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of some friend or another , who may possibly be very ill-informed , and give the result to the world . Will he allow us to say that lie cannot carry out his threat , that he is likely to fall into gross blunders , and that if lie should attempt to punish the critics of Lord Canninq ' s policy by naming them in Parliament he will create a good deal of merriment , and nothing more ? Neither he , nor any other member of the House of Commons , could point to the individual writers who have condemned the Governor-General of India . Mr . Drtjmmond is quite at liberty , however , to dig a pitfall for himself . He has an ingenious way of scrambling through a difficulty which is rather amusing to a thin House . But we notice his threat in order to contradict the assertion which preceded it . It is not true that the
public men who have served the empire in India have been ungratefully or malignantly assailed . The press has been far more generous than Parliament itself . Sir John Lawkence , Sir Henry Lawrence , Sir Colin Campbell , Sir Henry Havexock , Sir James Otjtram , Sir John Inglis , Van CoRTXANDT , GREATHED , NeILL , NICHOLSON , WlLson , Frere , Colvin , Eyre , Chamberlain , Grant —to whom can we point and say the public has been unjust to his achievements ? The press anticipated the gratitude of Parliament , and far surpassed it . What tribute was paid to Van Cortt . andt or to Lieutenant Burton on Monday evening ? We veril y believe that , if the public journals had not insisted upon the recognition of the services rendered by the forces in India , the Government would have taken them as matters of
course . Gentlemen like Mr . Drummond are apt to run ahead with their vituperations , and it is necessary to remind them that the British-Indian army owes more to the press than to the collective generosity of the Legislature . One man appears to have been slandered—Mr . J . P . Grant ;—we have always stated the case against him subject to correction . We now cordially acknowledge that Mr . Grant was blamed unfairly for acts which lie never committed . He seems to have acted with temper and discretion , at a difficult post . But Mr . Drummond had nothing to say of Mr . Grant . He was too busy with his generalities . Nor did he add to his defence of Lord Canning a word of compliment to Mr . Freiie . the admirable Commissioner of Scinde .
To some men , whose names belong to the musterroll of Indian heroism , justice has scarcely been done . Captain Sir William Peel is among them . It was he who , at Cawnpore , excited the admiration of Sir Colin Campbell by his management of heavy guns . Twenty-four pounders were handled on that field as if they had been light howitzers . They advanced with the first line of skirmishers , and cleared the front with splendid effect . But Captain Peel has performed more than this isolated service . He organized the Indian Naval Brigade ; he was among the foremost at the relief of Xucknow . Then , Colonel Baird Smith , the principal engineer at Delhi , deserves more thanks than he has obtained , witli Jacobs , whose
artillery made such deadly havoc before the last assault . Again , who are the three unrewarded lieutenants who have returned to England from the rescue of Lucknow , invalided , one with a broken leg , another with a ball in , the back of his head , still uncxtracted , and a third paralyzed by fatigue and exposure P Nor would it be honest to omit from the heroic muster Venables , the indigo planter , who , with his ryots , defended Azimghur for six weeks ; Gubmns , a civilian , who held Benares in his owu grasp until succour arrived ; Boyle , the civil engineer , who ncted so nobly at Agra 5 Money who , ' by a splendid act of insubordination , ' saved the treasury at Gya ; or Taylor , the cool and cautious hero of Arnvh . Those arc names worthy to bo held in remembrance .
Wo will add Brigadier Walpole and Colonel Seauon , whoso services have been brilliant ; of Cuamberlain and Grant we have formerly spoken , but 11 month has enhanced the lustre of their names . The roll lengthens and brightens with tho achievements of Colonel Jones , or tho 31 st Foot ; Colonel Jones , of tho OOth ; and Colonel Smith , of the 32 nd , men to be honoured and rewarded j of Lieutenants ¦ ---- ¦• TCXYTrssn ^ Brigadiers Stewart and Burn us . These are British citizens whoso renown will sliino for ages in tho light of history , and , though there should be no Mr . DilUMMOND to school the press into fair play , they would have reason to bo grateful that tho vaat body of journals in this country have boon eager to obtain justice for tho bravo and faithful soldiers of tho commonwealth .
