interest in their inferiors. And this suggests a want which is a plague spot of European society in India. Hundreds of kind, loving hearts are weary of only doing good in their elevated sphere; they long to let their sunny influences light upon those beneath them and make them sunny too. In the towns, and more in the country of England, lordly men and women carry comfort and encouragement to the homes of peasants and mechanics. It is not so here; we not only have a plurality of worlds', but between these worlds is impassable space. People live for and love those who can recompense them; and such love is cold, calculating, unenergizing. Does an officer of Europeans speak to his men except on parade, when engaged in orderly duty, or perhaps when giving starched advice to a defaulter ? Possibly one or two officers in one or two regiments may visit the Hospital and speak kindly to their suffering men, watch over the school, encourage the master, acquaint themselves with the youngsters' names and characters so as to gain their affectionate respect; there may be regiments the ladies of which let their own compassionate virtue shed its cheering light in the patcheries, and try to dispel the moral darkness which hangs about them. But these are not the ways of gentlemen and ladies attached to the Army. Meet them forsooth in their own houses or in the society of their equals, and they may be kind, genial, and generous; but poverty or inferiority of rank shuts them up. In such a case, when not money, but gentle words, melting pity, the warmth of fellow-feeling are required of them, very many are hard, selfish, bowelless. We say not this to blame individuals who are cramped and confined by a hateful system, the barriers of which only a lion-hearted man can burst, but we ask, whether that system can ennoble such as it enslaves? Every one who manifests genuine kindliness to his inferiors is the better for it. We are sure for instance, the world is sure, that Miss Nightingale is a noble-minded lady. The love of her kind has drawn her from her father's mansion, the society of her equals, and the luxuries of her situation to the foul atmosphere of hospitals, the companionship of the uneducated and the harrassing anxieties of a nurse. And because she has thus heroically debased herself, and for that single reason, the world acknowledges her to be a noble-minded woman; all are confident that she is above petty actions and that she could not perpetrate anything really base. So inseparable is true condescension from true dignity of character; so universal is the feeling, if not the confession, that that of which there is a total absence in both the civil and military communities of India elevates and ennobles humanity.

The great drawback, however, to military life in time of peace is the want not only of something to do, but of something to work out.

Objects of ambition wanted.

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Wherever men are gregarious, except in the Army, the majority are fulfilling a purpose. How petrifying is regimental life at a military station in India! A parade, and an oppressive dinner party, are the calls of duty; a ball and a hog hunt, the occasional variations of pleasure. For what are men living there? To be Brigadiers, if their livers will hold out. In the meanwhile the hopes and aspirations which few youths are without are dissipated in the dreary atmosphere of a cantonment. Desire of distinction burns itself out, and laudable ambition slumbers until it falls into the sleep of death. And yet the words of a great but eccentric mind are true:-"To do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Shew him the way of doing that, the dullest day drudge kindles into a hero. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations." Hence close observers have remarked what different men officers become in a campaign. They are then united in pursuing an object which is distinctly before them. The lassitude, into which undefined desires once subsided, is at an end. They become earnest and mutually interested in each other. Wild passions are then, it is true, too often excited, and sometimes appalling crimes are committed; but on the other hand generous impulses agitate hearts which were supposed to be only sordid, and icy selfishness is melted into tender moods. Men are labouring right seriously, and are often compelled to reflect and act for themselves. Thus does war strike many lights, so that minds which were never suspected of being the least inflammable blaze into moral life and intellectual vigour.

And these considerations point out the main reason why candidates for commissions and cadetships should be examined as to their literary proficiency. It is not that any high qualifications are required; but it should be known whether a lad's mental powers have been so far exercised, that he will be conscious of their existence, and desire still to employ them instead of leading the life of a barbarian. Some literary test is the only security that our military stations will be, not gardens for raising man-vegetables,' but the lodging places of pilgrims manfully, thoughtfully, faithfully, yet, cheerfully wending their way to eternity. The question, whether gentlemen can be happy and good without education, has been long ago decided in the negative, and may not now be discussed. An individual, a country squire or a man about town' may possibly remain ignorant and harmless; but associations of men cannot. When such are not upheaved together with the strata or ranks of society to which they belong, their intellectual is assuredly followed by their moral degradation. Bands of ignorant men live in a valley; they

VOL. I.-NO. 11.

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are even looked down upon by their inferiors in rank or birth, as from a lofty station, till they gradually recede further and at last irrevocably glide down the smooth descent of Avernus.

