troduce restrictions without warranting the conclusion that, on account of these restrictions, the trade was necessarily immoral.

Mr RAPER said, that while the Forbes Mackenzie Act had done good to Scotland, the statistics quoted by Mr M'Laren shewed that much improvement was still urgently required. The judicial statistics of London shewed that in London the number of drunk persons apprehended was 1 in 184 of the population; but in Edinburgh, even according to the last returns, the proportion of apprehensions was 1 in 27. Mr Raper proceeded to say that he was afraid to mention the number of shebeens in Edinburgh which had been reported to him by the police authorities; but he would refer all interested to the police authorities for information upon the subject. He might say that they might almost_poke an umbrella through the wall of the Free Church Assembly Hall into an abominable shebeen, the resort of thieves of both sexes. In the face of the existing state of matters, notwithstanding all that had been done, he appealed to them all to say whether they had reason to be satisfied with the existing law. (Applause.)

A man here asked if the Association did not sell intoxicating drink in the lobby. (Laughter.)

The motion of Mr Graham was then put to the vote, and carried by an overwhelming majority, only two persons voting against it. The Rev. H. CALDERWOOD read a paper on "Shops for the Consumption of Intoxicants versus Shops for the Sale of such Liquor, and the Bearings of both on Social Economy." He dwelt on the evil influence exercised upon the working-classes by the temptations of the public-house, set down so thickly around their dwellings, and urged that it was the duty of Government to discontinue the public-house licensing system. It was objected to this that, if the public-house were shut up, all the drinking would be done in the houses of the working classes. It was quite true that drinking would take place in the houses of the working classes, but not all the drinking; the temptation to it would at least have been removed. It was shewn that the shutting up of the public-houses would produce this effect by the very fact that the publicans made so great an outcry against the proposal. If all the drinking was done at home, the public-house keepers would lose nothing; but they knew that the drinking would be diminished, their profits lessened, and therefore all this outcry. At the least, the responsibility and the stigma would be taken from the nation of providing so evil and wicked a system for the working classes. He held that it was the duty of government to substitute for the system pure and good amusement and entertainment for the people; but if that were not done, he urged that those private individuals who loved their kind should make an endeavour to supply such entertainment.

Mr J. HOUGHTON, Dublin, next read a paper "On the Means of Extending our Home Trade and Lessening Crime and Poverty."

He argued that drinking customs lessened the home trade of the country by decreasing the consumption of articles of home produce. Supposing men ceased spending their money on drink, it was clear that they would have it at their disposal for the purchase of home necessaries good clothing, good furniture, &c. Drunkenness was also one of the chief producing causes of crime, and therefore, if the people became temperate, crime and poverty would be reduced to the extent that it flowed from that cause.

Mr HENRY SOLLY said he thought they ought to bear in mind that the true way to cope effectually with a vice was to set up something in its place; and if they wished to prevent the drinking habits of the people of this country, they must provide them means of rational recreation and amusement without the drink, such as was afforded by working-men's clubs and institutes.

Mr RAPER said that, in order to prevent working-men's clubs from proving ineffective, it was necessary to give power to the people to remove the liquor traffic from the vicinity of the clubs.

Mr HOULSTON, Glasgow, said that, before they could effectually remove the evil of intemperance, they must find a substitute which would prove an equal, if not a greater attraction to the people.

Mr NOBLE, of London, said the sobriety of London was not so greatly superior to that of Glasgow, as had been stated, but the means of dealing with drunkenness were different in the two places. In London, the police endeavoured to induce intoxicated persons to go home, and they must be "disorderly" before they had the chance of appearing at the police courts.

The section then rose.

FOURTH DEPARTMENT-PUBLIC HEALTH.

President-PROFESSOR CHRISTISON.

THURSDAY.

HOW PEOPLE MAY LIVE AND NOT DIE IN INDIA.

A paper by Miss FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, who was unable to be present, was read by Dr SCORESBY JACKSON. The writer commenced by stating that her paper dealt with one of the most important social questions of the day-viz., how the British race was to hold possession of India, and to bestow upon its vast population the benefit of her own civiliation. The first part of the question was for the present the most important one; for were it impossible to to keep possession of India, there was an end of the problem. The

Royal Commission on the sanitary state of the army in Indiawhose report constitutes a new social starting-point for Indian civilisation had shewn that unless the health of the British army in India could be improved, and the enormous death-rate reduced, this country would never be able to hold India with a British army. As yet the effect of that death-rate was not fully felt, for the Indian army was comparatively new; but unless steps were taken by the Indian Government to give effect to the recommendations of the Commission, it was unhappily certain that the mortality would increase with length of service. The average death-rate of the troops serving in India was no less than 69 per 1000 per annum-a fact which was proved both by the statement of Sir Alexander Tulloch and subsequent inquiries. That death-rate, moreover, did not include those who were invalided, and who died on the voyage to England, or soon after their return; but taking it simply as it was, and assuming the strength of the British army at 73,000, it proved that such an army would lose on an average of years an entire brigade of 5037 men per annum ; sometimes it would be half that number, but in other years it would lose two such brigades. And where were they to find 10,000 recruits to fill up the gap of deaths of a single unhealthy year? It was said that the deathrates of the war year being the highest, (not from wounds,) peace, and not sanitary measures, was the remedy. As well might it be said that the British army had nearly perished before Sebastopol not from wounds, but from want of every supply of civilised life, peace, and not the supply of the wants of civilised life, was the remedy. The Royal Commission had shewn that if the death-rate were reduced to even 20 per 1000 per annum (which is too high)—that was double that of home stations since these stations had improved-to India would be saved a tax equal to L.1000 sterling. And this represented the mere cost of replacing the men cut off by excessive, premature, and preventable mortality. Referring next to the question how this great death-rate in India had arisen, Miss Nightingale said-I am afraid the reply must be that British civilisation is insular and local, and that it takes small account of how the world goes on out of its small island. There is a certain aptitude amongst other nations which enables them to adapt themselves more or less to foreign climates and countries. But, wherever you place your Briton, you may feel quite satisfied that he will care nothing about climates. If he has been a large eater and a hard drinker at home, ten to one he will be, to say the least of it, as large an eater and as large a drinker in the burning plains of Hindostan. Enlist an Irish or a Scotch labourer, who has done many a hard day's work almost entirely on farinaceous or vegetable diet, with an occasional dose of whisky, at some Indian station, where the thermometer ranges at between 90 and 100 degrees, and he will make no difficulty in disposing of three or four times the quantity of animal food he ever ate under the hardest labour during winter at home, if, indeed, he ever ate any at all. Now, the ordinary system of dieting British soldiers

