that might have been anticipated. The cultivators throughout Hin-
dostan are proverbially poor; and till the amount of the assessment
they are at present subject to be effectually reduced, they cannot be
otherwise than wretched. They are commonly obliged to borrow
money, to buy their seed and carry on their operations, at a high in-
terest, on a species of mortgage over the ensuing crop. Their only
object is to get subsistence-to be able to exist in the same obscure
poverty as their forefathers. If they succeed in this, they are satisfied.
Mr. Colebrooke, whose authority on all that relates to India is so de-
servedly high, mentions that the quantity of land occupied by each
ryot, or cultivator, in Bengal, is commonly about six acres, and rarely
amounts to 24; and it is obvious that the abstraction of half the pro-
duce raised on such patches can leave their occupiers nothing more
than the barest subsistence for themselves and their families. Indeed,
Mr. Colebrooke tells us that the condition of ryots subject to this
tax is generally inferior to that of a hired labourer, who receives
the miserable pittance of two annas, or about threepence, a day of
wages.

Abstract View of the Revenues (inclusive of Commercial Assets realised in England) and Charges of British India, for the Years 1840-41, 1841-42, 1842-43, and 1843-44, including the Charges disbursed in Great Britain.-(Parl. Paper, No. 362, Sess. 1845.)

Besides the land revenue, a considerable revenue is derived in India from the monopolies of salt and opium, the sale of spirituous liquors, land and sea customs, post-office, &c. Of these monopolies, the first is, in all respects, decidedly the most objectionable. Few things, indeed, would do more to promote the improvement of India than the total abolition of this monopoly. An open trade in salt, with moderate

duties, would, there can be no doubt, be productive of the greatest advantage to the public, and of a large increase of revenue to government. The opium monopoly, though less objectionable than the last, is, notwithstanding, very oppressive. It interferes with the industry of the inhabitants; those who are engaged in the cultivation of opium being obliged to sell their produce at prices arbitrarily fixed by the Company's agents. It would be worse than useless to waste the reader's time, by pointing out in detail the mischievous effects of such a system; they are too obvious not to arrest the attention of every one. We subjoin the following statement with respect to the revenue of the presidency of Bengal, the most important of all the presidencies:

Account of the Revenue of the Bengal Presidency, in 1840-41, 1841-42, 1842-43, 1843-44.

It is seen from these statements that the territorial revenues at the disposal of the East India Company equal those of the most powerful monarchies. At present they are greater than those of either Russia or Austria, being inferior only to those of Great Britain and France. Still, however, the Company's financial situation is not very prosperous. Vast as their revenue has been, their expenditure appears, in most instances, to have been still larger; and their debts in India,

exclusive of their bond debts at home, amount at present (1846) to probably not less than 40,000,000%.

The following account shows the balance between the revenue and expenditure of our Indian dominions, from 1814-15 to 1839-40 :

Account exhibiting the Total Revenues and Charges of the British Possessions in India, in each Year from 1814-15 to 1839-40, both included, exclusive of the Expense of the Expedition into Affghanistan.—(Compiled from the Parl. Paper No. 574, Sess. 1842.)

£. £. 1814-15 14,€64,213 2,742,966 1815-16 14,617,709 2,725.747 1816-17 15,334,081 2,824,548 1817-18 15,577,537 2,749,562 1818-19 16,501,955 3,008,941 1810-20 16,305,763 1920-21 18,111,321 1321-22 14,480,761 1822-23 19,644,502 1823-24 18,034,547

3,064,233

3,518,555

4,070, 196

4,880,081

5,260,640

1824-25

17,608,761

1825-26 17,909,789

1026-27 19,834,017

4,438,908

4,120, 198

4,220,545

1827-28

19,413,343

4,740,789

10,773,582
11,637,263

Nett Surplus of Expenditure

over

Revenue.

t. 245,853 1,167.429

633,064

963,637

1,404,463 1,426,472

148,237 885, 59

13,504,033

1,340,517

2,806,199 14,912,658

11,921,347 11,891,962 12,509,534 12.827.79 13,4:2,014 13,241,530 13,275,710 14,52,566 13,166,924 14,410,565 12,648,172 14,7€4,421 12,106,453 12,773,957 12,364,898 1,295,018 13,659,916 13,109,553 14,363,653 1,633,842 16,001,535 13,789,591 16,364,724 1,823,285 18,133,009 15,613, 72 15,539,343 2,438,157 17.97.506 15,639,974 14,046,021 1,563,555 16,011,576 13,539,561 1,715.084 15,254,646 4,356,982 14,530,160 12,974,380 1,446,591 14,420,61 4,20,440 14,027,797 12,759,723 1,476,635 14,135,378 4.572,662 13,40,313 12.877,109 1,227,535 14,104,645 4,411,233 13,605,584 12,262,549 1,293,637 13,556,186 1834-35 18,628,355 4,453,528 14,169,27 12,201,436 2,162,68 14,364,304 1835-36 19,543,071 4,116,464 15,426,607 183436-37 19,66,621 4,463,281 15,202,340 1837-38 19,530,679 4,46,378 15,066,301 1838-37 19,811,55) 4,433,806 15,327,693 1839-40 18,858,719 4,316,104

1825-29 19,405,922 4,495,356

14,672,359

14,990,566

N.B. The charges defrayed in England on account of India, include dividends on Company's stock, about 630,000. a-year; interest on home bond debt; invoice value of stores consigned to India; half-pay, and other retired allow

ances, &c.

