451

THE LANCET.

LONDON: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1857.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA A SANITARY QUESTION.

WHEN the national mind shall have recovered from the deepstupefaction caused by the terrible concussion between thenative races of India and our countrymen, two objects of

intense interest will engage its attention. The inquiring and

practical intellects of this country will first unravel and laybare the causes of that weakness which have involved our

oriental dominion in desperate jeopardy; and, next, they willdemonstrate the means of acquiring future strength and

security. With a pressing task before us, that concerns thehonour and prestige of our race, with which we are accustomedto associate the cause of civilization and the welfare of man-

kind, it would be idle to lose time in recrimination, in recalling 0’

past prophecies expressed in terms more or less oracular, or inspeculating upon what calamities might have been averted had,certain warnings been heeded, Since the days when Troywas, a CASSANDRA has never been wanting to forbode a

national disaster. We have had our Indian CASSANDRAS. The

blow has fallen. For the moment our Indian empire is over-thrown. The task that demands our present energies is thereconstruction of our power on an enduring basis. Here we

want, not the desponding wail of a CASSANDRA, but the activegenius of MiNERvA.

History and current observation point distinctly to one greatdefect in our relations with the subjugated nations of theIndian peninsula. Our sway there is not upheld by the peopleof England. It has been a purely military despotism-a mild

despotism, if the East India Company wills it-but still a mili-

tary despotism pure and simple. It is a rule in which the strong

cementing forces of this country, as displayed in our aptitudefor colonising, for free cultivation, and free commerce, havenothing to do. The close, bureaucratic, and military policy ofthe Company has so operated as most effectually to turn asidethe independent enterprise of England from the soil of India.That concourse of individual enterprise and independentsettlers which elsewhere have been consolidated into powerfulstates, making our imperial colonies an integral part of GreatBritain, giving and receiving strength, have found no footholdin what is called British India.

There has been a formal and absolute repudiation on thepart of the East India Company of any assistance from thespirit of the nation in the gigantic task of assimilating India.

They have striven jealously to hold India, not for India, notfor England, but for themselves. The work has proved beyondtheir strength. The prize is slipping from their grasp. It ia

not probable that the will and the resources of the Britishnation will be put forth to reconquer and to hold that prize, inin order to transfer it again to a monopolist Company. That

it will be reconquered, as far as military prowess can conquer,no one doubts. That, our soldiers can and will accomplish.But can soldiers alone hold the country in security, and to s

profitable end ? Recent experience returns an emphatic denial,We can never hope to maintain in the Asiatic Continent a forc(sufficiently great of itself to keep 200 millions of people ir

permanent subjection. Nor will the experiment of holdink

Hindoos in subjection by putting arms into the hands of I3in-doos be lightly tried again. If India is ever to be occupiedrighteously, profitably, and safely, it will be by aid of the artsof peace. In order that the arts of peace may flourish in India,it is necessary that European agriculturists and traders, as wellas soldiers, be enabled to live there. Hitherto, the adverseinfluences of climate and soil have conspired with the policy ofthe Company to render the country uninhabitable--that is, inthe full sense of the term-to Englishmen. Even those officerswho are engaged in the military and civil services, with fewexceptions, find it imperatively necessary to the preservationof their health, if not of life, to take frequent furloughs to theirnative land. The occupation of the country renders it neces.sary to maintain stations in districts and localities which would

be condemned on sanitary grounds. These positions can onlybe held by a great expenditure of life, and the frequent re-newal of men. It frequently happens that an able officer uponwhom rests the most important trust is suddenly compelled byfailing health to throw it up, and fly to the hill stations or toEngland. Calcutta, the seat of government itself, is a placeso uncongenial to our countrymen that frequent escape from it

is an imperative necessity. Happily, there are districts in thisvast peninsula more suitable to the European constitution.

Could these districts be made the centres of government, ofcommerce, and of colonisation, then indeed might the Indian

population be brought to feel, at the same time, the presenceof an ever-vigilant administration, the full advantage of ex-change with Europe, and the civilising influence imparted byintercourse with a settled population of Englishmen.

