Billiards was very popular among the French troops during the Napoleonic era, as the great Duke of Wellington, when giving evidence before a Royal Commission, mentioned that he had seen officers and private soldiers playing billiards together in the French army. Incidentally, the Iron Duke quoted what he had seen as evidence of the impossibility of comparing the French discipline with that in vogue in our army when he was in command, and it is curious that our greatest military commander should have dragged in billiards in his efforts to keep the lash dangling over the back of the British soldier. Yet such was the fact, the Royal Commission in question was dealing with the question of punishment in the army, and it is certain that but for the Duke standing up so stoutly for flogging, the lash would have been abolished a great deal sooner than was actually the case. But the conqueror of Napoleon would not hear of taking down the triangles and making an end of the "cat," he strained every point he could think of in favour of the lash, and when it was pointed out to him that corporal punishment was unknown in the French army he replied in effect that nothing else could be expected in an army where officers and men played billiards together.