The Sun.
London, England, 1832-10-24 00:00:00

COMPRISING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT STATE 0/

SOCIETY IN CALCUTTA, BOMBAY, &C.
TWO VOLS. POST OCTAVO.-(R. BENTLEY.)

We are"glad to see a 8 Sketch-Book devoted to

the illustration of Anglo-Asiatic life, of the pe-
culiar features of which, though so many fa-
milies among us are interested in the discussion,
we know little. The human mind, especially
the human mind in England, loves to cling to
fallacies, provided they are pleasant to contem-
plate, and will too often resist any attempt to
disabuse it, however pernicious the error may
be. But truth is always beneficial even when
unpalateable, and he is our best friend who
forces us to receive it. Such a friend we hold

the author of the present work to be, and the
force which he employs to secure the reception
of his wholesome facts is comprised in the
originality and interest of his details, and in
the charm of his style. An appointment in
India, whether civil or military, is generally con-
sidered as a passport to independence—a sort
of royal road to honour and riches ; and the
young aspirant awakens to the delusion only
when his health is sacrificed, and when it is too
late to determine on a new scheme of life.

" The India Sketch-Book," though its de-
scriptions of the golden East and the Hindos-
Lance legends, included in its pages, are as gorgeous
and as picturesque as the subjects demand, is,
nevertheless, mainly characterized by a desire to
give a just picture of what a person may expect
who ventures to India for worldly benefit ; and
the representation is not confined to the inci-
dents which a male adventurer in the service
must undergo, but touches on a far more deli-
cate subject, namely, the matrimonial chances of
those young ladies who go thither, as mercantile
consignments, to be disposed of for life to th
highest bidder. When the author is occasionally
jocose, as he is apt to be, on the latter subject,
we, for our part, are inclined to hail his merri-
ment as a welcome relief in the consideration of
that which, in too many of its bearings, would
prompt reflections of pain and humiliation, and
which is too ofien.foll owed by fatal consequences.
We have indicated only one or two of the
characteristics of these very various, entertaining,
and, let us add, instructive volumes ; but our
limits will not admit of anything like competent
analysis. It might, indeed, have been wished

that the author had been less trancliant in some
of his satire, and that he had steered clearer of
personalities. These, however, may give greater
currency to his book ; if so, what is good in it
will have a wider range of operation, for the
sake of which the reader may be inclined to
forgive the trespass.
The following observations, from the second
volume, are striking, and, we doubt not, just :

" I dare say you have forgotten, in the comfort of your
own house and establishment, all the little mortifieations
and annoyances of your march to . Travelling in
any part of the world is a sore lightener of the purse.
Apropos !—I yesterday saw a caricature entitled Phlebo-
tomists ;—a stage-coachman, guard, bowing waiter, court-
Hying chambermaid, and scraping " Boots," with a porter
two nthprs of
merciless operators on an unfortunate traveller. But,
alas! what are these musquitoes to the leeches of an In-
dian march ?—with all these unceasing demands, a journey
of two hundred and fifty miles might be easily accom-
plished for six or seven guineas ; whereas, ten times that
sum would not cover the expenses of your march, com-
mencing with your butler's demands for ropes, gunnies,

