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206 important knowledge to thousands of persons who never dream of sitting down to the study of an enormous Blue-book like the one before me. Meantime I am strongly tempted to place before the readers of some of the features of life in India which Miss Nightingale presents with singular vividness. Feeble as her health is unhappily known to be, her views have lost none of their distinctness—her pen none of its power. In this commentary we find in perfection the consummate good-sense, the keen irony, indicating subdued sensibility, the wide range of understanding, and the all-pervading generosity and courage which, to my mind, make her writings one of the strong interests of our time. From the few pages of this commentary we learn more of the interior of life in India than a dozen books on India from the circulating library could convey; and we see in a wholly new light, as clear as the day, how much may be done for the life of everybody there by such means as are perfectly at our command.

During the mutiny, the common practice of thrusting our soldiers’ wives and children into barracks, without much consideration of their numbers, was followed at Dumdum (in Bengal, not very far from Calcutta). There were 554 women, and 770 children. There they were to live and take care of themselves, while their husbands and fathers were fighting the rebels. They were uncomfortable; they had nothing to do; they were in a strange land, among strange customs, which perplexed their notions of right and wrong. The weak went astray in drink and other indulgences; they lived in dirt, dullness, and depression. Presently 64 of the wives and 166 of the children were dead of dysentery: and the mortality in those barracks was six times greater than that of Bengal generally, unhealthy as Bengal is reputed to be. Far west, at the same time, there was another assemblage of soldiers’ wives and children,—those of native soldiers under the rule of Sir John Lawrence. It was at the time of the siege of Delhi: and the native officers looked to see whether their wives and children were cared for. Sir J. Lawrence has views on this subject; and now the value of them has been proved, he thinks that a married officer should remain to take care of the women and children who are left behind,—to help them to communicate with their husbands, to see that they get their remittances,—to be, in short, a friend to them. This sort of care was taken of the wives of the Delhi soldiers; and they prospered. The story of how the widows of brave men were cared for spread among the natives. “The men all heard of it,” says Sir John Lawrence, “and felt it very much.” Miss Nightingale remarks that more of our own people died in the Dumdum way than by other sorts of “massacre”; and that while our soldiers were pursuing the murderers of English women and children, their own wives and children were being killed off by means for which no native was answerable.

But the wives who go to India are far fewer than those who are left behind. This opens a chapter of horrors upon which I will not enter. The perils and troubles of the forsaken wives are shocking enough: but our business here is with those who are in India. The husbands consider it a divorce, and are among the worst men in the regiment, as those who are allowed to take their wives are usually the best. The wives are in the greatest danger,—through bad arrangements. They are a mere sprinkling of women in a crowd of men; and, when one is left a widow, she must marry within six months, or be turned adrift. Sir J. Lawrence says this causes the utter ruin of many “a decent body” who “must marry the first that offers, or do worse.” Such management accounts for much of the intemperance and dissipation which produce liver-complaints in the soldiers, and break down their health and their self-respect together.

The contrast presented to us is remarkable. At some stations, the married soldiers are living in bamboo huts, airy and quiet. They have home interests; and during their leisure hours, they are incited to employ themselves. They not only take their little children on their knees, but provide many a good thing for them by handiwork. Meantime, the divorced men are drinking, or gaming, or asleep, or in hospital; and in any case preparing their constitutions to give way under the first attack of disease.

Here is a view of the soldier’s day in ordinary Indian barracks or camp;—the soldier, that is, who has no wife and children, and therefore no claim for domestic privacy, and no trade to pursue, no occupation, no amusement provided for his use.

A barrack-room may contain from 100 to 600 men, who usually have to pass twenty out of the twenty-four hours there. All they can do, except when at drill, is to eat and drink and sleep. They do not even cook their own meals, but doze on their beds while native servants are doing it. They rise at daybreak, and are at drill for an hour. Then they have breakfast, and lie down on their beds. The rest of the day is, “dinner, bed: tea, bed: drink, and bed for the night.” Amidst all this idleness and all this heat they eat meat three times a day, in all seasons. They get nothing before they go forth into the early morning fogs; and then have three heavy meals in the hot hours of the day. They have no fortifying cup of hot coffee before morning drill; but they have two drams of spirits and one of porter when they wake up to eat their heavy meals. “Alcohol and unrefreshing day-sleeps” are pronounced fatal to bodily and mental vigour; and there is markedly better health among the men when on long, hot, laborious marches, or when engaged in the toils of a campaign, than in the ordinary course of life in barracks. Miss Nightingale comments thus on the system:

“Suppose any one wanted to try the effect of full diet, tippling, and want of exercise, in a hot climate, on the health of men in the prime of life, the Indian army method would be the process to adopt, in the certain expectation that every man exposed to it will be damaged in health.

“While all this scientific ‘turkey stuffing’ is practised, the men are carefully kept in barracks, and not allowed to exercise themselves. And everybody seems to believe that the way of making diseased livers in geese for Strasburg pies is the best way of keeping