Never may my dear wife and daughters forget how much their sex is indebted to Christianity!

'The walls of Banswarra include a large circuit, as much, as I should think, as those of Chester; but in the one, as well as the other instance, a good deal of space is taken up with gardens. There are some handsome temples and an extensive bazar, in which I saw a considerable number of Musulmans. We took up our abode without the walls, in a little old palace, with a pretty garden and a large cistern of water, now dry, which has been appropriated by the Rawul to the use of Captain Macdonald. From this house is an advantageous view of the city and palace; the trees are finer, and the view more luxuriant than any thing, Gunrowor always excepted, which we have seen since our leaving Bhurtpoor.' Vol. II. pp. 80, 89.

TO SOME TRANSPLANTED FLOWERS.

Ye will not bloom in stranger earth,

Ye waste no balm on foreign air;
Torn from the land that gave ye birth,
Ye deem it not one effort worth

To pay-what had been needless care,
Had those who'd save, but deigned to spare!
Since Nature hath no more her right,
Ye will not languish on with less;
Winter, and banishment, and night,
Warm not in vain such things of light;
Rooted in home and happiness,

Lived ye, whose death defeats distress.

How wise are Flowers! They come with Spring,
Or herald her from snow-beds white;

They dwell with every lovely thing,
In sunny vales, where wild birds sing,
Where dew drops glitter, chrystal bright,
And they can close their eyes at night!
Or watch the shooting stars, the moon,
The glow-worm, and torch-bearing fay,
The harmless lightning flash of June,
Or hear the cricket's merry tune,

And know that they can rest all day-
Or wake but in the breeze to play.

They've nought to do but breathe and shine
They are admired by every one;
Or, seen but by the eye Divine,
He did to their brief date assign

That they should never be alone,

And die, when all life's joy was gone!

Yet, with a sense of solitude,

A heart, that's now all memory,

A will, though powerless, not subdued,

A frame, that wastes 'neath clime so rude,

I cannot rest, I cannot fly

Nor, saddest boon, in exile die!

J. H.

ON THE MEDICAL SERVICE OF INDIA.

To the Editor of the Oriental Herald.

SIR,-In the hope that the information contained in the accompanying letter, if published in your widely-circulating Herald' may be useful to many of my late fellow-students, and others similarly situated, and may excite a more general interest in a not unimportant part of our Indian policy, it is respectfully offered for a place in its pages, by your most obedient servant,

A YOUNG PHYSICIAN.

To A. D., Esq., M.D., &c, &c. &c.

MY DEAR SIR,—I am now to give you, in compliance with your request, what information I can on the medical service of India, drawn chiefly from the experience of twenty-five years' duty in that quarter of the world; and you will not think this information the less to be relied on, from your knowledge that retirement from the service has, some time since, placed me beyond the reach of fears and wishes.

You acquaint me, that, having, at much expense, finished your education on the Continent, and having taken a degree of M. D. in this country, you are desirous to know what prospects the East India Company's service holds out to a medical man, now entering it, with the intention of devoting the useful part of his life to the service, and with the hope, should he survive, of returning, in from twenty to twenty-two years, to his native country, then in his forty-fifth year. The proportion of medical men who retire, to the numbers who enter the service, in the above-stated period, is reckoned about one to thirty-two.* From the suppositions which follow in your letter to me, I observe that you have provided yourself with an 'East India Register,' and that you draw the conclusion from the Company's 'Regulations on the Pay granted to Officers on Retirement,' of a fact that never yet has occurred; namely, that there is a possibility of a medical officer's being able, after seventeen years' actual service in India, to retire on the pay of superintending surgeon, 300l. a year, or even that of a member of the Medical Board, 500l. a year; and the words of the Regulations certainly warrant such an inference, being as follow:

'A member of the Medical Board, who has been in that situation not less than two years, and not less than twenty years in India, including three years for one furlough, is permitted to retire from the service, and allowed 500l. per annum.'

2. A surgeon of a General Hospital, (there has been no such appointment in India for a great many years,) or superintending

* Badenach on the Indian Army.

surgeon, who has been in that situation not less than two years, and whose period of service has not been less than twenty years, including three years for one furlough, as above, is permitted to retire from the service, and allowed 300l. a year.'

On the contrary, you may safely take my word for it, that these grades of retiring pensions, namely, 500l, and 300l. a year, are not attainable in a shorter period than forty-two and thirty-two years, respectively.

The preference, you inform me, you are advised to give to Bombay, is founded on good grounds, as far as I am informed, this being the least objectionable Presidency for a medical man, because promotion is not quite so tardy there as in the others; the proportion of the highest situation there, namely, that of member of the Medical Board, being as one to forty-one of the total medical establishment; at Madras, as one to seventy; and, in Bengal, as one to one huudred and seventy-five; otherwise, as to badness, they are all, I believe, pretty much upon a level. You may depend upon it, that all the advantages the medical service in India now holds out to those who shall be unfortunate enough to enter it, after from seventeen to thirty years' actual service in that most destructive climate, are described and included in the following Regulation, from the above quoted Register:

'All other surgeons and assistant surgeons, attached to the military,' (I never heard of any other,) are permitted to retire from the service on the pay of their rank, after having served in India not less than twenty years, including three years for one furlough;' that is, surgeons on the pay of captain, 1917. 12s., and assistant surgeons on the pay of lieutenant, 1187. 12s. 6d. per annum.

