to promote non-commissioned officers, as is vested in officers commanding regiments of the line. 7. That, whereas the pay and allowances of officers and men are now issued under various heads, the attention of her Majesty's Government be drawn to the expediency of simplifying the pay codes, and of adopting, if practicable, fixed scales of allowances for the troops in garrison or cantonments, and in the field. 8. That the Commander-in-Chief in Bengal be styled the Commander-in-Chief in India, and that the general officers commanding the armies of the minor Presidencies be commanders of the forces, with the power and advantages which they have hitherto enjoyed. 9. Your Commissioners observe, that the efficiency of the Indian army has hitherto been injuriously affected by the small number of officers usually doing duty with the regiments to which they belong. This evil has arisen from the number withdrawn for staff and other duties, and civil employment. All the evidence before your Commissioners points out the necessity of improving the position of officers, serving regimentally. For the attainment of this object, and for the remedy of the evil complained of, various schemes have been suggested, viz. 1st. The formation of a staff corps: 2ndly. The system of "seconding" officers who are on detached employ, which exists to a certain extent in the line army: 3rdly. Placing the European officers of each Presidency on general lists for promotion.

Your Commissioners, not being prepared to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion on this point, without further reference to India, recommend that the subject be submitted without delay, for the report of the Governors and Commanders-in-Chief at the several Presidencies, with a view to the framing of regulations, which will ensure the greater efficiency of regiments. Previous to closing their report, your Majesty's Commissioners would respectfully beg to state, that they have felt themselves precluded from entering into minute details on many subjects referred to them for inquiry, from an apprehension of fettering the free action of the authorities in India, on points of a purely local nature, which, they conceive, must ultimately be decided in that country. The report was signed by all the Commissioners, but Colonel Melton appended a note objecting to the proportion of the Europeans to the natives, as contemplated by the report, and also to requiring all men to be enlisted for general service.

James Ranald Martin, F.R.S., of the Medical Staff of the Bengal army, gave evidence on the sanitary condition of the European force in India, and more especially on the best means of securing the efficiency of European troops serving in India, and on fixing the period at which they should be relieved. His evidence as to the effect of tropical climates on the European constitution is as follows:

"I. As to the effect of tropical climates on the European constitution. "1. This may be very satisfactorily determined for-all the great military stations throughout India by an enumeration of the ratio per thousand admitted annually into the hospitals suffering under tropical diseases, together with the ratio of deaths. These ratios will vary somewhat, according to the nature of the soil and water constituting the local climate, the structural arrangements of barracks and hospitals, the interior discipline and economy of regiments, the character and conduct of commanding officers. The sickness and mortality thus estimated will be found to have been very great at all stations, and even in times of peace, when compared with what occurs in temperate climates, if the range of observation as to numbers of men and of years be sufficiently extended.

"2. For example, it appears that out of an aggregate force of 25,431 British soldiers stationed during ten, eight, and ten years respectively, between the years 1823 and 1836, at Calcutta, Chinsurah, and Berhampore, all in Bengal proper, there occurred of sickness as follows:-Fevers, remittent, intermittent, and continued, 13,596; dysentery and diarrhoea, 8,499; hepatitis, 1,354; cholera, 1,117; total cases from acute tropical diseases, 24,566.

"3. There was a total of admissions into hospital on account of all diseases of 45,170 cases, and a total of deaths from all causes of 1,588 soldiers. "At the depôt of Chinsurah, twenty-eight miles from Calcutta, the annual ratio of admissions into hospital during twelve years, ranged from 755 to 4,325 per thousand. To determine the truth respecting the influence of climate two elements are necessary, a wide range of observation in years and large masses of men. Observations referring only to a few years and to a small body of men may be all in excess one way or the other, and they may thus mislead.

4. The official results in respect to the mortality at each age among the military officers and the civil servants of the Bengal presidency afford a convincing proof that in the East Indies no advantage in the way of acclimation has hitherto been derived from length of residence. As those individuals are never employed out of India, and generally arrive there about the age of eighteen or twenty, their respective ages and ranks may be assumed as a criterion for estimating their length of residence in the country. On that principle then we find that, taking equal numbers of each rank, the annual mortality among the ensigns, for the most part youths but recently arrived, amounts only to 23 per thousand; ditto lieutenants of about three years more of residence, 27 per thousand; ditto captains of twelve or thirteen more years of residence, 34 per thousand. Among the civil servants of Bengal the rates of mortality are as follow:-First year of his residence, 19.5 per thousand; second, 23.5 per thousand; third, 200 per thousand; fourth, 22.0 per thousand. This law, which is of universal application to the better classes of Europeans in India, will be found to operate à fortiori on the condition of the British soldier there.

