them, shall be valid and of full effect, notwithstanding the expiration of this Act or of any other Act of Parliament; and any person so attested shall be deemed to be an attested soldier.

53. When any corps shall be relieved or disbanded at any station beyond the seas it shall be lawful for any officers thereceeding corps. unto authorised by the officer commanding in chief at such

station to receive as transfers as many of the soldiers belonging to the corps leaving the station as shall be willing and fit for service for any corps appointed to remain; and every soldier so transferred is hereby deemed to be discharged from his former corps, and an attested certificate of transfer shall be delivered to the soldier.

from one ser

54. It shall be lawful for the Commander-in-Chief, and on Soldiers may any foreign station for the general or other officer commanding be transferred at such station, to direct that any soldier attested for any one vice to another. branch of the service shall, on the application of his commanding officer, and with his own consent, be transferred to some other branch of the service or to some other regiment or corps in the same branch of the service, either within the United Kingdom, or elsewhere; and every soldier so transferred shall be deemed to be discharged from his former corps, and shall have a certificate of transfer delivered to him: Provided always, that any soldier who may be employed as a warrant officer not holding an honorary commission, or in the corps of armourer sergeants, or the army hospital corps, or the army service corps, shall be liable, by order of the military authorities above mentioned, to be re-transferred to his former corps, or to any other corps on the station on which he is serving at the time, for misconduct, unfitness, or any other reasonable cause: Provided also, that any staff clerk or other non-commissioned officer or soldier on the staff of the army may be transferred to any corps serving at the station at the time of his removal from staff employ: Provided also, that upon the conviction by courtmartial of any soldier of the crime of desertion, the officer commanding in chief Her Majesty's forces may, and if the court-martial has been held at a foreign station the officer commanding in chief Her Majesty's forces at such foreign station may, order such soldier to serve in any regiment or

corps.

a further term.

55. Any soldier who being in army service has commenced Re-engagement the last year of his first term of enlistment, or who being of soldiers for within three years of the expiration of his first term of enlistment, has been ordered, but has not yet proceeded on foreign service, may, with the approval of his commanding officer, or other competent military authority, and subject to such regulations as may from time to time be made by the Secretary of State, be re-engaged for such a period as shall complete a total period of twenty-one years in Her Majesty's service, reckoning from the time of his first enlistment; and any soldier who has completed a total period of twenty-one years service may, with the approval of the competent military authorities, continue to serve beyond such total period, under the provisions of the tenth section, Army Enlistment Act, 1870; and any person who has been a soldier, and who has received his discharge, may also be so re-engaged upon making a declaration, in the

be reckoned.

form ordered by the Secretary of State for the War Department to be used, before any one of Her Majesty's justices of the peace in Great Britain or Ireland, or if not in Great Britain or Ireland before any person duly appointed to enlist and attest out of Great Britain and Ireland any soldiers or persons desirous of enlisting or re-engaging in Her Majesty's service: Provided always, that in reckoning service under the original enlistment or re-engagement of a soldier the boon service granted by the general order of the Governor General of India, dated twelfth of October one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, shall be reckoned as actual service, and allowed Boon service to towards pension and discharge: Provided also, that every soldier now serving who belonged to the garrison which defended Lucknow, or to the garrison which defended the Alumbagh, before the advance of any portion of the forces under the late Lord Clyde in one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, shall be allowed to reckon one year's service towards the performance of his limited engagement, and also towards pension on discharge: Provided also, that every soldier who volunteered into Her Majesty's army from any embodied regiment of militia between the thirty-first of December one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five and the twenty-first of March one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one inclusive, or from the disembodied militia during the last week of the training of his regiment in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, and who had rendered previous to volunteering six months embodied or disembodied militia service, shall be allowed to reckon towards good-conduct pay and pension, and towards the completion of his limited engagement of service in Her Majesty's army, half the embodied service which he had rendered in the militia after attaining the age of eighteen.

Enlistment of negroes.

Apprentice enlisting to be liable to serve

56. All negroes or persons of colour who, although not born in any of Her Majesty's colonies, territories, or possessions, shall have voluntarily enlisted into Her Majesty's service, shall, while serving, be deemed to be soldiers legally enlisted into Her Majesty's service, and be entitled to all the privileges of natural-born subjects; and all negroes who have been seized and condemned as prize under the Slave Trade Acts, and appointed to serve in Her Majesty's army, shall be deemed to be and shall be entitled to all the advantages of negroes or persons of colour voluntarily enlisted to serve as soldiers in any of Her Majesty's colonial forces.

