appeared in the dissolution of the bonds of discipline in a large part of the army. The frightful national vice of intemperance broke out in dreadful intensity, from the unbounded means of indulging it which were thus suddenly acquired; and we have the authority of Wellington for the assertion, that three weeks after the battle-although the total loss of the combatants was only five thousand one hundred and eighty-above twelve thousand soldiers had disappeared from their colours. Of this immense body, three thousand three hundred and eighty were British; and these stragglers were only reclaimed by sedulous efforts and rigorous severity. "I am convinced," exclaimed Wellington in a letter to Lord Bathurst, "that we have now out of our ranks double the amount of our loss in the battle, and have lost more men in the pursuit than the enemy have, though we have never in one day made more than an ordinary march !"

Is it Utopian to expect that the time will come when the valour, and fortitude, and exemplary discipline of the British soldier will no longer be associated with the vices that degrade humanity? It is at home-in time of peace-in the barracks, that we must train the men who shall everywhere do honour to the British name as men, as well as warriors. As we have reduced the soldier to the condition of an obedient child, he cannot be expected to elevate himself in the social scale. We must enable him to rise, as all others rise, by all the good motives of human conduct held forth to him—with the hope of greater well-being for himself as the result of good conduct and character.

We know with what earnestness and zeal many have followed in the footsteps of the late Lord Herbert; we know that much is now doing, and that much has been already done to ameliorate the condition of the soldier; but with the plain and palpable figures of the last report on the health of the Army before us, we can do no less than urge on to increased activity all who possess authority and influence. To speak plainly, the chief causes of the degradation, illness, and death in the army are two-vice and defective barrack accommodation. The means of cure, or certainly of alleviation, of this deplorable state of things seems tolerably plain. The excesses and licentiousness of soldiers would indisputably be curbed and reduced, were greater facilities given for marriages.

On the officers themselves rests a heavy responsibility-a weight which they must not ignore merely because it is hard to bear. The profession of arms is one into which no dolt or sluggard has a right to enter. Incalculable is the good that may be done by a kind and active-commanding officer; almost immeasureable the evil that must necessarily result from incapacity and sloth. Many conditions of the soldier's life, besides those merely physical, demand speedy amelioration. Our army must have, not less work, but, at any rate, more play; and it will do good to both alike, if

the officers share to a greater extent than at present in the amusements of their men. Improved by more familiar, though not less respectful, intercourse and association with their leadersrefined by the gradually elevating influence which mental culture and physical comfort would exert our soldiers would soon cease to hanker for the dull debauchery of the canteen, or for other excesses still more dangerous.

HYGIENE OF THE ARMY IN INDIA.

It is no uncommon thing to hear men, who have lived in India, say that if Europeans live temperately, and take ordinary care, they may enjoy as good health there as here. It is true that these are men who have come back, and who, believing they have done so with unimpaired health, are likely to speak according to their experience, forgetting the proportion of their contemporaries who went out with them, and who are resting from their labours in a land from which they will never return. We have often been struck by the different way in which those who have returned speak of the climate, from the manner in which those Europeans write of it who are domiciled in the country, with no immediate prospect of getting away from it. Excepting the hill districts, they seldom have anything to say in favour of any part of it, and certainly if the number of deaths among officials of the highest rank be taken as an indication of the mortality which prevails there among our countrymen generally, the advantages of a residence. there ought to be great to compensate for present discomfort and permanently injured health. In the case of private individuals it rests with themselves to take what precautions they please, but the case of the army is different, and any suggestions for improving the health of the men are deserving of serious consideration, not entirely on account of the men, but also on account of the difficulty of find. ing recruits, as well as the expense to the country of sending them to India when they are procured. The latest work on the Hygiene of the Army in India, is, perhaps, that of Mr. Stewart Clark, and the account he gives of the conditions under which Europeans live in that country increases the value of the suggestions he makes for improving them.

In a hot country where active exercise is almost impossible, pure air is more essential than in temperate climates, where the quantity of oxygen absorbed capable of neutralising the impurities it contains rests very much at the will of each individual. Unfortunately the air of the large cities, towns and villages of India is very far from being pure, indeed, considering the want of cleanliness on the part of the natives, and the bad sanitary arrangements, the wonder is that epidemics are not more frequent than they are. Take the case

of Calcutta for example, which being the seat of the Viceroy, one would suppose would be made as wholesome as circumstances would allow. Its sanitary arrangements are exceedingly imperfect, and a source of pollution exists there, which if it existed here would strike us with horror. A recent report, which if we remember rightly was official, says "The condition of the river upon the banks of which Calcutta stands, is as abominable as that of the city itself. I need only mention one fact regarding it. More than five thousand human corpses have actually been thrown into the river in one year from the Government Hospitals alone. I am aware that measures have been taken by the Government of Bengal for putting a stop to this shameful practice." On this subject, the author of "Practical Observations on the Hygiene of the Army in India," says, every one who has seen the Hooghly must have been struck with the intensely dirty state of the river. In addition to the sewage of the town of Calcutta, and the other towns and villages on the banks of the river, thousands of dead bodies and carcases of dead animals float about in it until the flesh is completely decomposed, and the bones fall to the bottom." That the air of the city is not worse than it is, may be attributed in great part to the absorption. of the gases, emitted by the putrid bodies, by the water. But with all the existing sources of contamination in the air, it does not appear that matters are as bad there now, from a sanitary point of view, as they were when the population was comparatively small, when it bore the appellation of "the graveyard of Europeans," and the deaths of Europeans were so frequent that it was a common occurrence to see a procession of corpses, lasting for upwards of an hour, wending its way along what was then called Burial Ground Road, and now Park Street; the processions being concealed as much as possible from the sight of the ladies, "that the vivacity of their tempers might not be wounded." It is true that one source of mortality existed then which can hardly exist now to anything like the same extent, namely, small-pox, which then carried off considerable numbers, though the natives were in the habit of practising innoculation extensively by converting the contagious matter into powder, mixing it up with some liquid, and giving it to the patient to swallow. Their mode of treating patients suffering from dysentery in those days, says Dr. Goodeve, in a paper published many years ago on the progress of European medecine in the East, was by giving them "an unlimited supply of wine, pillaus, curries, grilled fowls, and peppered chicken broth, with a glass or two of medecine, or a little brandy and water, and a dessert of ripe fruits." Like European doctors in the olden times, the native doctors classed their diseases as hot and cold, and had special remedies for either; and the Portuguese doctors to acclimatise Europeans, prescribed the changing of the European blood in their patients' bodies into the native's, not by transfusion, but by repeated bleeding, until they imagined they had abstrated all the