"5. The acute diseases of India may be ranked as remittent (jungle) fever, dysentery, inflammation and abscess of the liver, and epidemic cholera. They are terms which have at all times expressed the more or less speedy destruction of the European forces located over the various provinces of Hindostan, even in times of profound peace.

"6. The whole range of service in the plains of India is to the British soldier one unbroken course of physical degradation. Every function of his body has been unnaturally excited or disturbed from the first to the last day of his residence, ending too often in a serious organic disease and degradation of the very blood. It is important here to observe that this lastmentioned degradation of the circulating fluid is surely brought about by mere residence in a hot or malarious district, even without the occurrence of any of the formidable diseases enumerated; a few years of residence in the hot and pestilential plains of India being of itself sufficient to spoil the blood and tissues of the European.

"The landing of European troops at an improper season, as the hot weather and rains; their too early or unseasonable exposure on active service, the being stationed in open cantonments, giving ready access to the bad liquors of the bazars, the use of which tells most upon the newly

arrived; exposure to epidemics, neglect of inspection parades, and the consequent nondetection of the silent earlier invasions of disease, differences in the character and conduct of commanding officers, and the absence in her Majesty's regiments of certain traditional local experiences possessed by the old soldiers of the Company's European battalions, and which, to a certain extent, shielded the younger men on their first arrival from the consequences of their ignorance and recklessness. These circumstances may cause more deaths in regiments on their first arrival in India.

"7. Where the enforcement of sanitary duties is discretionary, the character of the officer in command becomes a concern of the highest importance, and I apprehend that the greater losses in certain newly-arrived regiments as compared to those of older standing in India are not necessary to the climate, and that they may be entirely prevented."

CONDITIONS ON WHICH THE OFFICERS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S ARMIES ACCEPTED SERVICE.

Conditions of Nomination as Cadets.-A candidate must have attained the age of sixteen years. He is not eligible to be appointed a cadet after having attained the age of twenty-two years, unless he shall have been, for the space of one year at least, a commissioned officer in her Majesty's service, or in the militia or fencible corps when embodied, and have been called into actual service, or shall have been in the company of cadets of the royal regiment of artillery. Such persons are eligible for the appointment of cadet, provided their age does not exceed twenty-five years. (A commission in the Guernsey militia, or in other corps similarly circumstanced, is not a qualification.) A candidate who has been so employed must produce his commission, together with a certificate from the War Office or commanding officer of his regiment, of his having actually joined and done duty with the regiment for the full term of one year and upwards; and that he was neither dismissed nor resigned his regiment in consequence of any misconduct. No person who has been dismissed or obliged to retire from the army or navy, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, or from any other public institution, on account of immoral or ungentlemanly conduct, can be appointed a cadet.

The following are the points upon which candidates are to be examined. before they are passed as cadets :—

1. Each candidate will be required to write English correctly from dictation.

2. He should possess a competent knowledge of the ordinary rules of arithmetic, including the rule of three, compound proportion, simple and compound interest, vulgar and decimal fractions, and the extraction of the root. He should also have read the first three books of Euclid.

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3. In languages he should be able to translate into English passages from Cæsar's Commentaries, or from the first four books of Virgil's Eneid, and he will be further expected to parse, and show his knowledge of grammar and syntax.

The candidate will be required to translate from French into English an extract from one of the following works, viz.-Telemachus, Voltaire's Charles the Twelfth, and Peter the Great. But the candidate will have the option of being examined in the Hindustani, in lieu of the French language; and in that case he will be required to translate from Hindustani

into English an extract from one of the following works, viz. Bagh-o-Bahar and Tota Kuhanee.

4. In history he should be prepared to pass an examination in Keightley's Histories of Greece and Rome, in Gleig's History of England, and in the History of British India, contained in Vols. 1 and 2 of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library.

5. In geography he should possess a competent knowledge of the modern divisions of the world, the principal nations in Europe and Asia, the names of the capital of each nation in Europe, and of the chief cities of Hindustan, and the names and situations of the principal rivers and mountains in the world.

6. In fortification he should have read some elementary work on the subject (Straith's Introductory Essay to the Study of Fortification, or Macaulay's Field Fortification), and have received some instruction in drawing.

The evidence to be required from candidates of their having acquired "some knowledge of drawing," is that they shall trace correctly upon paper, in presence of the examiners, a front of fortification, according to Vauban's first system, and also the profile of a rampart and parapet.