57. Any person duly bound as an apprentice in Great Britain or Ireland, or as an indentured labourer in any of Her Majesty's colonies or possessions abroad, who shall enlist as a soldier in piration of his Her Majesty's army, and shall falsely state to the magistrate apprenticeship. before whom he shall be carried and attested that he is not an apprentice or indentured labourer as aforesaid, shall be deemed

after the ex

guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, if in England or in Ireland, or in the colonies or possessions aforesaid, and of falsehood, fraud, and wilful imposition, if in Scotland, and shall after the expiration of his apprenticeship, or of his indenture as a labourer, whether he shall have been so convicted and punished or not, be liable to serve as a soldier in Her Majesty's army according to the terms of the enlistment, and if on the expiration of his apprenticeship, or of his indenture as a labourer, he shall not deliver himself up to some officer authorised to receive recruits, such person may be taken as a deserter from Her Majesty's army; and no master shall be Claims of entitled to claim an apprentice or an indentured labourer as masters to aforesaid who shall enlist as a soldier in Her Majesty's army, apprentices. or shall be serving in the embodied militia, unless he shall, within one calendar month after such apprentice or indentured labourer shall have left his service, go before some justice, and take the oath mentioned in the schedule to this Act annexed, and shall produce the certificate of such justice of his having taken such oath, which certificate such justice is required to give in the form in the schedule to this Act annexed, and unless such apprentice shall have been bound, if in England, for the full term of five years, not having been above the age of fourteen when so bound, and, if in Ireland or in the British Isles, for the full term of five years at the least, not having been above the age of sixteen when so bound, and, if in Scotland, for the full term at least of four years, by a regular contract or indenture of apprenticeship, duly extended, signed, and tested, and binding on both parties by the law of Scotland, prior to the period of enlistment, and unless such contract or indenture in Scotland shall, within three months after the commencement of the apprenticeship, and before the period of enlistment, have been produced to a justice of the peace of the county in Scotland wherein the parties reside, and there shall have been indorsed thereon by such justice a certificate or declaration signed by him specifying the date when and the person by whom such contract or indenture was so produced, which certificate or declaration such justice of the peace is hereby required to indorse and sign, and unless such apprentice shall, when claimed by such master, be under twenty-one years of age: Provided always, that any master of an apprentice indentured for the sea service, or of any indentured labourer in Her Majesty's colonies or possessions abroad, shall be entitled to claim and recover him in the form and manner above directed, notwithstanding such apprentice or indentured labourer may have been bound for a less term than five or four years as aforesaid: Provided also, that any master who shall give up the indentures of his apprentice or of his labourer as aforesaid within one month after the enlisting of such apprentice or indentured labourer shall be entitled to receive to his own use so much of the bounty payable to such recruit as shall not have been paid [No. 4. Price 2d.]

D

Punishment of apprentices enlisting.

Removal of doubts as to attestation of soldiers.

Authorised deductions

to such recruit before notice given of his being an apprentice or an indentured labourer.

58. No apprentice or indentured labourer claimed by his master as aforesaid shall be taken from any corps or recruiting party, except under a warrant of a justice residing near, and within whose jurisdiction such apprentice or indentured labourer shall then happen to be, before whom he shall be carried; and such justice shall inquire into the matter upon oath, which oath he is hereby empowered to administer, and shall require the production and proof of the indenture, and that notice of the said warrant has been given to the commanding officer, and a copy thereof left with some officer or non-commissioned officer of the party, and that such person so enlisted declared that he was no apprentice or indentured labourer; and such justice, if required by such officer or noncommissioned officer, shall commit the offender to the common gaol of the county, division, or place for which such justice is acting, and shall keep the indenture to be produced when required, and shall bind over such person as he may think proper to give evidence against the offender, who shall be tried at the next or at the sessions immediately succeeding the next general or quarter sessions of such county, division, or place, unless the court shall for just cause put off the trial; and the production of the indenture, with the certificate of the justice that the same was proved, shall be sufficient evidence of the said indenture; and every such offender in Scotland may be tried by the judge ordinary in the county or stewartry in such and the like manner as any person may be tried in Scotland for any offence not inferring a capital punishment: Provided always, that any justice not required as aforesaid to commit such apprentice or indentured labourer may deliver him to his master.

59. No person who shall, for six months either before or after the passing of this Act, have received pay and been borne on the strength and pay list of any regiment or corps, or depôt or battalion of a regiment or corps (of which the last quarterly pay list, if produced, shall be evidence), shall be entitled to claim his discharge on the ground of error or illegality in his enlistment or attestation or re-engagement, or on any other ground whatsoever, but on the contrary, every such person shall be deemed to have been duly enlisted, attested, or reengaged, as the case may be; and no person shall be exempted from the provisions of this Act or of the Articles of War for the time being by reason only that the number of the forces for the time being in the service of Her Majesty is either greater or less than the number herein-before mentioned.

60. No Secretary of State for the War Department, paymaster general of the army, paymaster, or any other officer