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THE IMMACULATE CROWN IN INDIA . There is something indescribably mean and false in the Whig attempt to fasten upon the East India Company the responsibility of every disaster or mistake that has occurred in India for the last quarter of a century . If this were a question of comparison , the Court of . Directors might retort effectively enough . The Crown has had its Canadian rebellion , its Irish famine , its panics at home , its wars abroad , its era of agrarian outrage , its insurrections in the provinces ; but the East India Company does not rake up these reminiscences , and prophesy similar mismanagement for India . In fact , it has not been driven to any discreditable insolence or sophistry in support of its
positionthat , if an administrative revolution is to be forced upon the British Indian Empire , this is not the moment for such a change . We shall see what the criticisms of the Whigs upon the Company ' s petitions are worth . They maintain that India was conquered by the Royal navy , not by Clive and his successors . They affirm that the responsibility of the Anglian war did not lie with the Crown , although within the last week thev have found it necessary to withdraw that statement . They point to the mutinous Bengal army as a ' damned spot' in the Company ' s system , whereas the Crown has appointed the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff for the last twenty-five years , and claimed the responsibility of all important military innovations . General Anson , it will be remembered , was sent out by the Horse Guards .
Two or three assertions on this subject are not to be argued , but flatly contradicted . The mass of the people in India are not poorer than when they came under the Company ' s rule ; thousands of landed proprietors have not been driven by fiscal exaction into open revolt . It . is a new thing to hear official apologists contending that the Indian rebellion was , in sonic sense , justifiable . We now learn that the insurrection has been forced upon the proprietors of the soil in the richest provinces . Lord . Pauherston , possibly , could not adduoo this argument in the House of Commons : it is only lor
Cabinets to bo indiscreet through their organs . Tho Indian reformers want to abolish the East India Company "in order that nothing may stand between the authority of Parliament and the undivided responsibility of the Minister . But did Parliament over check Mr . Vernon Smith , or even call him to account P Will Parliament ever do more than it mig ht have donc } for the last twentyfive years , had it sincerely or intelligently cared for TiTdiaP ^ If'tirrTrog islafure- 'lmd-fumilcd-one-sofc-of dutios , tho Court of Directors could not have 110-glcctod tho other .
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POLITICAL NOTES . Lord Clauenuon stated , not long ago , in his cool , off-hand way , that , according to Neapolitan notions of humanity , tho English engineers imprisoned by
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No . 412 , Febbuary 13 , 1858 . ] THE LEADER . 157
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THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE BRITISH ARMY . The truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth—how rarely we get at it ! how rarest of all in the reports of Parliamentary Commissions , whose special business is supposed to be its perfect elucidation ! Parliamentary inquiries almost always have reference to subjects about which ^ there is a growing opinion ' out of doors' that there is ' a screw loose ; ' but as the public does not generally demand to know ' the worst , ' it seldom is enlightened to that extent b y Parliamentary Commissioners . Whether the admirable Report of the Commissioners appointed last May to inquire into the sanitary
condition of the British army tells us the worst , is uncertain ; but what is certain is , that the revelations made in it are little short of astounding . They tell us that the British soldier , his country ' s pride , about whose moral and spiritual welfare we have been talking and shedding ink so lavishly of late years ; whom we have been used to look upon—a little angrily , just about the time when the estimates are voted— -as a well-fed , well-clothed ,, wellhoused , light-worked fellow , whose condition was out of all comparison better than that of the men of the class from which he is generally drawn ; whom we took to be a jolly , beer-drinking , reckless fellow , a bit of a mazwais sujet , about whose condition there
inclined to look for the causes of his fatal tendency to pulmonary disease , rather than to the accidental ana altogether exceptional circumstance of his getting wet and sleeping in his wet clothes—a thing which sailors do with impunity for days together in bad weather . But the sailor ' s immunity from chest diseases we take to be traceable directly to the fact that he is not inactive while on duty ; that even when reposing and ' lolling about , ' he has full play with all his limbs , and that , therefore , the action of his lungs is healthful and unimpeded . There are , no doubt , other circumstances in favour of the sailor , but we think the circumstance which we have pointed out almost sufficient to indicate the cause of the difference of their relative health .
