”MILITARY CUSTODY.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 95, 29 April 1913, Page 8

”MILITA R Y CUSTODY.”

PROVI NCIAI, REG ULATI()XS. Now that the big camp is over, and court prosecutions are due for those who have shirked their responsibilities, it is just as well that at present the vague term “military custody should assume definite proportions. .Regulations have not yet been grazetted, but provisional ones have been drawn up, and extracts iroin these will doubtless prove interesting to Territorials, anti-militarists, and the general public. In the first place, offenders will be kept in custody at any permanent barracks or fort not being a prison or public gaol. They will be confined in separate rooms, and will be in charge of the N.C.O.’s and men of the Permanent Cadre, supplemented by such officers and permanent staff as necessary, to bo detailed by the O.C. district. A significant paragraph reads. “After three days, if the offender s conduct is good, he may ho given a book to read.” The daily routine commences at 6 a.nr. and concludes at 9 p.m. with “lights out.” Sandwiched in between physical drill, squad drill, semaphore drill, etc., etc., is an item, “Fatigue 8.15 a.m. to 11 a.m. (conrisiting of sweep barracks, scrubbing floors, cleaning, sand polishing armament, and other fatigue work of a useful or necessary character.)” There are seventeen clauses to define what constitutes an offence under section 8 of the Defence Amendment Act, 1912,

and among them are the following: An offender in military custody shall lie guilty of an offence within the meaning of the Act if lie disobeys any order given by the Officer Commanding Detention Barrack, or disobeys any detention barrack regulation; sings, whistles, or creates any unnecessary

noise or disturbance, or gives any unnecessary trouble; leaves his room or other appointed location, or his place cf work, without permisison; gives to, or receives, from any offender in military custody, any article whatsoever without leave; is inattentive at drill.