This is the great object which an imperial policy dictates.It has been admirably enforced and illustrated in a pamphlet*recently issued by Mr. HYDE CLARKE, a gentleman long favour.ably known in the engineering and financial world for theoriginality of his conceptions, his extensive knowledge, and

, indomitable spirit of research. Foremost amongst the meansof settling India, Mr. CLARKE insists upon the extension of therailway and telegraph systems. By the aid of these powerful

F competitors against time and space, it will become possible tomake the salubrious hill-stations the centres of government,

’ trade, and colonization. Mr. CLARKE says that

"The towns of Simla, Darjeeling, Ootacamund, Soobathoo,Dalhousie, Dapoolie, Almorah, and other infant settlemente,have sprung within the last thirty years, as the frontiers ofEnglish territory have been extended, and access has beengained to these healthful regions. Amongst the mountainranges a knot of invalids rear a village of cottages; the church,the library, and the school for the children follow; and a smalltown is kept up by the exertions of a succession of residents,commonly without special encouragement, and often amidconsiderable difficulties. Of late years these towns have be-come important as the permanent or season residences of thegovernors-general, governors, commanders-in-chief, bishops,and superior functionaries, whose duties of superintendence canbe carried on as efficiently in the hill towns as in the presi-dential cities, and much more satisfactorily. Thus Simla hasfor several years competed with Calcutta as the virtual metro-polis of India, and with Agra as the capital of the north-west ;Darjeeling is becoming a capital of Bengal alternately withCalcutta; and Ootacamund receives the governors, generals,and officials of Madras, as Dapoolie does of Bombay."One great obstacle to the growth of these towns and the

immigration of permanent settlers is the present cost and diffi-culty of access. An eccentric friend of ours, who had gone

through the disappointments which DICKENS has so admirably

* Colonization, Defence, and Railways in our Indian Empire. By Hyderlft’r1:tB T r-nrinn . Tftht Wctto 1-lioh Hn1htB1"n lRFt..’’7

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PROPOSED SITE FOR THE JENNER MONUMENT.

pictured of endeavouring to make a location in an American" Eden," is in the habit of saying that there is no such thingas a Paradise without roads. So even may these delightfulregions of Northern India be said to have no existence if theyaxe inaccessible. Hitherto, many days’ journey and an enormous

expence, to be undertaken by invalids, have precluded any butthe very wealthy from availing themselves freely of the hill-towns. All this may be remedied by railways. Of the elec-

tric telegraph system, which our former valued coadjutor, SirW. O’SHAU&HNESSY, has been so instrumental in developing,Mr. HvDE CLARKE says:

" The electric telegraph affords, as pointed out by me somyears since, the means of directing the government of Indi,from the hill-towns instead of from the pernicious cities of th,coast. It was with this view that I laid down, in 1849, :system of telegraph lines for India, which made Simla, Darjeeling, and the hill stations as effectually the centres of communication as Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras."In conjunction with the late FRANCIS WHiSHAW, this schem(

was submitted by Mr. CLARKE to the East India Company,and it was particularly urged that4c one great result would be a better sanitary administration;

since troops might be concentrated in healthier cantonments;leave of absence might be more safely given; and officerscould be summoned from Darjeeling to the Presidency withinfour or five days." "

By diminishing sickness there would be an increase of effi-

ciency in the army, and a saving in the army administration.This scheme is now in rapid course of execution. The tele-

graph is in action as far as Simla, and consequently the

Governor-General is as useful there as if he were staying atCalcutta. It is already ordered to be extended to Darjeeling.But we must not only be enabled to transmit our thoughtsand commands; we must also be enabled to transport ourbodies. Action must follow close upon the heels of Decision.

Hence the Rail must be the companion of the Wire. It is in

this latter respect that the Company has evinced most slug-gishness of apprehension, or of progress. We trust what we

have said has made it clear-if we have failed we must refer

our readers to Mr. CLARKE’s pamphlet-that India must beruled, civilized, and colonized by opening up the healthyregions of the hills to European enterprise.The most striking illustrations of the truth of this position

teem in the accounts of the Indian convulsion, which all of usare daily scanning with such harrowing interest. We learn

that Sir HENRY LAWRENCE, one of the most able of the local

governors, who was justly looked upon as the heart of theBritish defence, directed the movements of- all, diffusing con-fidence and vigour, whilst seated, as we may suppose him,opposite the dial of the telegraph at Rawul Pindee.Had the rail spread its network further, so as to convey

our small bands of heroes to the scenes where their presence Iwas needed, how many of our coiintrywomen, and how manychildren, would have been rescued from atrocities that tonguecannot utter, but the images of which pursue us in our

dreams !

The value of independent civilians has been amplyacknow-ledged. Every Englishman has dwelt with pride on the his-tory of the defence of a little outhouse by Mr. BOYLE, theresident railway engineer, who displayed, in the most criticalconjuncture, the foresight of a politician, the resolution of asoldier, the ability of a general, and the skill of a scientificengineer.

Our argument may be summed up in a few words. To hold

India for the true benefit of England and of India, the penin-sula, must be thrown open to the free enterprise-colonising,commercial, and scientific-of England. India cannot be the

scene of this enterprise to a sufficient extent unless those

regions, which are suited to the constitution of Europeans, bemade accessible by railways. In fine, we must substitute, fora mere armed occupation, a real colony of Englishmen in thehill-districts.

