accused, for the prosecution of the case on the part of the Company by some qualified public officer, and not by a private individual, for the interpretation of the evidence, for all the admitted and customary privileges of the defendant, and for every other reasonable contingency. All doubtful and vague provisions, existing in the present Criminal Code, must be abolished, and no such incongruity be suffered to remain, as that which says that any offence, not punishable by any distinct law, may be punished by a futwa from the law officer, under the "General Regulations." As little as possible should be left to the interpretations of private judgment, and the wisdom of Executive Courts. At this same favourable opportunity, the present principle of appeal should be so far modified, that superior courts should be directed not to re-try the case, as they almost invariably do. They should remand it for further evidence or explanation, call for enquiry on obscure points, reverse at once, where the decision is against the law, or in the teeth of the recorded testimony; but they should not, where every thing is done with correctness and formality, reverse a decision, because their estimate of the precise value of the written evidence happens to differ from that of the officer, before whom it was both spoken and written down. Lastly, we require a distinct recognition of the true and just principle, that every judge shall be a selected officer. This is the key-stone of the whole edifice. The nature of the Indian service is such, that men can scarcely be reserved whole and entire, from the first day of their service, for the duties of one single line; and we have attempted to show that a revenue and Police apprenticeship is by no means a bad qualification for the bench. The Company's judge is not, however, the only Indian official, in whom various characters are united. Do we not see Queen's judges in these dependencies compelled to turn their mind, in rapid succession, to those various, complicated, and extensive departments of the learned profession, to each of which, in England, are separately devoted the entire energies of the most able intellects, and the undivided attention of the longest professional lives? May not the barrister at the Presidency be metamorphosed from the Chamber Counsel, to the Old Bailey practitioner-from Special pleader to Equity draftsman-from Nisi prius counsel to Civilian in the Ecclesiastical Court ?* Are these transformations more strange or horrifying than those of an Indian Civil and Sessions Judge,

*These remarks were suggested by an able article in the Times of February last.

whose Police investigations have taught him the consideration due to the native subordinates, and the value of Police enquiries, and whose great experience in land revenue enables him to decide with certainty on complicated questions of real property? No man can fairly appreciate the temptations, the vices, and the license of the Darogah and the great features of crime, who has not presided, for at least some seasons, over the Executive Police of a large and populous district. No man can be at home in a vast quantity of civil cases, if he is not familiar, by close and assiduous attention, with the ins and outs of some "crack collectorate." It is idle to talk of system and legality, and familiarity with the general maxims of jurisprudence, where there is no acquaintance with the vernacular, no insight into native habits, and no familiarity with the hopes and fears of the villager. It is equally futile to assert that any amount of local experience, any knowledge of detail, any realization of the household and domestic life of Hindu or Mussulman, can compensate for the absence of a due proportion of legal knowledge. What is wanted is a plan, by which a judgeship shall be made the reward of discriminating industry and of positive merit, not the haven of laborious incapacity or of plodding inoffensiveness. We desire an arrangement, by which a set of men, chosen for those qualities which would illustrate and adorn any bench, shall administer a revised and purified code, with just such acquaintance with a set of standard authorities, and a number of recognised precedents, as shall ensure decisions, marked by uniformity and sound sense. It may be that this auspicious reformation is reserved for the present head of this empire: and the statesman, who humbled the Khalsa, annexed the Punjab, and gave us the long promised peace, may yet be distinguished for internal reforms and measures of progression, and may add to the discernment and the prompt decision of a Wellesley, the fearless spirit and the pure philanthropy of a Bentinck.**

* This article was written before the receipt of the news, that the Black Acts had been suspended by orders from the Home authorities. It is satisfactory to find, that, by them also, India is not yet considered ripe for the Black Acts. Let us hope, that they well set themselves vigorously to bring about this desired consummation.-[ED.]

ART. VI.-General Orders by the

1849-50.

Commander-in-Chief.

IF we may judge from the tone of the General Orders, which Sir Charles Napier has, from time to time, issued, since he became Commander-in-Chief in India, it would appear that the estimate, which this distinguished soldier has formed of the discipline and character of the native army of this Presidency, is not altogether so favourable as those interested in the honor and credit of the service could wish. The disparaging terms, in which he wrote of the native regiments, which came under his observation at Lahore, in his famous Mían Mír order, are, of course, fresh in public recollection. In a still later order on the subject of leave to officers-he has observed, with reference to native regiments, that "the state of discipline is such as to demand every exertion, in every officer, to bring it to that perfection, which it ought to attain :" and there are few of his late orders, in which some equally unmistakeable indication of the opinion, which he has formed, may not be discovered.

The confession is one, which we record with regret, and which many will no doubt read with anger: but we are disposed to think that there is much in the present state of the native army to justify the estimate, which Sir Charles Napier has formed of its character and discipline, and the censure which he has expressed.

