need never exceed, if it exceeded at all, the English standard. Given a supply not equal to the demand; the proverbial schoolboy with a competent knowledge of the most ordinary arithmetic, and the numbers before him of the annual deaths and losses caused by invaliding, will made a tolerably accurate guess at the time when the English troops in India will cease to exist. Now it is a simple matter of fact that this tropical land of India, infested with fevers, rheumatism, dysentery, liver disease, and cholera, as it doubtless is throughout its plains, contains also mountain ranges of various altitudes, singularly healthy, and well adapted to the constitution of Europeans. As is well known, India is divided into presidencies, of which the western, that of Bombay, is traversed from north to south by the mountainous range called the Ghauts. The Madras Presidency contains the beautiful Neilgherries, while that of Bengal is overlooked almost from Calcutta to Peshawur, by the magnificent Himalayas, which, unlike the former mountains, do not rise abruptly to any very great height from the plains, the usual distance from the commencement of the hills to the snowy range being about 14 stages of 12 miles, and each stage being considered in that rough country a day's work for the tourist. These 14 stages cross and bend round successive tiers of hills, varying from 5,000 to 12,000 feet in altitude, while in the distance the snowy range is to be seen towering above all. The climate at an altitude of 7,000 feet, is perfectly charming during those months which in the plains are trying in the extreme. Great heat may be said to commence in the low country in the end of March, and to increase rapidly during the months of April, May, June, and July. About the middle of July the rains commence, and beats summer. September, when the sun with its full fury on the soaking earth, brings its fevers and sickness on constitutions already enfeebled by the terrible There is nothing of all this on the hills, except in their valleys, which, being full of native villages, or cultivated, generally contain fever. On the crests of the hills, the air is calm and pure, and at an elevation of 7,000 feet is bracing at night and in the morning, and extremely healthy. No pen could describe to the reader the extraor dinary sight the burning plains present to the eye when viewed from the summit of one of these hills during the hot months. The scene represents as it were a vast ocean of fire and steam, and when one thinks of the poor fellows below, the words 'God help them,' involuntarily rise to one's lips. There are over 30 infantry regiments in Bengal, 7cavalry regiments, and 350 guns of the Royal Artillery, yet there are but two hill-stations for the regiments, and a few small stations for invalids. The hillstations for regiments are about sixty miles from Umballah, and are called Dughshai and Subathoo; the first is at an altitude of 7,000 feet, and is remarkably healthy, the 42nd Highlanders quartered there looking as well as if they were in England; the other, Subathoo, is at an elevation of 4,500 feet, and comes under the influence of the valley fevers, and is therefore unhealthy: the 82nd Regiment lost many men there during 1863. It is but fair, however, to state that the regiment came there in a very sickly state from that pestilential city Delhi, where they had been allowed to remain for nearly three years. No more distressing sight could be conceived than that presented by the little children of that regiment, many of whom were horribly disfigured for life by the Delhi boil in the face. About twelve miles nearer to Umballah than Subathoo, lies a charming little depôt for sick, called Kussowlie, perched on a hill 7,000 feet high, directly overlooking the plains. But these depôts for sick are rather delusions than anything else, as is so often the case with enterprises taken in hand by the Anglo-Indians, who generally begin at the wrong end. It has long since been proved that it is not when a man becomes sick, perhaps suffering from dysentery, that he should be sent to an altitude of several thousand feet; and, therefore, the medical officers only send such cases as their experience tells them will be benefited by the change: those sick not sent to the hills must either die or be invalided to England. The proper course would be that pointed out by the Medical Sanitary Commission, when they gave it as their opinion that one-third of the English troops should be always in the hills, and that troops landing in India should at once be sent to the hills for acclimatisation. The Anglo-Indian Government are ever ready to point out the evil effects of the mountain air on the British soldier; but, in truth, this change is only unadvisable when he is in such a state of exhaustion that his removal to a colder climate may prove fatal. An excuse constantly offered for the want of hill-stations is the lack of funds to build barracks for the troops in the mountains; but it may be urged that if one-third of the native army were reduced, and the present building of expensive barracks in notoriously unhealthy stations, as Neemuch, for instance, were put a stop to, there would be sufficient money forthcoming for the purpose. During the hot season of 1864, a wing of the 79th Highlanders was sent from Raul Pindee to the vicinity of the hill-station called Murree; they lived in huts, and were employed in repairing the mountain roads. There seems to VOL. LXXIII.