LAST week there appeared in the Athenaeum a letter, signed" F.R.C.S.,’’ condemning the selection of Trafalgar-square as asite for the statue of JENNER. No argument against this posi-tion was offered except a deplorable sneer at the assemblagethere of statues of JENNER, GEORGE IV., and NAPIER. We are

at a loss to perceive the incongruity. Although the neighbour-hood of the last and worst of the GEORGES is certainly not very

complimentary, yet there is no reason why the memorial ofevery great fighting man "in his habit as he lived" should nothave for company those who fought with equal bravery onother fields, whether the battle was tlia.t of nation agoiuztnation, or of science and wisdom against disease and ignorance.Moreover, Trafalgar-square is the only really good site we havein London for public statues, and needs a number of them toredeem it from its present appearance of an used-up slate-

quarry. Surely it would be both pleasant and profitable tothus compare the personal appearance of the thinkers andworkers, and to contrast their mighty deeds. The statues of

men of mark should stand together in the- heart of England’scapital, even as their names are equally dear to the hearts ofthe people, and written imperishably on the same pages of herhistory.But there is a deep attempt at finesse in the letter of

F. R. C. S." " He proposes what he considers a most eligiblesite for JENNER’s statue-the melancholy wilderness of Lincoln’s.inn-fields : and he thus indicates the exact position: "Placedwithin the garden railings on the south side of the square, it" would be well relieved against the sky(!), and surely the statue"of a distinguished surgeon could nowhere be more suitably"placed than at the gates of his College." Without alluding tothe generosity (quite characteristic of the College) which muni-ficently offers a sky against which the statue may be relieved,there is a slight objection to the proposed arrangement. JENNERwas in no way identified with the College of Surgeons. His

great discovery, and nearly all the works he accomplished, be-longed to the domain of medicine. The only British diplomahe held in 1813 was that of St. Andrews. It is possible thatthis very disinterested suggestion to place the public statue ofJENNER where very few would ever see it is a ruse- to escapethe stigma which attaches to the College, that they have neverhad the grace to erect a statue of HUNTER in front of the

building which derives nearly all its prestige from his noblemuseum. If the site be so admirable, why is there no statueto the benefactor of the College, ’’ well relieved against thesky"-sic it2ar ad ast7°a.

Vre advocate strongly the selected site of Trafalgar-square,though probably the College of Physicians hardly like therecollections that a statue of JEXNER in front of their domicile

would conjure up. For it cannot be forgotten that, whenOxford gave JENNER his degree,-when honours were showeredm him from all parts of Europe, -when NAPOLEON (at war with

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MEDICAL ANNOTATIONS.

England) exclaimed, " Ab, JEXNER ! we can refuse nothing tothat man, "-the College of Physicians opposed his admission totheir degree, unless he, when more than three-score years of

age, underwent a chemical examination, and translated Hirro-CRATES and ARETaeUS out of Greek. Other conduct there is of

that august body towards JENNER still less to their credit. It

is not pleasant to be continually reiiiiiicled what good reasonthere is to cry "pecca·imus;" but if the vicinage of the statueof JENHER produce so wholesome an influence on the College ofPhysicians, the selection of this site will be a professionalbenefit to those who are without the Porch, as well as a gainto the sight-seer and the public.

Medical Annotations.

PROSTiTUTiON-THE SIGNS OF ITS REFORM. ’

THERE is a history to every great reform, as to every greatdiscovery-a history with its stages of progress distinctlymarked, and following in logical sequence. Those brilliantresults which render immortal the names of Bacon, Watt, andNewton, were only what the first of them was wont to call"fruit." The tree had to grow, a bud to form, a scaffoldingof flower-leaves to fall away, before that fruit matured. So

every reform, whether great or small, political or social, has Iits previous methodic history. Long smouldering discontentprecedes the outbreak of a revolution, and the accumulatingpressure from without brings about a civil reform, notwith-standing the readiness of statesmen to adopt such changes forthe better as their own unaided work.There are hopeful signs that the ever-spreading evils arising

from the sanction hitherto afforded to prostitution in its mostrepulsive forms have at last aroused a determination that themischievous sin shall be checked. Every shuffling excuse hasbeen used to postpone interference; sometimes an untruth,declaring that we are no worse than our neighbours, and con-fessing other people’s faults with infinite gusto; sometimes athreadbare affectation of ignorance; or an assumption of super-ficial morality, scarcely less revolting than the pride of Herod,clothing himself in purple and demanding homage as a king,whilst loathsome worms devoured him. ’Moreover, it is

