two people, because they are so easily ventilated. Whenever the number of inmates exceeds 20 or 30 per room, it is practically far more difficult to ensure fresh air, and beyond that number it soon becomes impossible. Sad experience has proved that long rooms, like passages, with 100 or more persons sleeping in them, may become highly dangerous during epidemics, and absolutely pestilential if occupied by sick." Yet nearly every barrack in India, even the most recent and those built on the most admired models, has been constructed in open defiance of this warning. Among the smallest rooms are those at Mean Meer, a new station, and these are 48 feet long by 24 wide; at Secunderabad they range from 124 to 274 feet long; at Allahabad they are 335 feet long; at Trichinopoly 1000 feet; at Fort St. George, Madras, there is one 2124 feet long. In rooms like these the only choice is found to lie between breathing a thoroughly impure air, or lying in a thorough draughteither alternative about equally fatal. Then, again, the natives, we have seen, seldom sleep more than two or three in a room; at home the barrack-rooms rarely hold more than ten, fifteen, or twenty men; but at Secunderabad they hold 104; at Allahabad 100; at the Dalhousie barracks, at Fort William (the newest of all), 306 men; at Fort St. George 400 and 600.

4. After this, we shall not be surprised to learn that the supply of water-which next to air is most essential to life and health-is in the Indian barracks almost invariably inadequate in quantity and bad in quality. The water in India is seldom very good or very abundant; when not obtained from the rivers, it is collected in tanks, or drawn from shallow wells, twenty or thirty feet deep. To many of our stations it is conveyed by bullocks, and often in skins. It is usually full of impurities and organic matter, to a degree which scandalises even men accustomed to our London element. The water from shallow wells is in most countries impure-in India particularly so. The nasty habits of the natives aggravate the evil both in well and tank water. The obvious remedy is to sink wells of sufficient depth, and to filter all suspicious water before use;— and these precautions the Commissioners urge should be insisted on in future. Better cooking and more careful clothing are also recommended as likely to be attended with the happiest results.

5. We now come to the moral causes of the excessive sickness and mortality of the troops in India-intemperance, debauchery, and ennui. We will take the last first, as one of the chief inducements to the others. No one who reads the following passage can wonder that the British soldier in India is both drunken and licentious:

"There is no period of military service in which the soldier is thrown more upon his own resources, and has fewer opportunities of employing them advantageously, than during his service in India. He rises at gun-fire, attends his parade or drill, over soon after sun-rise. He then returns to his barrack, and during the hot season he is not allowed to leave it till late in the afternoon. At one o'clock he consumes a large amount of both animal food and vegetables, porter (perhaps a quart), and spirits. He has few or no means of occupying himself rationally. He lies on his bed and perhaps sleeps most of the day. He has his evening parade or drill, and his turn of guard-duty once in every five, seven, or ten days. Even at home this kind of regimen would be far from conducive to health. In India, both physically and morally, it helps to destroy health in men in the prime of life, with abundance of nervous power to dispose of.

The whole of this unwholesome proceeding is considered necessary for preserving the soldier; but it is not considered necessary to subject the officer to the same ordeal. He goes about, and even goes shooting, not only without detriment, but with great advantage to health, for the officers are much more healthy than the men.

The men's amusements, such as they are, are always connected more or less with drink; and they are every where most deficient in amount. The men suffer much from ennui. For all practical purposes, they are entirely idle, and they complain of what they feel every where, the weary idleness' of their lives, and that so little has been done in the way of giving them occupation.

The want of exercise, and a coincident high rate of sickness and mortality, falls most heavily on the infantry. The cavalry regiments and artillery, who have, one way or other, much more physical exertion to undergo, are much more healthy."

Now soldiers are rarely reading men, and though libraries and reading-rooms ought, no doubt, to be provided for them, and to a certain limited extent have been, yet we cannot say that we anticipate any vast improvement from the acquisition of this sort of recreation. Nor will the artificial contrivance of theatres do much. Gardens they might have, and do have occasionally; and the slight practical difficulties in the way might easily be overcome. But two things might and ought to be provided, and between them would do much to remedy the evil complained of-the insupportable irksomeness of life. The soldiers ought to be allowed and encouraged, and even made to work, and they ought to be subjected to gymnastic training. The value of this last resource can scarcely be overestimated. It would render the soldier a far more valuable man professionally. Indeed, without it he is and must remain professionally very imperfect. The French understand this well; and their picked troops go through almost the training of athletes and acrobats. Gymnastics, too, would harmonise well with the soldier's tastes and habits. Both the evidence

and the Report are very clear and strong upon this head. Such discipline would be popular as well as salutary, and would supply the exercise so much needed. All the best officers agree that there need not be, and should not be, any strict confinement to barracks; even shooting should be encouraged-indeed, any activity and any amusement that is innocent. Wherever this system has been tried, as Colonel Greathed shows, it has been attended with the best results. It is clear, too, that work should be both encouraged and rewarded. There can be no

reason why the soldier should not employ those long hours during which he is now absolutely idle and useless in labouring for himself and his regiment, in working at some trade, in producing articles wanted by the troops, such as cabinet-making, shoe-making, iron-work, &c. We quite agree, moreover, with those witnesses and Commissioners who would extend this permission still further, and employ the men, wherever practicable, in out-door work-in building, carpentering, road-making, &c. If they were paid for it, they would like it; and they would become instantaneously incomparably more moral, more contented, and more sober. This is no mere theory: the trial has already been made in some districts, and has succeeded admirably. Every barrack in the Punjab has a workshop attached to it.