No body knows better than we do, how much may be urged in extenuation. We admit the fatal paucity of European officers; the harassing, and too often unsoldierly, duties exacted from native troops; their constantly recurring and lengthened absences from regimental head-quarters, and consequently from European supervision; the absurd system, by which promotion to the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks is too often regulated; the stony-heartedness of invaliding committees, and a host of other extenuating circumstances. But all these causes are innocuous in some regiments, and fail to produce any irremediable evil effect; and therefore they cannot be admitted as affording a valid excuse for an unsatisfactory state of discipline in the mass. Other causes must be looked for: and we propose, in the present article (as far as lies in our power), to trace them, and to enquire how their future operation may be, if not altogether stopped, at least diminished and retarded.

Sir Charles Napier's orders have pointed mainly to regi

mental commanding officers, as the parties, who are to blame for what is amiss. The justice of his opinion will hardly be disputed. The fact is notorious that, as a general rule—a rule however with many noble exceptions-the seniors of this army are incompetent. Nothing is easier to be accounted for. Nine-tenths of those, to whom the discipline of our native army is immediately entrusted, are men greatly advanced in life-men of from thirty-five to forty-five years' Indian service. This is of itself enough to account for almost any amount of incompetency, if we consider how early men age in India, and what trials the constitution goes through, in the course of thirty or forty years' Indian residence.

But there are also other causes. A great many of our commanding officers have spent all their younger and best days in callings, widely different from that of regimental, or even military, officers; in the civil departments of the army, such as the Pay and Audit, Commissariat, and Stud departments; or perhaps in purely civil or political employment. We could name several instances of very late occurrence, in which each of the departments above-mentioned has contributed a commanding officer to the Bengal infantry. Such employment does not perhaps necessarily incapacitate a man for regimental command, but its effect in nine cases out of ten is to do so. At page 925 of the Pay and Audit Regulations of 1845, a very curious table, illustrative of our argument, is to be seen, showing on the attainment of what regimental rank certain staff and civil situations require to be vacated by the incumbents; in other words, at what rank a man is considered to become fit for nothing but regimental duty! Thus all Deputy JudgeAdvocates, Deputy Commissaries, Barrack-Masters, Deputy Pay-masters, Land or River Surveyors, Clothing-Board Secretaries, &c. &c., are required to rejoin their regiments on attaining the rank of Major regimentally; and Army-Clothing, Gunpowder, and Gun-carriage Agents, first Assistants to Residents, Principal Assistants in civil charge of districts, &c. &c., on arriving at the rank of regimental lieutenant-colonels. It would be idle to say how totally foreign to the duties required of a regimental commanding officer must be the training, afforded by long service in any such appointments as these or what a novice, in all military matters, the ExClothing Agent, or Ex-Pay-master, must return to their regiments; and yet, as we have observed, it is from men of this class that regimental commanding officers are very generally recruited. Is it wonderful, then, that the effects of such a system should have become apparent to the eagle eye of the

Commander-in-Chief, or that he should express himself of the native army in terms, the reverse of complimentary?

But Sir Charles Napier has not pointed to the inefficiency of commanding officers only, as accounting for the relaxed state of discipline, which he complains of. His remarks are also pointed at lower game-at the inferior agents in maintaining regimental efficiency, the officers commanding companies. In his orders he recognizes the "ability, zeal, and good feeling towards their men "* of this class; but he evidently considers them deficient in other essential qualifications of officers. In this estimate Sir Charles does them, we think, as a class, even more than justice. For ourselves, we are inclined to doubt, if professional zeal is by any means a general characteristic of the junior ranks of officers of this army. We are aware that a great amount of spurious zeal is common enough; a sort of zeal, which expends itself in great exertions to procure for a corps the reputation of having first-rate regimental institutions, a first-rate Band, Mess, and Billiard-table, and giving firstrate parties, &c. In every regiment, too, will be found, amongst the twelve or fourteen officers, composing its effective strength, one or two, whose zeal takes a more legitimate direction men who give themselves up, heart and soul, to the improvement of their men, and to acquiring for their regiments the reputation of being well-dressed, well-drilled, welldisciplined, and ready for any service. Nay, we could name some regiments, in which a laudable spirit of this kind pervades more or less the entire body of officers. But these are the exception, not the rule: and, as we write not to conceal and keep out of sight what we feel to be amiss in the service, but in the hope that to expose it with a bold and fearless hand may be to procure its correction and amendment, we have little hesitation in saying, that a ready, consistent, cheerful and energetic spirit in performing the regimental duties of the service is not by any means so commonly to be found as it ought to be: but that, on the contrary, a thoughtless indifference to their duty, and to the credit and reputation of their service, is a far more common characteristic of the subordinate ranks of the Bengal army at the present day..

We e are quite disposed to make great allowances for the indifference and apathy, which we lament. Regimental duties-under no circumstances, it may be supposed, very interesting-must always be particularly distasteful in a climate like that, which we live in, and in a service where men and officers, from difference

* Vide his General Order disbanding the 66th Regiment N. I.