THE FRENCH ARMY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 777, 29 March 1910, Page 7

THE FRENCH ARMY.

CRIMINALS TO BE EXCLUDED. By Teleeraph-Press Association-Oopyriekt Paris, March 27." The French" Senate has passed a Bill, providing for the exclusion of criminal convicts - from the Home Army. . APACHES. The reporter of the Army Committee of the Chamber of Deputies recently presented his report on the Government Bill dealing with the treatment of Apaches and other undesirable recruits in the French Army. In this report it is pointed out that, since the army represents the nation in arms, it is necessary, in the, interests of the population, that in military as well as in. civil life efforts should bo made to separate' the pernicious from the sound majority. This process of elim-' motion is to be effected by means of, first}-the creation of "sections d'exclus," in which recruits with.a crim-, inal record are to be incorporated; secondly;, by the re-establishment of the regulations governing, recruitment for the African battalions which were in force from 1889 until 1906; and thirdly.' the substitution of- "special sections for the existing disciplinary companies, which have become antiquated. In the "sections d'exslus" aro to be incorporated all notorious criminals, who will be "excluded" from the general body of the service. Other classes of offenders—with the exception of those who have been sentenced to a penalty of. less than three months' imprisonment and who are merely to be garrisoned at a distance from their habitual resorts—are to he relegated to tho African battalions, servico in'which' is not necessarily to imply ajiy disgrace. Finally, the function of the so-called "Special sections" will be to isolate for specific periods insubordinate or dopraved recruits whose,example might contaminate their comrades.