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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The numerical strength of the civil service , under the presidency of Bengal and its dependencies , is estimated by M . Fridolin as follows : — Civil service ( covenanted ) . . . . . . 405 men ,, ( uncovenanted ) . . . . 1 , 443 „ Military officers in civil employ ..... 100 „ Natives . . 45 , 538 „ Total . . . 47 , 486 men . The police are described as universally corrupt , and the administration of justice very defective . For England ' s honour , reforms ought to be made . There are constant meetings in London on behalf of Poland and Hungary , where the Emperor of Austria is loudly denounced ; but look at India ! Thus , in spite of much that has been effected for the security of life and property , the British Government is not popular ; the sympathies of the people are ever with the enemy , whether Sikh , Af g , or any other . It would therefore , argues M . Fridolin , be suicidal policy to admit natives to high offices . ' ¦ / ¦
_ _ , _ _ .,. _ From January 1 , 183 G , to December 9 , 1846 , there issued 1976 military appointments to India , which were disposed of as follows : —To sons of captains and subalterns , 128 ; of field officers , 143 ; of generals , 77 ; of civil servants , 105 ; of ( royal ) army and navy officers , 380 ; of the clergy , 205 ; miscellaneously , 938 . " What a vent , says our author , for revolutionary elements ! The griffin ' s military instruction is very limited , often not going beyond the list of his regimental equipments ; yet the officers behave well in battle , as ' le Butcher ' s Bill ( la liste des morts ) ' shows . Army promotion is slow . The Indian climate is not so fatal to European life as supposed . The majors average twenty-eight years' service , and many captains have served twenty-five years . If the purchasing out of regimental officers were not tacitly allowed * things would be even worse . The Military and Orphan Funds at each presidencv are justly eulogised . The pay of the military is sufficient to
splendid in comparison with that of all other armies , yet barely live on . This is accounted for by the customs of the country , and a compulsory retinue of servants ; the facility of obtaining credit ; frequency of early marriages , as already mentioned ; and the contributions , ever and anon demanded , for the purchase of steps . In Bengal , 2250 officers below the rank of colonel enjoy amongst them 530 staff appointments . Of these , 136 are civil or political ; 44 on the general and divisional military staff ; 130 in the commissariat department ; and ' 220 attached to irregular corps . Between the number thus withdrawn and the large proportion always absent on leave , there is a terrible paucity of officers actually present with Sepoy regiments . Staff employ frequently doubles the regimental scale of emoluments , and is consequently the chief incentive to extra exertion . Such a system is obviously bad , and would prove dangerous in face of a European enemy . M . Fridolin admires the mixture of equality and subordination that marks the social intercourse of English officers . " Hold your tongue , sir ! " says Major A ., at the mess-table , to a noisy ensign , who forthwith sits at attenliterallobedient to word of commandEnsi
tion , with tongue in fist , y . gn B . is in due course reprimanded by sentence of a court martial ' for conduct unbecoming , ' &c . But , as M . Fridolin slyly suggests , it should have been 1 pour avoir execute un mouvement non pr 6 vu dans le manuel du soldat . ' The native army is recruited entirely on the voluntary principle . The term of enlistment is for three years ; at the end of which period a soldier may , in time of peace , claim his discharge as a matter of right . Liberal retiring pensions are granted to the worn out and to the wounded of all ranks—an indulgence which extends to the nearest representatives of such as are slain outright in battle . Under the Presidency of Bengal alone , 22 , 381 veterans and 1730 families were drawing pensions in 1844 . The pension is the grand advantage which the Company ' s service holds out , and \ y hich could never be realized under any native government . This system is to thank for the fact that our native soldiery have never swerved from their allegiance under pecuniary temptations . M . Fridolin considers the Sepoy about the most curious production of India . It takes an average of nine months to perfect a recruit in his drill and general duties .
