Medical Staf. Surg. Brougham. In medical charge, 1st E. B. Fusiliers, marched from Dugshai ; Assistant-Surg. Charles, 1st E. B. Fusiliers.

s present from first to last. Surgeon Keates, 60th N. I. Attached to the corps for a few weeks.

Oakly, N. I. Attached to the corps for about two months.
Apothecary Marshall.
Steward Bond.
Assistant-Apothecary Fox.
Apprentice Stretton.

M'Hatton.

Non-commissioned Officers and Privates of the First Fusiliers.
Killed in action,

61
Mortally wounded,

19
Dangerously do.

2
Severely
do.

128
Slightly do.

141 Had cholera,

135 Died from cholera,

44 from other diseases,

10

It was not without much misgiving that we adopted the statement-which appeared in our article on the Company's Raj, in November last (p. 624), on the subject of the Nana Sahib's claims on the British Government-that the pension was granted to the Peishwah and his heirs. Our own impression of the facts was altogether different, and we had treated the claim as wholly unfounded, when we received from a high official authority a statement which misled us. We were just going to press, and could only bow to the supposed superior information of our informant.

The words of the treaty of 1st June 1818, under which the old Peishwah surrendered to Sir John Malcolm, are these : “That Bajee Rao shall receive a liberal pension from the Company's Government for the support of himself and family"--an ambiguous expression, which, taken alone, might seem to admit the interpretation of "him and his heirs." We have since, however, inquired further, and are hapny to be able to revert to our original conclusion, and to remove even the shadow of a suspicion on the good faith of the Company's Government. Sir John Malcolm himself, in his letter to Mr Secretary Adam reporting the transaction, under date 13th June 1818, writes as follows: “I therefore fixed his pension at one lac more than that enjoyed by Amrut Rao, as considering it only temporary, being for his life, and including all his family and future dependants, with whom we had not made separate terins.” This language leaves no doubt as to the understanding upon which the surrender of Bajee Rao took place. The pension was for his life only, and to include all claims on the part of his family.

With respect to the adoption of the pretended heirs, we are also now enabled no less conclusively to refute the claim which has so strangely found a qualified credence among some official persons in this country. The following is a copy of the official letter from the Commissioner at Bithoor reporting the circumstance :From G. J. Johnson, Esq., Commissioner, Bethoor, to G. SwinTAX, E-9., Secretary

to the Government.--Fort William, 14th June 1827. Sir,-I have the honour to report, for the information of the Right Honourable the Vice-President in Council, that Bajec Row adopted two children on the 7th instant.

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“2. When informed that such was his purpose, a day before the ceremony took place I hinted to him that it might have been better had he given me the opportunity of informing his Lordship of his intentions.

“63. He replied that he had been unwell for some time past, and at that moment laboured under an attack of fever (which I am aware was the case), and that he did not deem it proper longer to put off what eventually he had determined on performing.'

“4. Under these circumstances I did not thivk I had any right to offer further remarks; the ceremony was completed.

“5. The names of the two boys are Suddchoo Rao, aged four years ; and Doondy Rao (the Nana Sahib), aged two years and a half: they are the sons of two Braming who have lately resided at Bethoor, and arrived from the Deccan about one year ago.

“6. It has been intimated to me that Bajee Row would consider it a great compliment were I to present a Klulluth to him, and receive one in return on this occasion. I of course declined so doing until I had received the orders of Government, which I now have the honour to solicit.— I have, &c.

(Signed) G. J. JOHNSON, Commissioner. BETHOOR, COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE,

14th June 1827.” This document makes it perfectly clear that this Doondy Rao or Punt, the Cawnpore butcher, is no blood-relation whatever to the deceased Peishwah, and that so far from meaning to confer on him the rights of succession now claimed, Bajee Rao did not even think it necessary to communicate the intended adoption to the Supreme Government. It is an established principle in Hindoo public law that political rights do not pass by adoption, unless guaranteed at the time by the paramount power; and as the Peishwah did not even solicit such a guarantee, it is clear that he knew his interest in the State pension to be only a life one, and had no thought of its being continued to the adopted son. We have already explained that adoption is a matter of religious obligation among Hindoos who have no male representative to perform the funeral rites. Bajee Rao, being a Brahmin, would naturally be solicitous that his pyre should be fired by an orthodox handDardaniique rogam capitis permittere flammæ—and in strict accordance with the law, the whole of his enormous personalty became the prize of the wandering "Brahmins from the Deccan," who had the good fortune to be intrusted with the office,