If indeed there were to be an awakening of the religious life, all the grand impediments in the way of honor and morality would be soon removed. Men, who as the old Round-heads would have said, have the root of the matter in them, may branch out into queer sects and run into strange vagaries; but they could not open letters and steal money, fraudulently prop up rotten Banks, combine to tell untruths, and give false bills of exchange; no, nor could they solemnly award certificates of high character' to those who do such things; but rather on discovering them they would feel that the plague had begun among them, that therefore stringent regulations and severe remedies could alone be efficacious. The only way of checking vice is to regard it as a sin. When this is done in the upper ranks of the Army, the feeling will extend itself to the lower ranks. But for this there must be inspiration; the Great Spirit must pass into dreaming, lolling, vanity hunting, self-indulgent, cunning and mean men, and make them genuine and wise and noble. Let however the good and true men of the Army (and their name is yet Legion) feel that they must help in the work: that they must not be afraid to express their opinions or take up arms in honor's cause; nor must they be deterred by any absurd esprit du corps, as it is fondly called, from looking at facts when set nakedly before them. Supreme authority is the Archimedes, but such men are the lever, and when a standing place has been found for them, they can lift up to morality a social world.

ART. III.-RAILWAYS IN WESTERN INDIA.

Minute by the Most Noble the Governor General, dated the 20th April 1853, on Railways in India, printed by order of the House Commons, 19th July 1853.

IN the year 1850, when the first practical steps were taken for the construction of a Railway in Western India, the people of this country, for whose benefit the finest system of communication was then being inaugurated, had no faith in its advent. It was true, that for several years Railways had become a common theme in India, that much had been written of them, and their wonders proclaimed to the native community by those whose positions lent authority to their statements. A clever and popular advocate (the late John Chapman) had long labored here in that new, and to so many incomprehensible, cause. Two Engineers had devoted their professional skill and energy to the task of exploring the rugged Ghauts, and to surveys and other field operations through districts where the Sirkar had never before been known to search for roads. A committee had been formed-reports printed-the indispensable agency. of red tape abundantly employed-Government resolutions framed-and even the Hon'ble Court of Directors were publicly known to have bent their deliberative minds upon the subject of Indian Railways. But all these had hitherto produced no practical result. The "airy nothing" which haunted the native imagination, yet had no "local habitation," and the people were sceptics still.

It was in truth no light demand that was made on their credulity when they were asked to believe in a locomotive system, by which they were to travel at amazing speed with unprecedented comfort and economy, and by which their commerce was to be extended and carried on with extraordinary facilities and despatch. Nor was it any common claim upon their confidence to solicit them to embark their wealth in an enterprise, which was to be instituted at a cost far exceeding all that the previous civil undertakings of the local Government had presented to the public.

The scepticism that was manifested by the natives, although no doubt attributable in some measure to prejudice and ignorance, rested principally upon reasonable misgivings. What claim had we upon their faith? There was no analogy in existing circumstances to justify to their minds the probability of the wonders, which had been announced, being ever realised. Could they believe that a new

kind of inland communication, of almost fabulous efficiency and of marvellous costliness, would be provided for them by a Government that had been so careless of the public welfare as to have neglected to provide an ample and unfailing supply of water, or an efficient system of drainage for the metropolis, and to have tolerated famine in the midst of plenty for want of the commonest communications? It was notorious that they had for years left part of the Bombay and Agra Road, the main channel of commerce between Central India and the Port of Bombay, in a state fraught with danger and obstruction. Extensive and productive districts had, as the Natives well knew, long been suffered to waste their abundant riches in remote and inaccessible granaries, for want of roads, the construction of which called for no great efforts, and needed only a small outlay from the public funds. There had been much talk too of a new and superior description of light, fitted both for public and domestic purposes, but the flame of gas had never glared upon their expectant gaze; and in only one of the public thoroughfares was to be seen, here and there, a pale and ineffectual fire, just making darkness visible. What evidence of the bonâ fide character of the new scheme was there in the fact, that a project for water-works, which had for years been under the too patient incubation of the Government, remained unhatched; and that in the capital of this Presidency drought was still an impending curse over its half million inhabi

tants?

Was it to be supposed by the Natives that a crore of rupees would be expended in a single new road, while in the Metropolis and amidst their own dwellings they experienced the pernicious effects of uncleanliness, because the rule of the most civilized nation in the world had, by means of patch-work and driblets of expenditure, dallied for years with the first essential to the health and welfare of its citizens? What though steamboats had been running here for some time past!—there was little in the slow packets of the Indian Navy, or even in the faster vessels of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, to induce the natives to believe in the introduction of a system of inland communication, which was declared to be capable of safely conveying them at the rate of 50 miles an hour! How could they comprehend that the powerful locomotive Engine would be substituted at enormous expense for the hard-faring pack-bullock, the rude cart and the bamboo coolie, when they remarked an almost instinctive dread of employing machinery except in the principal establishments of the Presidency?

After the late parliamentary debates and popular movements in the cause of Indian reform, there can be no doubt that local improvements, particularly in public works, were placed upon the orders of