Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/130

 be the situation of the private soldier, whose life during half the year, is little better than solitary confinement; whose duty is little more than a plausible pretext to keep him out of idleness; whose idle hours are wearisome and monotonous to an excessive degree, owing to a general incapacity for intellectual pursuit. It is not surprising that men so situated become listless, gloomy, and melancholy; that they should cultivate the seeds of disease;chop off their fingers;put out their eyes; and malinger incorrigibly, in the hopes of getting invalided;that they should drown their senses in intoxication and die of delirium tremens; that they should commit some act of felony with the express object of being emancipated from military duty by transportation; or, failing in attaining their object by any of the above means, that they should put an end to their sufferings by committing suicide.

Much has been done to improve their condition. Excellent barracks have everywhere been erected without regard to expense; supplied with both punkahs and tatties; cricket grounds, racket courts, and skittle alleys, are open for the playful, schools for the illiterate,libraries for the learned, temperance societies for the temperate; theatres for the comic; chapels for the devout; promotion and rewards for the well conducted, and dry rooms and solitary cells for all offenders. The