former and replaced it with that produced by the consumption of the products of the country. This state of things has been changed, but the mortality in Calcutta is still very high, and if so little has been done in the capital to improve the atmosphere, what may we not expect to find to be the case in barracks in towns of comparatively little importance. According to Mr. Clark, the ventilation of barracks is too little, and the diet of the army too large. As regards the latter, we ackowledge that we are surprised at its amount when we compare it with the dietary which is considered sufficient for our troops in this country, however cold the weather may be. In a country so hot as India, it must surely be too much to give a man daily of meat 11b; bread 1lb; vegetables 1lb; rice 4 ounces, salt 1 ounce. As the work under consideration has only just been issued from the press, we must conclude that it represents in all respects the existing state of things where the contrary is not expressly stated; but we cannot avoid remarking that as regards one important portion of the diet, that of vegetables, the author makes some observations which go to prove that the soldier does not get the diet laid down in the scale. After recommending the substitution of dall and such dried fruits as apricots, raisins, plums and dates in lieu of a portion of the meat, he says, "The greatest defect in the diet of the European soldier, is the want of a due amount of vegetables. If the want of a plentiful supply of this most essential article of diet is the cause of disease in other groups of individuals, why should it not be equally so amongst soldiers? In fact they are often so badly supplied with vegetables, that there can be no doubt that dysentery, diarrhoea, and other complaints which very often assume a scorbutic character, may in a great measure be attributed to this cause. The two principal difficulties connected with the supply of vegetables for troops are the cultivation of them in the first instance, and the inducing the men to use them after they have been procured-a point which is by no means so easy as might be supposed. About two years ago, an application was made to the prison department relating to the supply of vegetables for the troops from jail gardens, which led to sone enquiries being made regarding the probable quantity that would be required, and the probability or otherwise of the vegetables being thrown on the hands of the department after they were cultivated. The result was not encouraging, and I presume the military department found their inquiries unsatisfactory; at least the question never took a practical form, which it might easily have done by securing the prison department against loss."

How are we to reconcile this with the dietary table given? if he gets one pound of vegetables daily he has abundance, and if he does not get the vegetables, we cannot feel satisfied that he gets the other articles specified in it.

We quite agree with Mr. Clark, that the quantity of meat to which the soldier is entitled is too large, except, perhaps during

the cold season, and it does not mend matters that this meat is much of it of the very worst kind. The bacon and pork, we are told, of which they are very fond and of which they eat freely, is badly and filthily fed; the bazaar pigs are the bazaar scavangers, and their flesh, when kept for even a short time, actually smells of the very filth on which they had been living. Knowing as we all do that the most serious diseases may be engendered by the use of diseased meat, it seems hardly credible that the government which pays so much attention to the quality of the food supplied to our army in this country, should suffer the continuance of such a state of things in a country where the cost of every soldier is so much greater than here. As if it were not bad enough that the meat should be of such inferior quality, the arrangements for cooking it are not better. Here again we quote from the author, that it may not be supposed we exaggerate his statements by putting them into other words. "The mode for cooking and the cookrooms are most defective, and in many instances filthy to a degree. The preparation of the food is usually conducted on a dirty mat, spread on the floor of the cook-house, the luxury of a clean dresser or table being rare. The cook-rooms, instead of being welllighted and properly defended from flies, external dust, and filth, are dirty, smoky places open to every filth that may be blown their way."

The quality of the food must of necessity affect the health of the men, and in considering the subject of the mortality among our troops in India, it must always be difficult to assign the relative influence exercised by food and water. We have had occasion to speak recently of the great care taken by the military authorities to ensure that soldiers shall have the purest water obtainable and in ample quantity. In India it is not always possible to give the desired quantity, and it is still more difficult to procure this in a state of anything like purity under existing arrangements. The wells are on the average under forty feet in depth, and this might, though it greatly depends on the nature of the soil through which it is filtered, remove the organic impurities which it comes in contact with when it falls on the surface. But however pure the water of the well may be, it is quite certain that if natives are permitted to wash themselves on the edge of the well, and let the water they have used run back into it, as well as that they use in washing their filthy clothing, it must necessarily become badly contaminated with organic matter of the worst kind, especially when several hundreds of persons do this daily. But if the water of the wells is bad, that of many of the tanks is infinitely worse, "for if the bathers do not go into them bodily, every drop of water, as it runs off them and is wrung from their wet clothes, returns into the tank." Nor is this the only source whence the water of wells derives its impurities. Being uncovered, every wind that blows carries with it organic impurities which fall into them