in India is more adapted to a cold climate than that of out-of-door farm servants doing work in England. More than this, the occasional dram at home is commuted by regulation in India into a permission to drink two drams-i.e., six oz. of rum spirit every day. And be it remembered, that at the same time, the men have little or nothing to do. The craving for spirit induced by this regulation habit of tippling leads to increase of drunkenness; so that, what with over-eating, over-drinking, total idleness, and vice springing directly from these, the British soldier in India has small chance indeed of coping with the climate-so-called. The regulation allowance of raw spirits, which a man may obtain at the canteen, is no less than 18 gallons per annum, which is, I believe, three times the amount per individual which has raised Scotland, in the estimation of economists, to the rank of being the most spirit-consuming nation in Europe. Of late years malt liquor has been partly substituted for spirits; but, up to the present time, every man, if he thinks fit, may draw his 18 gallons a-year of spirits, besides what he gets surreptitiously at the bazaar. So much for intemperance; but not to this, or to this and its kindred vice alone, or to this mainly is to be laid the soldier's mortality in India, as has been falsely supposed. The diseases from which the soldier mainly suffers there are miasmatic; now, intemperance never produced miasmatic diseases yet. They are foul air diseases and foul water diseasesfevers, dysenteries, and so on. Intemperance may cause liver disease, and put the men into a state of health which prevents them from resisting miasmatic causes. What are these causes? We have not far to look. The Briton leaves his national civilisation behind him, and brings his personal vices with him. At home there have been great improvements everywhere in agriculture and in town drainage, and in providing plentiful and pure water supplies. There is nothing of the kind in India. There is no drainage either in town or country. There is not a single station drained. If such a state of things existed at home, we should know that we have fevers, cholera, and epidemics to expect. But hitherto no one has expected anything of the kind from these same causes in India, although they are always happening. As regards water, there is certainly not a single barrack in India which is supplied, in one sense of the term, at all. There are neither water-pipes nor drain-pipes. Water is to be had either from tanks, into which all the filth of the neighbouring surface is washed by the rains, or from shallow wells dug in unwholesome or doubtful soil. So simple a piece of mechanism as a pump is unknown. Water is drawn in skins, carried in skins on the backs of men or bullocks, and poured into any sort of vessel in the barracks for use. The quantity of water is utterly insufficient for health; and as to the quality, the less said about that the better. There is no reason to hope that any station has what in this country would be called a pure-water supply. And at some

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it is to be feared that when men drink water they drink cholera with it. The construction of barracks where men have to pass their whole period of service is another illustration of how completely home civilisation is reversed in India. All our best soldiers have been brought up in country cottages. And when in barracks at home, there are rarely more than from twelve to twenty men in a room; but as soon as the soldier comes to India he is put into a room with a 100, or 300, and in one case with as many as 600 men. Just when the principle of subdivision into a number of detached barracks becomes literally of vital importance, the proceeding is reversed, and the men are crowded together under circumstances certain even in England to destroy their health. To take another illustration. Our home British population is about the most active in the world-in fact, we in this country consider exercise and health inseparable. But as soon as the same men go to India they are shut up all day in their hot, close barrack-rooms, where they also eat and sleep. They are not allowed to take exercise; all their meals are eaten in the hottest part of the day, and served to them by native servants; and they lie in their beds idle, and partly sleeping till sunset. Unrefreshing day sleep," is indeed alleged as one of the causes for the soldier's ill-health. In India, the soldier, the type of endurance and activity, now becomes the type of sloth. The Indian social state of the British soldier is not only the reverse of the social state of the soldier at home, and of the class from which he is taken, but there is a great exaggeration in the wrong direction, and people are surprised that British soldiers die in India, and that they lay the whole blame on the climate. It is natural to us to seek a scapegoat for every neglect, and climate has been made to play this part ever since we set foot in India. Miss Nightingale proceeded to refer to the results of the inquiry of the Royal Commission, as shewing that there was not a shadow of proof that India was created to be the grave of the British race. The evidence, on the contrary, was quite in the other direction, and shewed that all that the climate required was that men should adapt their social habits and customs to it-as, indeed, they must do to the requirements of every other climate under heaven. This necessity (continued Miss Nightingale) includes all the recommendations made by the Royal Commission for improving the health and halving or (quartering) the death-rate of the British army in India. They all amount to this—you have in India such a climate-if you wish to keep your health in it, be moderate in eating and drinking, eat very little animal food; let your diet be chiefly farinaceous and vegetable. Spirits are a poison, to be used only (like other poisons) for any good purpose under medical advice. Use beer or light wine, but sparinglydrink coffee or tea-clothe yourself lightly, to suit the climate, wearing thin flannel always next the skin-take plenty of exercise, and use prudence and common sense as to the times of it. So far