GOOD BEHAVIOR, a phrase rather popular than legal. It is used chiefly as synony mous with the peace. Thus, if one person assaults another, or threatens or provokes him to abreach of the peace, the offense is punishable summarily by justices of the peace, who, besides inflicting a fine, may, and often do, bind over the offending party to keep the peace, and be of good behavior for a period of 6 or 12 months. The mode of doing this is by requiring the offending party to enter into his recognizanees with or without sureties, which is, in fact, the giving a bond for a specified sum to the crown, and if it is broken, that is, if the recognizance is forfeited, then the party may be again punished.
PAY is an addition made in the British army to the daily pay of corporals and private soldiers, in consideration of long service unaccompanied by bad behavior. The amount awarded at one time is ld. a day, with one white chevron on the arm as a badge of distinction. Successive awards of good-conduct pay may raise the total grant to 6d. a day, with a corresponding number of stripes on the arm. It reckons, in part, towards increase of pension when the soldier quits the service.
In each regiment there is kept a " Regimental Defaulters' Book," in which the com manding officer is bound to enter the name of every soldier in the corps who shall have been convicted by court-martial of any offense, or who, in consequence of misconduct, shall be subjected to forfeiture of pay, either with or without imprisonment, or to any other punishment beyond seven days' confinement to barracks. No first or subsequent -1d. of good-conduct pay can be awarded to a soldier, unless two continuous years have elapsed without his name being thus recorded; and if he have the misfortune to come within the provisions of this black book while actually in receipt of good-conduct pay, lie loses for each offense ld. per diem, which can only be restored after one uninter rupted year of good service, during which his name has not been recorded in the defaulters' book. The loss of the id. is of course accompanied by the loss of the corre sponding distinguishing mark or stripe.
The first ld. is obtainable after two years' service, without the name once appearing in the defaulters' book; the second, after six years; the third, after 12 years; the fourth, after 18 years; the fifth, after 23 years; and the sixth, after 28 years; the service being only reckoned in any case from the age of 18, and two years of uniuterrupted good con duct immediately belore the time at which the award is granted being requisite in every instance. As an additional inducement to continuous good behavior, 14 uninterrupted years without an adverse entry entitles a soldier, after 16, 21, or 26 years' service, to the award for which he would only otherwise be eligible after 18, 23, or 28 years.
Non-commissioned officers do not receive good-conduct pay, an addition instead thereof of 2d. per diem having been made to their regular pay a few years since. A sum, however, not exceeding £4,900 a year is'distributed among sergeants of long service and good conduct, in the way of annuities, not over £20 each. The annuity is receivable during active service, and also in conjunction with the pension on retirement.
In the Malta fencible artillery, good-conduct pay is allowed to native soldiers for similar periods of service, but to only half the above amount.
A considerable increase of the army causes a large decrease in the sum payable' for good conduct pay, as the older soldiers become non-commissioned officers, and the ranks are swelled by young recruits, who have not yet had time to earn these extra rewards. The total charge in the am-my for good-conduct pay during the year 1876-77 was £150,000.
Good-conduct pay and badges are also awarded in the navy to seamen of exemplary conduct; but the periods for obtaining, and the rules under which it is granted and for feited, so nearly resemble those in force for the army, that a separate description is unnecessary. The leading differences are, that the grant is limited to three badges, and 3d. a day; that petty officers continue to hold it; and that it is of no account in the pension given at the expiration of active service.