Ixxii 



APl'ENDIX. 



Appendix, No. XI. 



Extract from the Calcutta Review No. XXXI. September, 

 1851, " Onthe Mortality of ^European Soldiers in India" 



A single fact publislied in the Quaarterly Review, and afterwards 

 in a little half-crown pamphlet, some few years ago, by that popular 

 writer, Sir Francis Head, attracted more attention to the subject of 

 railways, than all the scientific volumes that had previously issued 

 from the press. Thousands had been in the liabit of traveUing by 

 " Bail ;" but few were aware, that on everij Monday morning through- 

 out the year, on one particular railway, a new engine and tender, cost- 

 ing £1,250, were put upon the line. The fact was an astonishing one, 

 and set men's minds thinking, and calculating, if this occurred on only 

 cue railway in the United Kingdom, what must be the enormous ex- 

 pense, and still more enormous incomings, of these undertaldngs, to 

 enable them to return a profit ? 



Would it be thought less startling, or of less interest, with reference 

 to the subject before us, viz , the mortality of European troops, in this 

 country, to be told, that " the British soldier, who now serves one 

 year in Bengal, encounters as much risk of hfe, as in three such bat- 

 tles as Waterloo ? " It is, as if every private at present serving in H. 

 M.'s regiments at Calcutta, Dinapore, and Allahabad, were called upon 

 three tunes a year to expose himself to the dangers of such a conflict, 

 in which one in forty of the combatants fell ; and this, too, not for one 

 year, but for several. Carry out the calculation still farther, by ad- 

 ding the number of men invalided, and the number of those who die 

 on their way home, or soon after reaching England ; then, multiply the 

 whole by the number of years that European troops have been serving 

 in India, and reckon what has been the amount of mortality in the 

 three presidencies diu'ing the last century ! 



The most valuable and accurate work that has ever been published 

 on Medico-Mihtary Statistics, is TtdloKs Parliamenta/ry Seturns ; and 

 it is much to be regretted that, out of the voluminous documents at 

 present lying in the offices of H. M. Inspector-General, and the Honor- 

 able Company's Medical Boards at Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, a 



