Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/129

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 * band; then, at dusk, home to dinner, and about ten o'clock retire to bed.
 * band; then, at dusk, home to dinner, and about ten o'clock retire to bed.
 * band; then, at dusk, home to dinner, and about ten o'clock retire to bed.
 * band; then, at dusk, home to dinner, and about ten o'clock retire to bed.

The expence of living, compared with that of England, is very considerably greater. Though income, and window, and road tax, and wheel, and horse, and dog taxes are unknown; and though the staple articles of food are extremely cheap, yet every article of European produce is at least cent. per cent. above the home tariff, and it requires considerable economy for any officer, under the rank of captain, and not of the Staff, to live well on his pay.

5. EUROPEAN REGIMENTS.—On joining a European regiment the Assistant-surgeon will be issued into an extensive society of officers, have the entrée to a well found mess; sit down to an excellent dinner, served up in elegant style, where politeness and decorum preside. He will not be long connected with the regiment until he learns that the majority of cases in hospital are directly or indirectly caused by intoxication, induced in many cases, by the dull, listless, routine of a barrack life. There is, in fact, a constant struggle between the men rushing to their graves and the Surgeon trying to keep them out of it—and his best intentions are often defeated.

If officers, with all the resources of a refined education, and all the indulgences of easy circumstances, so often fall victims to ennui, what must
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