But the facts of this enormous mortality in our home 4 . roops are so large and clearly defined , that no difficulty will long stand in the way of a discovery of its causes ; for we cannot apprehend delay in searching , while facts like these are staring us in the face . It appears , says the Report , that while in civil life at the soldiers' ages deaths by pulmonary disease are 6 * 3 per 1000 , they amount in the cavalry to 7 * 3 , in the infantry of the line to 10 ' 2 , and in the Guards to 13 * 8 ; and that of the entire number of deaths from all causes in the army , diseases of the lungs constitute the following proportion , namely : —in the cavalry , 53 ' 9 per cent . ; in the infantry of the line , 57-277 per cent . ; in the Guards , 67-683 . Certainly , as Lord Palmersxon said on Thursday nig ht , " the matter is far too important and interesting to the country to be allowed to remain without due attention . "
was nothing particularly regrettable , except that he hadn't quite enough to do to keep him out of mischief ; the revelations of this Report tell us that , J ) icked and culled as he is from out the whole popuation of the country for his special fitness for the service which he is wanted to perform , and for the perfect performance of which we give him , as we suppose , every aid and advantage , he is , for all his original perfect ness of limb and body , and soundness of stamina , a man simply given over to deathnot the ' soldier ' s death' of the novel and the ballad , but death by more or less lingering disease , death for the most part from pulmonary consumption !
It is one of the greatest merits of the present Report , that no attempt has been made to illustrate or to give colouring or particular prominence to any of the facts which it brings to light ; each fact being simply stated , and allowed to . carry its own proper weight : nothing , then , can be better than to follow the Report itself for a strong proof of the extraordinary fact we have stated ; for nothing can go beyond the tremendous " conclusion set forth by the naked simplicity of these few figures : the average yearly deaths among a thousand agricultural labourers , town labourers , printers , policemen , and miners , are represented by the numbers 6 , 8 , 9 , 10 ; among the
same number of Household Cavalry , 11 ; Dragoon Guards and Dragoons , 13 ; infantry of the line , 17 ; and for the Eoot Guards—the crack regiments , manned by the very pick and choice of the recruiting-sergeant ' s game-bag—20 ! Nor is this result altered if , instead of comparing the soldier ' s life with that of civilians whose avocations are notoriously inimicalto health and long life , we compare it with that of the whole male population : the British soldier ' s life is exposed , by civil contingencies alone , to twice the risk of his fellow countrymen ; and , says the Report , " it appears that if the Army at home were as healthy as the population from which it is drawn , soldiers would die at one
half the rate at which they die now . The fact stated and proved , we turn to the causes to which the tremendous excess of mortality is ascribed . They have been stated to be principally five in number—night duty , intemperance and debauched habits , want of exerciso and suitable employment , unsuitable diet , and crowding and insufficient ventilation . Tho Commissioners reject the conclusion that night duty is tho cause of the prevalence of pulmonary disease in the Army , since the duty is not heavy , and is much less than that performed by policemen , whoso health is far greater . This rejection is questioned by a writer in the Timessiffnimr himself un ' Old Guardsman , ' who
, says— " If I had been called upon to give evidence , I should have said that there was no such fruitful cause of disease , and especially of pulmonary disease , as the night duty . " Ho describes the routine of a night sentry ' s duty , and exhibits him saturated with rttin- ~ -in-r-g (> ing » "and" -ooming ^ from-lu ' s-posfc—to . the guard-house , whero lie has four hours' rest before again going on duty , and during which time ho has thrown himself , wet as ho is , on to his guard-room bed , and slept in his clothes till they , arq dry or partially dry , to go , out into tho cold * night ' ana bo again wetted , ana to stand in his box , perfectly inactive , for two hours . It is in this inactivity , in tho utter iceiinm of tho sentry ' s duty , that wo nro
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 13, 1858, page 157, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2230/page/13/
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