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

CIVILISATION, like every other are not to be limited by a Hitherto condition of humanity, has its dark shalt thou come, and no further”-it as well as its bright side. Strangely is not in the power of either men or enough, every material power which governments to curb the giant whom we invoke for our service, and to they have been able to bring into which the popular will, or more being; it is impossible to arrest him often the will of an individual, gives at the golden age, while luxury is the first impetus, becomes, when still legitimate, art splendid, and the once fairly errant and in progress, a economy of national existence magnikind of blind irresponsible indepen- ficent and noble. How to pause there, dent agent, working by immutable is the often-tried problem of nations laws of its own, beyond our reach it is one which none of the antique either to quicken or arrest. The great races ever solved. Those elegant, dumb irrational slave comes into dissolute, nerveless, incapable comexistence because we will it so— munities, into the ranks of which, in creeps upon his earlier way by our an inglorious succession, sank the assistance-finally rules over us with heroic republics of Greece, the Rome an absolutism more arbitrary than of the Cæsars, and the empire of the any personal tyranny, and, irresistible Constantines, have been hitherto a and not to be controlled, goes on like kind of inevitable aftercome to every a Fate towards the ruin and destruc- climax of national glory. To control tion involved in his being. Civilisa- the event by law or regulation, to tion, beneficent, gentle, full of charities attempt vain sumptuary enactments, and courtesies, the great ameliorator or vainer moral remonstrances against of the world, is no less, as old expe- the progress of luxury and enervation, rience has often proved, the Nemesis has been tried by many a terrified goof the very race which has cherished vernment, blindly struggling against him. It would have been easier to the blind natural force, inaccessible check at their fiercest the wild to reason, which obeyed the law of Gothic hordes, which carried a fresh its own being, and knew no other : force of barbarous life into the ancient but the contest has always been a capitals of the world, than to have fatally unsuccessful one ; and it would arrested the noiseless tide of that require no particular strain of argusilken degeneration which left these ment, or rather of the facts on which old empires helpless beneath the rude arguments are founded, to prove that foot of the conqueror. These waves civilisation by itself was the most

VOL. LXXXIII.-NO. DVIII.

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equivocal of benefits-an influence civilisation, and our faith has been which increased the comfort of one blessed by Providence with a freedom generation only to bring a greater and power of action denied to many destruction upon another—a force, in of our neighbours. We have also reality, not favourable, but inimical, had the one other, lesser, but most to man.

effectual safety-valve of extreme civilIt would almost seem, however, so isation--a constantly remaining balfar as we and the modern world are ance of savage possessions, open to concerned, as if this fatal proclivity the conquest and the enterprise and had in a great degree disappeared. the ambition of all bold spirits--a True, it is not a hundred years yet margin of woods and plains and since the French Revolution, which islands to be won out of the primiwas a fiercer overthrow of all the tive grip of nature, and holding priartificial amenities of life than that mitive wealth, the wholesome original which the barbarians of the North of all other riches, in their bosom. With carried to the ancient empires of the this balance of healthful savagery,

y in world ; and it is still a shorter time our own possession, sanctified as its since all the Continental kingdoms natural influence is by the aggressive, trembled to the echoes of a conqueror's invasive, and irrestrainable activity progress, and surrendered for a mo- of the Gospel, civilisation, however ment their very identity to make “extreme," loses its usual tendency. tributary crowns for his relations and We are in no danger of making dependents. But among ourselves, at sumptuary laws, of regulating the least, there has been no such catas- burgesses' wardrobe or the nobletrophe—the evils of civilisation have man's plate-closet. Burgesses and counteracted themselves without any noblemen alike send out young adviolent disturbance of the national venturers, as all the world knows— life. We have gained our comforts, who would have been Rolands and our security, our luxury, at a less Bayards in the days of chivalry—to price than that of our national vigour. every quarter of this prodigious emThe wealth of centuries has not bound pire which stands in need of such ; us in silken chains of imbecility, or and no man in the kingdom grudges left us ready or probable victims to to the mothers and sisters—nay, any invasion.