Our author seems to have passed some time at Calcutta , and like all other travellers , feels bound to admire the exterior tout ensemble ^ of the City of Palaces ; but truth compels him to state that , in respect of public monuments , statues , and so forth , the Chowringhee standard of taste is no higher than that which rules in Trafalgar-square . The obtrusive Ochterlony column , surmounted by a colossal melon , is very justly censured for poverty of conception . The course , the band , the equipages ; the river with its unrivalled show of first-class passenger ships , and its less attractive freight of Hindoo corpses ; the palatial abodes , under whose very walls are to _ be found hotbeds oi infection and disease in all shapes 5 the striking medley of primitive habits and customs , and of modern arts and improvements in immediate juxtaposition—all these are characteristics which combine to distinguish Calcutta from any other capital in the world . In other respects . M . Fridolin describes the Presidency us a place of business par excellence , No idlers are to be found there , save a few stray military men ; and there is but little in tlie way of public nmusements generally going on . In proof
of this assertion , a laughably melancholy list of weekly ' engagements' quoted from the Bengal Sturlpwn [ Uurkarn f ] , ' l ' orgune le plus influent de In publicity Indieime . ' The fact is , that during nine months of the year the climate of Calcutta is unsuitable to evening entertainments , were the heads of society ever so willing to patronise them . But there are other obstacles : —la morgue offlcielle , la Jroideur liritannipte , lea disastres oowmereiaux , le& distinctions do la pea u . Between the European and the native there stands ft barrier («« muraille plus quo Ohinoise ) which years of association have failed to break down , Froin all theso cuusos , An ^ b-Indion society is much divided into eots and coteries ; but within each circle the time-honoured hospitality of the old school is still Boloinnly practised ,, le dindon , le jumbon , et le champagne being the triune emblems worshipped . M . ijVidolin found it much more pleasant to ndmiro tho Anglo-Saxon ' s aptness for life in community at the Bengal Club , or under canvas with tho sporting fraternity of the Tent . As to the morals of the English in India , M . Fridolin is the very pink of discretion . Ho holds that the less said the bettor . Judicious uilenee
best becomes a writer who has lived in friendship amongst the parties . whom he describes , and has eaten their salt . There are voyagers enow already of atrabilious temperament , and our author explicitly declines lending himself to swell the ranks of puritan misses , and John Bulls ren / onces who have heretofore volunteered to calumuiate society at each of the three presidencies . He also speaks in high terms of the liberality and generosity towards all in distress which are universally practised throughout British India . It is curiously but truly remarked that the traces of early Anglo-Indian society ( that is to say , records and memorials of a hundred years back ) are far more rare in Calcutta than relics of the middle ages are in any part of Europe . The several generations already passed away have left behind them but little to individualise their memory . Neither aged
men nor pleasantly garrulous old ladies are to be met with in any number amongst the English sojourners in the East . All who have survived sixty years deem it time to make their escape to Europe , if they haye failed to do so at an earlier period . India is a land of exile—a tropical Siberia . Service under the East India Company has been almost , as it were , hereditary in many families ; but the youthful years of each succeeding generation are passed in England , their country , their home . As for the Eurasians , M . Fridolin says of them , in severe but truthful language , " Cette rsice frele et chetive s ' abatardit des les premieres generations . " It is certain that no fusion will ever take place between the native and Eurasian population ; and thus British supremacy in India is safe from , at least , one element of dansrer to which the seneralitv of colonial possessions are notably exposed .
But we must take leave of M . Fridolin , at all events for the present . That gentleman appears to have closed his journal at Hurdwar , near the foot of the Himalaya mountains , in April , 1856 , during the continuance of the annual fair held at that place , having previously visited Benares , Lucknow , A * n'a , and Delhi . We have endeavoured to serve up some portion of the cream of a really elaborate work . But there is much besides upon which it is impossible for us , at this moment , to bestow even the most cursory notice . Should occasion however offer , we may perhaps some other day attempt to give our readers an . idea of what the same author has to communicate upon many important subjeets . He indeed has gone at all in th * v ! n ( r Revenue , the administration of justice , thuggism , dacoity , cotton ,
indigo , opium , &e . &c , are discussed at considerable length , and with statistical details . There is , in short , no legitimate Indian topic which M . Fridolin may not justly arrogate to himself as ' Nostn farrago hbelli .