However much this account of the financial concerns of our Eastern empire may be at variance with the exaggerated ideas entertained respecting it, as well by a large proportion of the people of England as by foreigners, it will excite no surprise in the mind of any one who has ever reflected on the subject. It is due, indeed, to the directors, to state, that though they have occasionally acted on erroneous principles, they have always exerted themselves to enforce economy in every branch of their expenditure, and to impose and collect their revenues in the best and cheapest manner. But though they have succeeded in repressing many abuses, it would be idle to suppose that they should ever entirely succeed in rooting them out. How can it be imagined, that strangers sent to India, conscious that they are armed with all the strength of government, placed under no real responsibility, exempted from the salutary influence of public opinion, fearing no effectual exposure through the medium of the press, and anxious only to accumulate a fortune, should not occasionally abuse their authority? or that they should manage the complicated and difficult affairs of a vast empire, inhabited by a race of people of whose language, manners, and habits they are almost wholly ignorant, with that prudence, economy, and vigilance, without which it were idle to expect that any great surplus revenue should ever be realised?

An Account of the Public Debts, bearing Interest, outstanding at the several Presidencies in the East Indies on the 30th April, 1843; specifying the Rates and Annual Interest thereon. -(Parl. Paper, No. 362, Sess. 1845.)

CHAPTER VII.-VITAL STATISTICS.

To exhibit the sanatory state of the British population as accurately as existing materials permit, we shall severally examine the mortality, the sickness, the epidemics, the endemics, the prevailing forms of sporadic disease, and the various ways in which, at all ages, its successive generations perish.

Human existence may terminate at any instant between 0 and 100 years it may be a constant process of disease, or remain uninterrupted by a day's sickness. On opening a watch, or any piece of mechanism, and observing the state of its springs, chains, or wheels, it is not difficult to foresee how long its movements will continue; but no one, contemplating a solitary individual of the human species, and ignorant of the secret sources of his life, as well as of the many conjunctures of external circumstances in which he may be placed, can foretell the period when some mortal derangement will occur in his organisation; what diseases he will encounter; how long he will suffer, or the hour when his sufferings and his existence will end. The same uncertainty is extended, in the popular thought, to families, nations, and mankind, considered in collective masses; but observation proves that generations succeed each other, develope their energies, are afflicted with sickness, and waste in the procession of their life, according to fixed laws-that the mortality and sickness of a people are constant in the same circumstances, or only revolve through a prescribed cycle, varying as the causes favourable or unfavourable to health preponderate.

MORTALITY.

The physiological changes in the human body intimate that it was framed to continue in healthy action for 70 or 80 years: yet owing to hereditary weakness, or a vicious tendency, and the imperfect adaptation of parts of the external world to its organisation, a certain number of every generation fall sick, and of these a certain number die at all ages in such a ratio, however, that from birth to the age of puberty the sickness and mortality decline; while from puberty they increase slowly, in a geometrical progression, up to the 50th or 60th year, and then more rapidly to the end. In comparing, therefore, the sanatory state of different nations, it is not enough to know the absolute mortality or sickness to which they are subject; as experience has proved that these may be nearly the same, yet from their bearing differently on the periods of childhood, manhood, or old age, have a very different effect on the national strength and resources.

From observations to which we shall again have occasion to recur, it appears that in manhood, when 1 person in 100 dies annually, 2 at the least are constantly sick and although this exact relation is, perhaps, not preserved in infancy and old age, or where the rate of mortality deviates much from the standard, it may be safely assumed as an approximation to the truth. Admitting, then, that the annual mortality is 2.19 per cent., after the corrected returns, and that the population of England and Wales is at present (1846) 17,000,000, the total number constantly disabled by sickness will amount to 744,600 persons; and if the same proportions be extended to Scotland and Ireland, to 1,247,000. This reduces the efficient population of the empire 1-23rd part; and the productive power, so far as it depends on human labour, 1-15th part, if the maintenance and attendance of the sick cost half the produce of their labour in health:* an example will show how it would be erroneous to suppose that two populations, in which the same absolute proportion of sick existed, suffered consequently to an equal extent. Two-fifths of the registered deaths occur below 5 years of age, yet the mortality in England has latterly (1841) not been more than 63.5 per 1,000 at this early age: in Sweden it was (1755-75) 90.1 per 1,000; and it is probable that at the same period the mortality of infants in England was not a great deal lower than in Sweden so that, if sickness have diminished at the same rate, the proportion of infants constantly ill is not by one-third so great as it was a century ago. But children being entirely helpless, and in no way contributing to the nation's actual strength, a diminution of sickness among them, however desirable, adds little immediately to national power and happiness, compared with an improvement in the health of adults, between the ages of 15 and 60 years, such as has been observed in London since the 16th century, when the destructive epidemics ceased.

The magnitude of the subject, and the fact that a million and quarter of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom are disabled by disease and

*In the English provincial hospitals the maintenance and the drugs administered to each patient cost is. 5d. daily; in Paris. 18. 54d.; in London considerably more. -(British Medical Almanac, p. 118.)