On the contrary, to the aunts, cousins, and sweetthough this is not our golden age hearts of these boys—flounces enough -though there is no heroic glory in to set the island afloat if it pleases the firmament, no peculiar combina- them. Luxury, present or prospections of good fortune in our position tive, affrights neither statesman nor -every circumstance in the history philosopher in these realms; and it of the time proves that the race never is not easy to make a British public was more vigorous, more irresistible, believe that an American public can or less likely to be worsted. We mean anything but a jest, when it talk of the evils of extreme civilisa- throws the blame of its bankruptcy tion, and we see them; but these upon the extravagance of its womanevils, thank Heaven,are not symptoms kind. It is possible that the course of that fatal decadence which killed of years may reverse this picture, that the civilised races of antiquity, and civilisation may sink into effeminacy, which has again and again left the and wealth run on to ruin with this hopes of the world in the hands of kingdom, as with so many others; an army of savage and barbarous but at present, so far as human protribes, possessed of little more than babilities go, it seems our privilege that primitive force of life which to hold the balance, and solve to was necessary for the revival of all this extent at least every social the social conditions well-nigh ex- problem of the world. tinguished by living too well.

Let not so serious an introduction It is not our business to enter damp your courage, oh reader just into the causes of this almost un- and kind! We are not about to preparalleled national exemption. Chris- fer an indictment of secret horrors, tianity is beyond question the surest a muster-roll of the unacknowledged controller of the doubtful powers of crimes of cities, against the civilised all ages.

society of this realm and time. Sin, temporary, the Athenæum, congratuin all its varieties, belongs to no one lates itself that even novels—those condition of humanity, but lives arbitrary matchmakers—begin to see where men live, in all places and in the propriety of recognising the con

Civilisation may make dition of old maid ; and even though crime more venomous and fiendish, they ultimately marry their heroine, as savage life makes it more brutal; suffer her first to come to years of but neither the one nor the other can extreme discretion, and to settle upon be called the parent of this disease her own mode of life. While, still of the race.

Our concern is with more formally, one of the latest ladymatters much less appalling. Civil- accusers of civilisation not only preisation among us stands at the bar faces her Woman's Thoughts about to be judged by domestic juries, for Women with the somewhat amazing offences against the social economy. limitation that "these thoughts do In the present case, the complainants not concern married women,” but are women. Let us do their plea adds in so many words, “ this fact full justice : they are not the pas- remains patent to any person of sionate women, making, vehement common sense and experience, that, appeal to public sympathy for per- in the present day, whether volunsonal wrongs too bitter to contain tarily or not, one-half of our women themselves within a private circle, to are obliged to take care of themwhose voices the world has not been selves-obliged to look solely to unaccustomed hitherto. It is not any themselves for maintenance, posipersonal injury, but a general condi- tion, occupation, amusement, reputation, which is the object of their tion, life.' statement, and they make their state- Now we cannot help thinking this ment with reasonableness and gravity. a rather astounding statement. Is it It is, notwithstanding, somewhat too really the condition of the feminine sweeping and extensive to be received population of the three kingdoms ? without hesitation – being no less Persons of common sense and expethan a charge against civilisation of rience may well consider the question upsetting the commonest and most if it is so—and doubtless there is universal relation of life, and of leav- statistical information to be had on ing a large proportion of women, in so important a subject. Judging by all conditions, outside of the arrange- our own limited lights, we should ments of the family, to provide for have supposed that even our “unthemselves, without at the same time married daughters” still in the nurleaving for them anything to do. sery, to whom a new doll is at present

This is very hard, if it is true; infinitely more attractive than the and that it is true in many special handsomest new Guardsman of the instances, no one will dený. "Spe- season, must have added their tiny cial instances, however, do not make quota to the tale, ere the “one-half” up a case so universal as we are of single women had been fairly made called upon to believe this to be. It out and numbered. One-half of the is not the common course of Pro- English women of the present time, vidence which drops an individual not only unmarried, but voluntarily now and then out of the current, but or otherwise unmarriageable — not a circumstance so general as to change only unmarried and unmarriageable, the current altogether. There were but without father, mother, brother, single ladies as there were single gen- or family, sole units standing each tlemen as long as anybody can re- upon her own responsibility before member, yet it is only within a very the world! Many an odd picture of short time that writers and critics this same world gets drawn by people have begun to call the attention of in a corner, who find their own little the public to the prevalence and horizon the limit of the scene ; but multiplicity of the same. • What never surely was there an odder or are we to do with our spinsters ?” more remarkable misrepresentation asks, with comic pathos, one of the than this—and it would be a curious many reviewers of the Life of Char. inquiry to discover and settle those lotte Bronte, and our enlightened con- strange characteristics of the time

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