hard-working agriculturists, village communities, and tenantproprietors, all over Upper India, is, we think, rather too much of a good thing.

Two statements in the petition require a little notice. The first relates to the duties and liabilities of Zemindars, the second to the cultivation of opium. In the first, the petitioners complain that they are frequently summoned on frivolous pretexts and charges of omission of duty, from the end of a district to the central magistrate's court. In this there is either the most grievous mis-statement, or the most discreditable ignorance. There is not a magistrate, there is not a native official, there is not a landholder, who knows anything of his business, who does not know perfectly well, that in all trivial cases, in all derelictions of duty, the personal attendance of landholders is never required. In this respect the highest Company's Court has been lenient to the verge of weakness. The appearance of a landholder in a magistrate's court, except to answer for very serious crimes, is utterly unknown: every Zemindar or Talukdar has his agent or muktear at every court in the district, who is ready to file an answer to every charge or complaint that may be made against his employer. If a hot-headed magistrate should by any chance require the personal attendance of the great man on a trifling charge, or for neglect of duty in not aiding the police, or for not giving timely notice of extraordinary occurrences, an appeal to the Sessions Judge next door causes an immediate reversal of the order. But the truth is, that owing to long-established precedent, it is universally the practice in all Mofussil courts, not to endeavour to enforce personal attendance on the part of men of character and substance. The introduction then of this topic, as a grievance, into the petition, either proves a desire to mislead readers, or the most culpable apathy. We are unwilling to believe, that the petitioners deliberately lent themselves to a perversion of fact, and are therefore compelled to conclude, that every individual who subscribed his name to the petition, was, in this instance, kept by his agents or servants, in the most shameful ignorance of the real state of things in the Mofussil, or that he was so generally careless as to know nothing whatever of the practice of the courts, the system of zemindary management, and of everything, in short, which he most ought to know.

With regard to the opium monopoly, the petition states, that it is a source of vexation to the cultivators, who are thereby exposed to oppression. This affected regard for the condition

of the agriculturists about Patna and Ghazepore, is a piece of misplaced and spurious philanthropy. The real state of the case is this, and it will effectually dispel all fears on the subject. The ryots, who take advances yearly from the officials of Government, have their accounts squared regularly at the close of every season. There is no intimidation to force men to sign agreements, and there is no accumulation of arrears carried on from one season to another; an equivalent for the advances is returned in the shape of produce; increased weight or purity in the drug is carried to the account of the cultiva tor; and if there is any balance against him, it is either remitted, or in rare instances, is recovered by civil process. But so little is this expedient resorted to, and so partial are the ryots, from Patna to Ghazepore, to the cultivation of the poppy, that they would be ready to devote much more of their lands to the cultivation of this plant, were it not for the orders of limitation issued by Government. The real grievance to landholders is as follows, and hence arise their expressed fears for the welfare of the agricultural community. Landholders are not only forbidden to cultivate themselves, and are excluded from any share in the transactions between the ryots and the deputy or sub-deputy opium agents, but by law, they are forbidden to increase the rents of such lands held by their ryots, as are devoted to the cultivation of the poppy. Nothing comes more home to the heart of landholders than the chance of raising the rent of some hard-working individual, who devotes himself to a species of cultivation, requiring a larger disbursement of capital, and a greater amount of skill. It may, therefore, be readily conceived, with what invincible dislike and repugnance a genuine native landholder must look on a system, in which the benefits fall wholly and directly on the ryots: a system in which he is not allowed to have the smallest participation: a system which raises the condition of the peasantry: stimulates them to something of vigilance and industry, procures them advances on which no interest or commission is chargeable, holds out to them the prospect of making a fair profit, and protects them from the intervention of the great man's oppressive retainers and unscrupulous naibs, and from the rapacity which seeks to benefit by the care and assiduity of

others.

We are unable to follow the British Association any further in its schemes for the regeneration of the administrative system of this empire, and we regret that want of time prevents us from according much space to the petition of the Calcutta