packing.caees, ;—your cook's for store of provender;
advance to servants, bullock-men, coolies, bearers, las-
cars, Sec. ;—impositions of ditto, with which the poor
traveller is compelled to comply, at the hazard of being
left in the lurch by a general desertion. This is indeed
enough to produce a hwmort hags. However, I hope, as
you seem somforiably settlesl, some time will elapse before
you are again exposed to this species of bleeding.
" The longer you remain in India, and the more you
see of Anglo-Asiatics, the more just will you find one of
your early observations to me, that " the people seem to
be acting set parts." Men of education must he scarce
amongst those whose lives, from fifteen years of age, have
been spent in this country. Men of sense are st,so rare,
because, in obeying orders, there is no room left for the
exercise of the reason or judgment, and a soldier is a mere
passive machine. Men of elegant and relined manners are
still more rare, because these can be acquired only by as •
sociating with elegant and refined people; and in the first
class of society in India such are not to be found, sine:
the highest situations are open, by progressive promotion,
to persons of whatever birth, education, or intellect. And
as to men of fashion or ton ! Yet each of these classes of
character finds would-be representatives in abundance, and
men of a little tact contrive to pass for what they would
seem, among people not very conversant with the matter of
exhibition. One of the most atrocious bunglers at this
would-be system, is our Colonel Commandant, for of all as-
sumptions that the spirit of imitation could have put into
his head, that of dignity, consequence, or gentility, by
such an underbred, uneducated being, is the most ridicu-
lous. He still talks of going home, but, unless driven by
ill health, I am confident he never will, for he must
have a most especial dread of the levelling na-
ture and effects of English society, in which a
laced coat and peons, and chober-dars, would
hardly sustain him in what he might consider his proper
grade, but where, divested of these, he must sink at once
to the very humble place which I would assign him.
With all his failings, I should scarcely like to risk a change.
In these days so much encouragement is given to the
vilest underhand reports of commanding officers, that
one's appointment or even commission is liable to be put
in jeopardy by the mere ipse dixit of one of them. In
this respect is a safe man ; for though he will not
scruple in obtaining information by the most despicable
means, he seems to seek it only for his own private grati-
fication ; I have never known an instance of his making
any injurious secret statement to head-quarters, or indeed
of his taking any unfair advantage to get people into trou-
ble. The --tee mode of procedure in this way is the
most disgraceful I ever heard of; but to every honourable
feeling and every upright principle, the officer at the head
of the force is so notoriously a stranger, that all comment
on his baseness would be but an echo of every body's opi-
nions. Indeed, the whole system of army discipline is
becoming daily more and more galling to every honest and
independent mind.
" I am indeed sorry to hear that the climate is already
beginning to affect your energies ; marvel not, therefore,
that my poor addlepate is reduced to a state of Boeotian
stupidity. I never passed so unprofitable a month in my
life as the last. No regular reading, but flying from book
to book, and lounging and sauntering about the house, my
best employment during the fifteen hours of daylight being
a romp with the children, and the heat renders even that
almost a painful exertion both to them and toe. A steady,
strong, and blazing hot land-wind, that would raise the
thermometer twenty degrees above this year's average in
exposed situations, would not be half so oppressive as the
close, coast-like weather of this season. My fear is, that
our monsoon may be a little late, as notwithstanding fre-
quent thunder-showers and squalls, I do not perceive any
of the usual symptoms of an approaching fall of heavy
and continued rains. It requires a little deluge to cool
the hissing earth, and clear the steamy atmosphere.
" On looking to your letter, I perceive the leading
married
au
rl
grßiaerrdi Brigadier-General
ensign.s-
e fe.
self-satisfied,
Itrifas lfit
eh
dae,t
such
article to be the prodigy of a married cadet. Enviable
man ! What a prospect lies before him ! the vista
rank of
to the recent arrange
age terminating
e fseventy-two,
ments, and the foreground of the perspective holding
out the cheering view of ten years' enjoyment of
in
a prospect would breuk her bean; but the providence that
twheeree e n t stvhoe,
axnhialatormatinlegss lififeipopfanat,
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, supplies the capacity
of endurance according to the infliction of the burden.
You see, the threatened reduction in numbers has taken
place, so that we swarm with supernumeraries, and }et

every fresh ship pours out a flock of cadets, to swell the
list of sufferers. I think all ensigns of any respecta-
bility of family, connection, or education, would be vase
in returning home, for there is no pursuit to which they
could devote themselves as gentlemen, in which they
would not have attained greater advantages at the end of
twenty-five or thirty years, than they have any pros-
pect of attaining by continuing in this service. Few
will be better off than myself, when as far advanced in
their probation, and I hourly regret having wasted
my life so unprofitably. Notwithstanding the many
and thankfully acknowledged blessings with which
I am surrounded, I cannot help feeling a most
ardent longing to exchange the luxuries of the East for
the simplest fare and most homely establishment of rusti-
cated gentility in happy England, and lilac ince lachryma,
for the conviction that I could scarcely have failed to re-
alise so moderate a desire by twenty-two years of appro'
ticeship to any gentlemanly calling at home, adds a feellog
of remorse to the mortification of disappointment."

ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH, SCOTCH, AND MO
ACTS OF PARLIAMENT,
FOR AMENDING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE UNITED
KINGDOM, 6.C. BY JOHN GORTON. LONDON, 1832.

Mr. Gorton is already known to the public se
editor of the New Topographical and Biography
cal Dictionaries. The book before us is not
less remarkable for the display of pains and
care which the author must have taken 01
compiling it than those to which we have re'
ferrgd. Besides distinct analyses of the three
Reform Acts, it contains alphabetical minutia'
ries of the counties and boroughs represented,
with the division, limits, and population, nuts'
her of ten-pound houses, &c., appertaining to
each. As a work of reference for persons villa
wish to have at one view the leading features el,
the three Acts presented to them, this will b°
found a very useful and cheap book. Vire
would only observe that the idea of that part e
the work which gives a summary of the Boon'
daries Bill, with the number of members re-
turned by each borough or city, appears to b°
taken from Griffiths's Sixpenny Electoral Guide'