It is here proper, I should tell you, that the period of service of a medical man, in India, before his promotion, in routine to a surgeoncy, is about fourteen years, during which time he has the pay of lieutenant; from his promotion to a surgeoncy, and for about sixteen years after it, in all, thirty years' service, or, until he shall have attained, what is now considered, the staff-situation of superintending surgeon, he has the pay of captain. I need not trouble you with the amount of this pay, in rupees, or reduce it into English money; let it suffice to assure you, that if ever, as a medical man, you make the experiment, you will find it just sufficient to meet your current expenses in India, and no more.

You ask what are the incidental advantages or allowances attached to the medical branch of the service in India; and I answer, NONE WHATEVER. Certain medical contracts, for medical supplies, from which some advantages, in cantonment at least, were derived; and which were always regarded as something given to the surgeon, in the way of compensation for the expensiveness of his medical education, and the lateness of his arrival in India; these contracts have been abolished in Bengal and Bombay, for several years, and

by the latest accounts, they have been done away with at Madras also, without any consideration, or equivalent, being granted to medical men in lieu of them; but, with the privilege, I am informed, of purchasing, and keeping up, at their own proper cost, from their lieutenant's, and captain's pay, all their surgical and midwifery instruments, hitherto supplied to them from the Company's stores, free of expense. This expense, as you know, is very considerable in the first instance, and must continue so in a climate like that of India, where articles, of this sort, so very soon rust and spoil. So that the pay of medical officers is not superior to that of their military brethren, with whom they rank: while their retiring pay, beyond that of captain, falls very far short of that of officers of the same number of years standing in the service.

One very great hardship, medical men labour under in India, is, that belonging, as they do, to the whole army, they are marched about from one regiment to another, often at the remotest distances, not only without reason or advantage, but generally to the great detriment of the service; and apparently for the diversion only of the Adjutant-general's office, and to show its superiority over, and contempt for the Medical Board. The utility of medical inen, while thus journeying, many hundred of miles, and crossing each others paths, is wholly sacrificed. They are, however, much harrassed in this way; and this is one great cause of the greater mortality among them, than even among their military brethren,

If you have interest at the India House, get a writership if you possibly can. In this case, from the high emoluments of civil appointments in India, you would be able to realize a handsome independency in twenty-two years, have 500l. on a three years' furlough to England, should you in the course of your service require a furlough, and the pension of 1000l. a year on retirement, after the above period of service, to the amount, of one half of which pension you would have contributed yourself, from a small monthly per centage, out of your salary while in India; the other half being made up by the directors out of the funds of the Company. If 1000l. a year, to retire upon, after twenty-two years' service in India, is not more than enough for a civilian of the Company's service, what sum ought to be sufficient for a surgeon to retire upon, after an equal length of service? The directors say 1917. 128.

One reason, if I am rightly informed, for this attention to their civil servants, as assigned by the Court, was the loss in India, of twenty-five per cent. on exchange with this country, and the depreciation of the rupee from 28. 3d. to 1s. 8d.; this same rupee, being, nevertheless, immediately ordered by them, to be issued to the military branch of the service at 2s. 6d., one third more than its intrinsic value. The loss on exchange might not have been considered as applicable to the Military, at least to by far the

greater proportion of this branch, as where there is no saving, The directorial patronage of a there can be no remittance.

writership, by the way, is worth about 30001.

But if this appointment of a writership be unattainable by you, by all means lose not a moment in taking orders for a chaplaincy, This is an excellent appointment in India. During your cure of souls in India, an infinitely better thing than that of the bodies of the Company's lieges, and out of sight, less troublesome, or of scarcely any trouble at all,-you would have to change your station not above once, or twice, during the period of your service, and that to your advantage. In regard to the labour of converting the heathen, you would make no more Christians than you happened to beget, have major's pay, from the moment you entered the service, a good roof always over your head,-with a due share, of course, of surplice, burial, and other fees; and, to crown the whole, 3651. a-year, on retirement, after fifteen years' service in India; being just double the pay allowed to a surgeon who may have served twice the time, as by the before quoted Register :

"A chaplain, after eighteen years' service in India, including three years for one furlough, is allowed to retire on the pay of lieutenantcolonel, 3651. per annum; after ten years, if compelled by ill health to quit the service, on the half-pay of lieutenant-colonel, 2001, 15s. per annum; after seven years, on the half-pay of major, 173l. 7s. 6d.

I beg of you to contrast this with the provision made for a surgeon, and you will want no other dissuasive against entering this service: A surgeon, after twenty years' service in India,' [and he is no better provided for after thirty years,] including three years for one furlough, is allowed to retire on the pay of captain, 1914. 12s. a-year; after ten years, if compelled by ill health to quit the service, on the half-pay of lieutenant, 731. a-year; and, after seven years, on the half-pay of ensign, 541. 15s. a-year.

Waste no more of your time, therefore, or of your money, on medical studies; but, sinking your doctor's degree, throw physic to the dogs, and, in preference to an assistant-surgeoncy, if not past the proper age, take a cadetship. This is worth about 500l. During your service in India as lieutenant and captain, as to pay, you would be on a par with assistant-surgeon and surgeon. As major, you and having served twenty-two years, you may pass the surgeon; retire the day after your promotion, on 2927. a-year; as lieutenantcolonel, in succession, on 3651., (your surgeon contemporaries being still surgeons ;) and, finally, as colonel, with off-reckonings, from 1000l. to 12001. a-year.

The fate of a surgeon in India is, fourteen years' service, on lieutenant's pay, and sixteen on that of captain's; thirty-two years' service to enable him to reach superintending surgeon's pension, 3001. a year; and forty-two years to bring him to that of the Board,