-NO. CCCCXXXVII. be no reason why this system should not be extended as much as possible. At a certain height, about 6,000 feet, the hills are clothed with fine pine timber, and with a good supply of tools, the men could hut themselves. Their presence is, however, regarded with dislike at those hill-stations, in which the house property mostly belongs to the governing classes of civilians, and they are supposed to disturb the peace and privacy of these mountain retreats. But even this terrible calamity can be avoided, for there is room for all the armies of Europe in the Indian hills. Another objection urged against an extensive removal of the English troops from the plains is the licence which would thereby be allowed to the numerous bands of armed ruffians who find refuge in the Protected Native States. These states are generally very ill-governed, and it is a common occurrence to have fighting going on between the rajah and his oppressed subjects. In this case also our apathy is all but incredible, and can hardly fail to give the natives a contemptuous notion of our power. We suffer the most outrageous and infamous doings to go on without check, and of course the Orientals attribute this to feebleness or fear. When a rajah wants money for an unusually extensive debauch, or it may be, as lately occurred, to make an expensive purchase of an English girl fourteen years old, to stimulate the appetites of an old sensualist of seventy, then a merciless taxation very often drives the wretched multitudes to open resistance, and fighting and bloodshed are the inevitable result. A peremptory notice that such proceedings must cease would have an incalculable effect not only on the general wellbeing of the country, but as a manifestation of our power. The course pursued is to decorate these vile despots with titles, and to bed In these them with gimcracks from the toyshops of the Continent. times of general peace, when our hands are unfettered, and all our strength could be conveniently exerted, it might be hoped that some large, wise, well-considered measure for the domestic pacification of India would be brought forward. But such a hope, to judge from the past, is wildly chimerical. No: the plan is to permit native ruffians to prowl about armed to the teeth, and even to increase the natural supply by arming 300,000 more at our own expense, and then to procure 70,000 English soldiers and to keep them festering and dying in the plains for fear the mine we have ourselves dug and filled with combustibles should accidentally be fired. It is hardly conceivable that the rulers in India should be so ignorant as not to understand that the system of scattering our troops over the country, which obtained in former days, when the means of communication were far less than they are now, should still be necessary, at a time when the Peninsula is daily becoming more and more intersected by railways. We can, however, discern no intention of altering this antiquated plan, or any evidence that the Anglo-Indian Government acknowledge the need of occupying a conquered country on sound strategical and sanitary rules. Indeed, it is too much to hope for any practical or advantageous change from men who have grown old in the management of an effete system. It is only from the most energetic action of the public at home that any useful reform in these Indian matters can be anticipated, for it must never be forgotten that a public in India can scarcely be said to exist. Public opinion there is none: its press, however able, finds no readers, and meets with no echo at home; while the voices of those who do try to attract the attention of the public in England, are few and feeble. Yet there should be no despairing. England must in time awake to the fact, that her position, as a first-class power, is incompatible with the present military situation in India. She will discover that her good right arm is paralysed through the utter incompetence of those to whom she has entrusted the government of that Empire; and she will then take the steps necessary to settle at once and for ever her military occupation of India on such a footing that, if pressed by enemies in the West, no danger to the stability of her Indian Empire could be incurred, should she recall for service at home some 40,000 men from her Indian garrison. A Royal Commission would find most useful employment in inquiring into the necessity of maintaining masses of native troops, together with an armed but disorganised police force; and their attention ought to be directed to the length of service in India for English regiments, which at present amounts to banishment to a tropical climate for from 10 to 15 years; add to which, leave of absence is grudgingly doled out to the officers, while the poor private soldiers die off through the prevailing mismanagement of those who rule the country. As to real soldiering, almost the only opportunity for service is the chance of from time to time hunting down armed natives, when mutinous, over an arid soil and under a burning sun. If, however, an inquiry by a Royal Commission is to be a satisfactory one, care must be taken that the Commission be composed exclusively of men who will approach the subject without prejudice men on whose judgment reliance can be placed to distinguish between good and bad evidence. It must be borne in mind that the local government of India has hitherto been, as it were, the patrimony of a certain number of families, who have been far too much in the habit of considering it as their exclusive right. Such men cannot be expected to look with indifference on proceedings which may threaten their interests, and they will certainly oppose them by every means in their power. Many reasons indeed concur at the present moment to urge the fullest attention of England on the present system of distributing English troops throughout the whole of the East, a system which is so faulty, and shows such consummate ignorance, as to call forth the most indignant protestations. Not only do the officers of our army receive a far better military education than in former days, but the special institution of the Staff College delia yearly supply of highly vers trained scientific officers for the general