The examination of the candidates will take place before a Board of Examiners to be convened for that purpose at the Military College at Addiscombe, near Croydon. If not qualified on their first examination, they may be allowed a second trial within the next ensuing twelve months; and if not then found qualified, their nominations will revert to their patrons, and they will be deemed ineligible for another nomination for a direct appointment. Candidates who have passed the prescribed examinations at Sandhurst for commissions in her Majesty's cavalry or infantry, within one year from the date of their being presented to the political and military committee as cadets, and have not failed at the final examination at Addiscombe, are eligible to appointments as cadets, on producing certificates from the professors at Sandhurst of their having duly passed the prescribed examination in the several subjects, without being required to pass an examination at Addiscombe. If the candidate has been confirmed as a member of the Church of England, he will be required to make a declaration to that effect. If not so confirmed, or if not a member of the Church of England, he will be required to produce a certificate from a minister, stating that he has been well instructed in the principles of the religion in which he has been brought up. The candidate will also be required to produce testimonials of good moral conduct, under the hand of the principal or superior authority of the college or public institution in which he may have been educated, or under the hand of the private instructor to whose care he may have been confided; and the said testimonials shall have reference to his conduct during the two years immediately precisely his presentation for admission. Any person who shall be nominated to a cadetship, and who shall have obtained such nomination in consequence of purchase, or agreement to purchase, or of any corrupt practice whatever, either direct or indirect, by himself, or any other person with or without his privity, will be rejected from the service, and ordered back to England, if he shall have proceeded to India before a discovery of such corrupt practice be made; and if such appointment shall have been so corruptly procured by himself, or with his privity, he will be thereby rendered incapable of holding that or any other situation whatever in the said service. Provided always, that if a fair disclosure of any corrupt transaction or practice

of the nature before described, wherein any director has been concerned, shall be voluntarily made by the party or parties engaged in the same with such director, the appointment thereby procured shall be confirmed by the Court. All direct cadets appointed or sworn in before the committee for passing military appointments between the 10th March and 10th June, or between the 10th September and 10th December (or the days which may be fixed on for the public examination of the Addiscombe cadets), take rank after the Addiscombe cadets who may pass their said examinations, provided the latter sail for their respective destinations within three months after passing their said examinations.

N.B.-All cadets who may be appointed between the dates of public examination at Addiscombe and the 10th March or 10th September, will be allowed to rank from the date of their sailing, provided this takes place within three months after their being passed and sworn.

All cadets in Bengal are required to become subscribers to the Military Orphan Society, and to the Military Widows' Fund at that Presidency. All cadets appointed at Fort St. George and Bombay are required to become subscribers to the Military Fund at their respective Presidencies. All cavalry and infantry cadets who fail to apply at the cadet office for their orders for embarkation within three months from the date of their being passed and sworn before the committee, or shall not actually proceed under such orders, are considered as having forfeited their appointments, unless special circumstances shall justify a departure from this regulation. When the whole of the said certificates, duly filled in and signed, are delivered at the cadet office, the authority for the cadet's examination at Addiscombe will be issued to the candidate. If no parish register can be found, it is provided as follows, viz.-"That if no register can be found, a declaration, pursuant to the act passed in the 5th and 6th year of his late Majesty William the Fourth, of that circumstance, shall be made by the party himself, with his information and belief, that his age is not under sixteen years, and doth not exceed twenty-two years." (Act of the 33rd George the Third.) Forms of the declaration may be obtained at the Cadet Office, at the East India House. When the cadet is ready to embark, he must apply at the Cadet Office for a certificate of his having passed; which certificate will direct him to the secretary's office, where he will obtain the certificate of his appointment. He will then hold himself in readiness to embark, either previous to the ship's departure from Gravesend, or at the last port from whence the ship shall be ordered to take her departure from England.

It being in contemplation to establish new regulations under which ensigns will not be promoted to lieutenancies until they have passed an examination, to be prescribed for that purpose, notice is hereby given, that all cadets passed and sworn in at the East India House after the 8th July, 1857, will be subject to those regulations, when established.

Conditions with respect to Promotion.-The officers of the artillery and engineer corps rise in their respective arms by seniority. In the cavalry and infantry they rise by seniority in their respective regiments to the rank of major. They then take their place in the gradation list of their respective branches, and are promoted by seniority therein to the regimental rank of lieutenant-colonel. They continue in these separate regimental gradation lists for succession to regiments, and to the colonel's allowance. The whole of the lieutenant-colonels of artillery, engineers, cavalry, and infantry are arranged in one gradation list for promotion to the brevet rank of colonel