704 On Camel Litters for the Wounded. [Sept. 



MILITARY DEPARTMENT. 



To the Officiating Secretary to the Government of India, 

 Military Department, Calcutta. 

 Sir, — I have had the honor of receiving and laying before the 

 Right Honorable the Governor General your letter No. 473 of the 25th 

 ultimo, with its enclosures herewith returned, from Mr. Piddington, 

 submitting a memorandum, with sketch of a Camel litter for the con- 

 veyance of the sick and wounded in the Army of the Indus. 



In reply, I am instructed to convey the expression of His Lordship's 

 acknowledgments to Mr. Piddington for his useful communication, a 

 copy of which will be forwarded to His Excellency Lieut. -General 

 Sir John Kean, K. C. B. Commanding the Army of the Indus, for 

 information. 



J. STUART, Lt. Col 



Art. III. — Note by Dr. Kean of Moorshedabad, on Dr. Stewart's 



Table of Mortality among Hindu Females. 



To the Secretaries of the Asiatic Society. 



Sir, — The table furnished by Dr. Stewart, and published in the 

 Journal of the Society for April last, may be expected to attract much 

 attention. Its results are unexpected and startling. Considering the 

 ignorance that prevails on the subject of Indian statistics, the unex- 

 pectedness of such information may be no argument against its 

 accuracy ; but the frightful mortality which the Table exhibits as arising 

 from one source, will lead many to doubt its correctness, and all, to wish 

 that there may have been some error in the data on which it is based. 



We learn from the Table that one-fifth of the female population of 

 Bengal die in childbed. But we know that only a portion of the 

 female population can, during any given period, suffer from this cause 

 of mortality. This portion might perhaps, without involving much 

 error, be estimated at one-third of the whole ; and if so, a mortality 

 amounting to one-fifth of the female population will be equivalent to 

 three-fifths of the portion actually liable to that cause of mortality ; — in 

 other words, out of every five of the mothers in Bengal, three will die 

 in childbed. 



It is not however by arguments of this kind, nor indeed by 

 arguments of any kind, that the truth of the Table can either be 

 established or overturned. A census ought to be taken, and accurate 