to be deeply regretted that those whose position in societyespecially renders them custodians of public morals have, as aclass, set themselves in opposition to any practical means forrestraining the mischief that springs from unrestricted prostitu- ition. Every one conversant with the inner life of great citiesknows that all attempts to entirely suppress the evil onlyrepresent so much labour wasted. Men and women can nomore be made good by Acts of Parliament than they can bemade holy by the faggot and the stake. Vice may be keptwithin due bounds, as the awful excesses of the blasphemermay be sternly checked, but no arbitrary power can controlthe tendency to wickedness. Legislative suppression of prosti-tution has been tried in England, as well as in other countriespresenting far more favourable opportunities than this kingdomafforded, even under the despotic sway of the Tudors. Failurehas everywhere been the result; and where actual increase ofthe sin has not followed, the inefficiency of the attempt hasonly served to bring out in stronger relief the abounding natureof the vice. Yet for years past there have been circulatingthrough the country petitions, drawn up by clergymen, prayingthat the evil might be entirely suppressed by the strong armof the law. Be it understood that there are many holy, wise,and earnest men who have healthier and more practical views.But the majority of the clergy decline to lend their influencein support of practical legislative means to diminish and con-

trol the evil because they have no power to uproot it altogether." What," they ask, " is to be done ?" What, we ask, wouldthe fathers of the church have done ? what would Latimer andmen of his kind have done ? Would they not have gone forthinto the highways, Bible in belt, and fought the evil, if needwere, foot to foot, rather than hear it asserted that the teachersof religion are unable to check the encroachments of sin, or toresist the smallest wave of the ever-rising tide of vice. It is

surely illogical to constantly assert the desperate wickednessof the heart of man, and yet continue to leave unassailedone of the most potent means for its depravity. It is worsethan illogical to refuse opposition to the encroachments of

Sathanos, because he cannot be bound hand and foot, stowedaway under hatches, and the decks swept clean from everytrace of his former presence, all at one blow. What are secta-rian disputes that men should quarrel in the camp, whilst thecommon enemy invades their domain, pilfering the fairest andweakest of their flocks, and tainting those that he cannotseize. So frightful is the magnitude to which the evil of pros-titution has now attained, and so marked its influence on everygrade of society, that ministers of religion, of whatever deno-mination, who refuse to co-operate in practical attempts atreform, can no longer be held guiltless or allowed to shut theireyes, and plead that ignorance which, says South, " is noman’s duty, and can be no man’s profession."And the long-talking metaphysicians, who pretend to under-

take the guidance of men’s minds,-where are they at this junc-ture ? What earthly good to any human being did all their drearydidactics about the good, the true, and the beautiful, the sen-sational and the ideal, ever do? Vice fhunts in the streets un-banned, and ensnares men’s minds by traps set without cun-ning, and baited with mere intellectual carrion unfit for mentalfood. Meanwhile the aesthetic pliilosopher, pretty creature, istaking little leaps towards the stars, and when he bumps toearth again with all the ponderosity of fourteen stone, calls onus to admire his buoyancy.But we need not continue the recital of those whose opposition,

feebleness, or infatuation have retarded the reform which mustsooner or later take place in the uncontrolled sin that infests andinfects every town in England. It is everybody’s business, andtherefore nobody does it. That something could, should, andought to be done, has long ago been determined. The time is

coming when the cry will be that something must and shall bedone; for it is a fact proved by sad experience that no femalein London, from the age of eight upwards, is safe from thesnares of an organised army of some 4000 miscreants, whosubsist by inveigling the innocent, and betraying them toatrocities that almost rival the deeds of the barbarians of

Cawnpore. Happily there is a mighty power in England thatgives expression to the thoughts which weigh on men’s heartsand occupy their minds, and fears not to trample down pre-judice and opposition when doing battle for the cause of justiceand truth. Through THE PRESS honest and truthful expressionhas been given to the public disgust felt at the unbridledlicence accorded in every English city to the sin of prostitution,and to the horror with which its encroachments are regarded.However distasteful to the genteel prudery of feeble-mindedreaders, it was a duty to lay bare the full extent of this foulsore that has so eaten into the body of society. And we be.lieve there is scarcely a journal of repute which has not recentlytaken occasion to condemn the miserable policy now pursued,and to powerfully advocate the necessity for some practicallaws of reform. And the clond of witnesses is still gathering.At one time it is an earnest, gifted preacher, who, addressing alarger congregation than ever before assembled under one roof,boldly spake thus: "Britain had to weep for deeds which hergovernors had not yet had strength of mind to stop. They hadlong been allowing the infamous nuisances of Holywell-street.Thank God, they were pretty nearly done for ! but in the Hay-market and in Regent-street they still allowed infamy to walkbefore their eyes publicly. It was somebody’s fault, and against