service of the country. It is therefore not surprising that their voices are raised at the total ignorance of strategical and sanitary laws to which they justly attribute the rapid deaths among their men. Nor is this by any means all: the non-commissioned officers and private soldiers have ready access to the press, which finds its way every fortnight from England to their barrack-rooms in India. They can tell when their comrades' lives are sacrificed to needless mismanagement, and they know perfectly well the healthy or unhealthy qualities of the various stations in India and China; in fact, this knowledge is so certain, that men entitled to their discharge generally demand it on learning that their regiment is likely to be moved to some Oriental pest-house. The occupation of some of these posts may be strategically necessary, but it is notorious that many are merely used because there happen to be some old mud barracks ready made on the spot. II. To take next the case of China. The decimation by sickness of one whole regiment, and in a great measure that of another in Hongkong, i.e. the 2nd battalions of the 11th and 9th regiments, is a signal instance of Eastern mismanagement. One would almost imagine that the ideas of the authorities in China were cast in the same mould as those of the clique who govern in India, and who appear to be impressed with the notion that English officers and soldiers can be collected as fast in England as rupees are in the East; and that pure air in the hills and healthy stations ought to be reserved for those Anglo-Indian governors who fly to Simla in the summer, and for those AngloChinese authorities who seek the charming climate of Japan at the same unhealthy season. The innocent cause which led to the Hongkong disaster is to be For an Ensign, 240l. a-year the retiring pension after 20 years' service in India, irrespective of rank, being the small sum of 1917. 128. per annum. Now, though the rate of pay may appear large, it is not so in fact, for the expenses of living in India are, at the present time, more than three times as heavy as before the mutiny. Sometimes it happens that a native regiment is sent on foreign service, and accordingly one took up its quarters at Hongkong, the consequence being that the pittance of colonial pay received by the officers of British regiments already RR there was raised to the same standard as that of their comrades in charge of the native troops. This was too much for the home authorities: economy being the life of the army, they set to work to do the thing cheaply. The native regiment was sent back to its country, and an English regiment from the Cape of Good Hope was directed to relieve it, the pay of the garrison being then and there reduced to the colonial rate, which is, indeed a little higher than that received in England, but much lower than that of the native Indian forces. It further appears that although the Horse Guards had warned the authorities at Hongkong that the 2nd battalion of the 11th Regiment was under orders to proceed to their station, no preparations were made for its reception. The Tamar arrived on the 31st of May 1865 from the Cape with 25 officers, 702 non-commissioned officers and men, 54 women and 92 children. Now it so happened that there were plenty of houses that might have been hired for the use of the regiment; but, as we know the excessive pressure brought to bear to enforce economy, we can excuse Captain Roberts, the Quartermaster-General, from undertaking such responsibility in the absence of his General, who had gone to Japan: had he acted on his own judgment and made the regiment comfortable he would doubtless have had to pay out of his own purse for any such accommodation by order of the War Office. So Her Majesty's regiment was left to take its chance; two companies were stowed away in an old three-decker, the Hercules, a few in another hulk, and the rest of the regiment under sheds placed in a swamp called Kawloon on the mainland opposite Hongkong. The natural result was an immediate outbreak of disease. In the seven months from June 5th to the end of December, 2 officers, 58 noncommissioned officers and men, 5 women and 28 children died; 4 officers, 189 non-commissioned officers and men, 22 women and 35 children were invalided. As it is now usual to judge of the rate of death and sickness by taking an average of 1,000 men over the space of one year, we find the deaths in the 2nd battalion of the 11th Regiment amounted to the terrible sum of 140 per 1,000 and the invalids exhibited the no less shocking rate of 461 per 1,000. By the last account there were still 53 men in hospital, and the three surgeons were accounted for, as one dead, one sick, and the third on leave at home. The result of this miserable attempt at economy is that the 11th is so reduced that there are only 36 non-commissioned officers, 136 privates and 12 drummers fit for duty, and the country will be put to the expense of 40,000l. to replace the lives thus shamefully wasted. We must not pass over the sufferings of the 2nd battalion of the 9th Regiment without some notice, though as compared with the 11th, it was so far fortunate that it was quartered in barracks instead of in sheds on a swamp. The strength of this regiment, on its arrival at Hongkong, in February 1865, was 839 non-commissioned officers and men, 47 women and 77 children; by the end of the year 48 men, 6 women and 28 children had died; 139 men, 27 women and 31 children had been sent home sick, and there remained at the station last January only 636 non-commissioned officers and men, 14 women and 18 children -so that the pestilential climate combined with night duty, at all times so fatal to our troops in the East, has inflicted an annual death loss of 62 per thousand by invaliding of not per thousand; in two officers died a lided home. In |