Intemperance would diminish enormously and rapidly with the introduction of employment and recreation. At present the soldier in India is driven to drink by the insupportable irksomeness of his idle hours, and encouraged to drink by the canteen system, as it is called, under which spirits are provided for the soldier, and brought close within his reach, on the plea that if the authorities did not supply him with good liquor, he would buy worse stuff from the natives. The Commissioners, while admitting the difficulty of the case, are of opinion-in which they are supported by much testimony-that if, instead of spirits, malt-liquor, acidulated drinks, and light wines, were provided in ample quantities at the cantonments, the consumption of ardent spirits would be much reduced, and that, whatever the original cost, the diminution of sickness among the men would render the measure one of wise and certain economy.

6. The next point is a matter difficult to deal with, both in

life and on paper. A very large proportion of the disabling sickness which prevails in the Indian army arises from debauchery. Nearly one-fourth of the men in hospital are there for syphilitic affections. Altogether, one-third of the entire force is said to suffer from this class of disease, viz.-345 per 1000 in Bengal; 314 in Bombay; and 249 in Madras. Not only are the soldiers thus temporarily rendered useless, but they are often permanently invalided by this wretched malady,

and may trace their premature death by other diseases to the enfeebling of their constitution by this one. Now, as long as the great majority of the army consists of young and unmarried men (and we suppose it must always consist of such), no one appears to believe that the licentious habits from which these disorders spring can be effectually cured. But all military witnesses and authorities agree that much might be done to mitigate the evil. In the first place, a greater number of the men might be allowed to marry, and to have their wives accompany them. It is purely a question of trouble and expense; or rather of trouble only, for every one bears testimony to the fact, that the married soldiers are by far the steadiest and most healthy; and the extra cost, therefore, would be more than counterbalanced by the increased efficiency and the diminished sickness of the force. At present the number of married soldiers who have a claim to accommodation in the barracks for their wives at home is six per cent. In India the proportion has been augmented to twelve per cent. The best authorities advise a still further enlargement of the limit up to 25 per cent, and the provision of better quarters for the women. Considerable reduction in the severity of the scourge might also be secured by the establishment of lock hospitals under strict and cogent regulations. But, as General Jacob declared, moral forces alone are of much value, and these must act both slowly and, for the most part, indirectly. Occupation, instruction, and recreation, brought within the soldier's reach, urged upon him, and made agreeable to him, would do more than any thing else to reduce the force of those temptations to illicit indulgence which now entail such deplorable results. Licentiousness and intemperance would be brought within much narrower limits than at present, if the men could employ their time pleasantly and profitably without being driven by the tedium vitæ to the brothel and the canteen.

To sum up the whole: three or four points are made perfectly clear by the Report of the Commissioners, and by the other authentic documents to which we have referred. First, That the excessive mortality and sickness which has hitherto prevailed in the Indian Army taxes our recruiting power to a dangerous extent, and may make it a very difficult matter to maintain there a sufficient force for the security of our dominion. Secondly, That this excessive mortality might, with absolute certainty, and with no insuperable difficulties, be removed in India, as it has been among the British troops serving at home and at other foreign stations. Thirdly, That it would pay splendidly to introduce the needed sanitary reforms. And, fourthly, That the simplest dictates of common sense, common

justice, and common morality, demand that we should set about the incumbent and very feasible work without an hour's delay. The guilt of manslaughter on a portentous scale will lie at the door of all who can be fairly chargeable with either neglect, opposition, or avoidable procrastination.

ART. IV. MR. FREEMAN'S HISTORY OF FEDERAL

GOVERNMENT.

History of Federal Government. By Edward A. Freeman, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Vol. I. General Introduction; History of the Greek Federations. Macmillan & Co.

To the reader of a work on a subject of great and permanent interest there is something very unsatisfactory in the impression that it has owed its origin to the excitement of events passing at or immediately before the time when it was written. And it must be confessed that a title page which begins with "History of Federal Government," and ends with the date 1863, is not unlikely to convey this impression. It is, therefore, with no common pleasure that we notice the disclaimer which Mr. Freeman has placed in the opening sentences of his Preface:

"I trust that no one will think that the present work owes its origin to the excitement of the War of Secession in America. It is the first instalment of a scheme formed long ago, and it represents the thought and reading of more than ten years. All that late events in America have done has been to increase my interest in a subject which had already long occupied my thoughts, and, in some degree, to determine me to write at once what might otherwise have been postponed for some time longer" (p. ix.).

Nor is it possible to read Mr. Freeman's volume carefully without feeling that in this statement he has done himself no more than justice, and that what he has written is the product of substantial learning and independent research. Thus in the discussion of the characteristics of federal government, which precedes the more strictly historical part of the book, the opinions which he expresses are formed on much broader grounds, and deserve a much larger measure of our respect, than the hasty diatribes, either in favour of federalism or against it, with which newspapers and pamphlets have made us only too familiar. And if in the course of the history itself allusions to modern politics are occasionally unduly frequent, it is much rather of