Missionary conference. We shall, therefore, only say that this latter memorial, waile it is far more dignified in tone than that of the Bengal British Association, is in several points the far more practical document of the two, and is often eminently fertile in useful suggestions. It refers to topics which it would take a volume to discuss; but in all that it says of the prevalence of dacoity, the disorganisation of the police, and the necessity for a separate Government for Bengal Proper, it will be found worthy of deep and mature reflection. Of the Bombay Petition, it has been well remarked that, while less noisy and better drawn up than the Bengal document, it betrays an equal ignorance of the state of feeling and parties at Home. The petition of the Christian inhabitants has reached us too late for detailed notice. We are therefore unable to discuss its object: to enquire how many of those residents in Calcutta, who may sign it, are persons who can know anything at all of the Mofussil, and how many of the Mofussilites, who may sign by proxy, belong to the class of " Europeans, who are not permitted to do as they like;" or to ask what knowledge each subscriber thereto may have of the laws which he arraigns, and of the general system which he condemns. There is, unquestionably, much to be provided for, in the future renewal of the Charter, for the better government of India; and though we shall not point out the details by which this object is to be secured, we may sum up the crying wants of India, as laid down by the most impartial and least exaggerative writers, somewhat as follows. We want in India provision for an unencumbered, systematic, Executive Government in all the Presidencies, which shall unite two things difficult to be united, a due amount of subordination to one central and supreme power, and a due amount of free play and energy in its various subordinate members: we claim a relief from vexatious interference, while we yield assent to the exercise of a proper supervision; we concede the propriety of keeping the Supreme Council informed of every measure of importance, while we resolutely protest against that delusive and pernicious system, by which cart-loads of statements, and endless references on trivial and minor points, are weekly and monthly reviewed by a quorum sitting a thousand miles off. We demand for the heads of Presidencies, whether they be Governors in Council, or Lieutenant or Deputy-Governors without any such encumbrance, a greater power over the purse, and a more unfettered liberty of action. We call for some yearly adequate provision for increasing the facilities of communication, for regular expenditure in public works, for the promotion of sound, general, education,

and for the conservancy of large towns. We should wish to see something like an union of the Court of Directors and the Board of Control, or an arrangement whereby the Directors or Councillors shall no longer be elected by the holders of India Stock, while they shall not become entirely dependent on the ministry in power. We require-now, that the practical education of the juniors in the Civil Service is, in the Bengal division at least, admirably provided for-an uniform and regular training for the higher judicial posts. We protest on behalf of the intelligent and deserving of the Uncovenanted Service, against that unjust policy which will neither increase the personal allowances of laborious and efficient men in the body, nor admit them to certain offices in the administration, to which civilians can have no valid or exclusive claim. We call, next, for a more active police, and greater severity in the punishment of normal crime, and on the other hand, for a cessation of that senseless clamour which blames the Government for not effecting in a century a complete reform in the morals and manners of Hindus and Mussulmen, with as much reason as a censor might blame an eloquent London preacher for not having summarily reformed, by his sermons, the morals of every practised roue at the West end; and, lastly, we pray earnestly, that in all deliberations which may have for their object the renewal of the Charter, either in a modified or an integral_shape, we may be favoured with a great deliverance from Patriots and from Shams.

ART. VII.-Observations on Surgery; by Benjamin Travers, junior. Lately Resident Assistant Surgeon at St. Thomas's Hospital and Lecturer on Surgery. London. 1852.

HERE, as with the Indian mechanic, we have the son following the trade of his father; but not much farther does the comparison hold good, for while the poor native artizan toils on, fashioning his work after old models, and operating with the same rude tools used by his ancestors for generations, the modern surgeon, without discarding the lessons of past experience, applies all the new lights and discoveries of science, in the pursuit of what Mr. Travers has truly called it, "our noble art." Noble it is, if an art at all: but we might here come to issue with Mr. Travers, and say that surgery is not an art, but a science. Let us compromise the matter, and say that it is the glorious appliance of mechanical skill and mental intelligence, to the cure of disease and the relief of suffering; art and science working in combination. Somewhat of the old school ourselves, we confess that we respect the motives of Mr. Travers in dedicating his work to his father. There is too little of this paternal reverence in young England.* To introduce any work on surgery, no name could be fitter than that of the elder Travers ;-Clarum et venerabile nomen-one of the last of the Romans-a worthy competitor, in the early race to fame, with John Abernethy and Sir Astley Cooper, the author of standard works on surgery. Mr. Travers, too, was for many years one of the surgeons of St. Thomas's hospital, and there it would seem that his son has not thrown away the ample opportunities afforded by a great Metropolitan hospital and school. Noble institutions are these great London hospitals, and suggestive of many thoughts. In respect of the wealth and humanity of their founders, citizens of the world's Metropolis-the great amount of their revenues and expenditurethe sum and the variety of human suffering they exhibit, and the pain and the want which they alleviate, they are unparalleled in the world. And, speaking professionally, let us think of the many great names in surgery which are associated with these institutions. In fact, there are few schools of equal mark for the learning and teaching of surgery; and any lover of the profession may envy, without blame attaching to him, the great privileges of acquiring knowledge enjoyed by those who are immediately attached to these great

As the Rev. Dr. Cumming has remarked in one of his lectures, "that beautiful, that musical sound father is being banished from England's homes, and that horrible importation from France our Governor' is being substituted in its place."