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ANGLICAN THEOLOGY . Anqlican Theology : Chapters on Colepdge , Hare , Maurice , Kingslet / , and Jowett , a ? id on the Doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement . By the Kev . James H . Rigg-Alexander Heylin . To collect together the signs of faith and doctrine scattered about in" the various writings of a certain school of divines popular in the present day , and to examine into their origin and theological tendency , is the object oi Mr Rise ' s volume . In making this inquiry he does not travel yery far back 3 of these inions facthe regardsColerid
for thesource op . In , . ge as the root from which the theological doctrines of this * certain school h . ave been developed ; and , in a few words , he portrays what he presumes to he their several characteristics . The legitimate line of theosophieal and theological derivation from Coleridge is traced in part through Hare and more directly and fully through Maurice and Kings-ley , to a number of later disciples , of whom Mr . J . L . Davies is one ot the most intelligent . Though Mr . Jowett ' s theology is discussed in the volume , and thoueh the influence of Coleridge upon him is admitted to 01 nis rie
have teen considerable , yet he is not numbered as one aiscipies . ( that is , Mr . Jowett ) sees through and despises the neo-Platoiust disguise which serves to veil from Messrs . Maurice and Kingsley the really inherent Pantheism of the doctrines which they would fain present as anti-Pantheistic and he teaches a philosophy much more directly and manifestly Pantheistic ! The Rev . H . James Rigg himself seems to entertain views which we may not unfairly designate diluted Spurgeonism . He admits the noble catholicity of feeling , the earnest sympathy with human suffering , the deep desire to ameliorate the condition of their fellow-creatures which per ; vades the writings , and has distinguished the conduct of these clergymen ; but he sees in the midst of their teachings the colossal form of heterodoxy loomin" in the distance , like the shadowy shajje of Polyphemus . A bold , the frank of conviction \ theologi
liberal opinion , or , at least , expression n - cal subjects , is to him n nightmare . He predicts a fearful confusion of right and wron <* as the result of such opinions . Mr . Maurice ' s repugnance to admit Scripture passages as an Authority for believing in a perpetual state of punishment after life is well known to our readers . Mr . Rigg comments on thorn : " Jf this is true doctrine , not only the peasant and the beggar , but the cold-blooded murderer , the brutal ravisher , tho most fiendish of slave drivers , all the children of tho devil on earth , and all the demons of hell , mny ' rejoice and sing merry songs' together . Hell may hold carnivals on earth to the glory of God in heaven . " It is not our intention to enter into tho diseussbn to which an inquiry of this kind is calculated to give rise ; we shall , therefore , abstain from doing more than give tho results of an analysis of the philosophical theology of Coleridge made according to the tests aoDlied to it by Mr . Riffff . It only remains to sum up the
findings of this inquiry , says Mr . Rigg . What ho has Jbund , then , amounts to this , that Coleridge ' s philosoph y was n new Platonizcd edition of Schilling ' s ; that his theology has affinities with Popish rather than 1 ' rotestant doctrine , but is essentially rather a semi-pagan theosophy or mysticism , baptized with a Christian and biblical nomenclature , than any system * of doctrines directly derived from the Bible 5 that in intellectual and ecclesiastical sympathies he was radically Protestant , though disposed to bo highly reverent of ancient religious forms and ceremonies . To this school ot Coleridge' Mr . Rigg applies the designation ' J 3 roa < l Church , ' a torn * which ho thinks himself justified in employing , inasmuch as tho Church which they would establish is aw broad as the Christian world , and all their views in ccclesiuotieul doctrines and polities tend much more to laUtudinnrinnisin
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716 T HE Ii . E ADER . [ No . 383 , JuiiY 25 , 185 7 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 25, 1857, page 716, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2202/page/20/
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