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    GEXEEAIi TE-EMEXHEEPtE'S PLAN . < 3 exeual Tbemenheebe , one of the most distinguished officers of the Bengal Engineers , has propounded a plan for saving the lives of soldiers ' chilJren in India , which is justly receiving great attention . General Tremenheere , after thirty years ' service in the Bengal Presidency from east to west , has , on his return to England , continued his exertions for the benefit of the country , with which lie was so long actively connected , and he has naturally

    unhealthy , useless , illiterate scamp , as he would probably do if left in the barracks , the child becomes a strong , healthy , active , and useful member of society . To accomplish such an object appeared to Dr . Macnamara a true act of charity , not only to the orphan , but to the widow and to society in general , bat we regret to say his appeal has not been answered . True it is , Government could give a site for the asylum-or home free , and there is no reason for their not beginning the building , for though they have considerable works going on at Darjeeling to convert it into a large European garrison , there is sufficient labour available for the assylum or any required structures . Private enterprise is not impeded by such want , and several

    shape , General Tremenheere ' s proposition does not come under the authority of another military system , which is equally well recognised—that pi military , colonists . Whether under the Romans or under the Russians , or as applied by our own statesmen hi Canada , New Zealand , and the Cape , military colonies are defined objects of military administration . General Tremenheere ' s proposition does nominally increase the number of women with a marching army ; in reality , instead of impeding the efficiency of the army , it augments it , hj encouraging recruiting , and it places the married

    men in a condition approaching to , and preparatory for , that of military colonists . There can be no doubt that the encouragement to marriage would be a most effective bounty on recruiting , because it will extend the area of recruiting . Now , recruiting must take place from the unmarried males , and further , from such who may be called unmarrying males , as they will remain for years under restrictions before they can obtain formal authorisation for marriage . In India , too , they cannot get English wives . General Tremenheere offers an encouragement , while Indian recruiting lies under great discouragement , as there are prejudices against the

    climate , and even at this time the reparation of the losses in the army , of the military wear and tear , is slowly repaired by recruiting . General Tremenheere ' s p lan provides for obtaining a large class of recruits from labouring men , newly married , or with small families , from young men who have made improvident marriages , and from many who would * if unmarried fall into the category of recruits . If a labouring man , and his wife , who were in narrow circumstances , saw that he could obtain the steady pay and employment of an Indian soldier , with the customary allowances for his wife , and further free passages to each , for what , with all its risks , they would consider a land of emigration , he would be tempted , the more pard

    ticularly when they knew that the children woul be sent to a healthy school in the hills , that there his wife might find employment , there he would be partly stationed , and could spend his furlough , and that he could obtain in _ the Neilgherries ( Kan = gra , Parjeeling , or a like district ; a small plot . of land and a trifiihg quit rent , where he and his wife could keep a tea-garden or coffee plantation ., and whither , after his term of service , he could retire to enjoy a limited portion of independence , at least , if not of opulence , —the Indian service , under such circumstances , would become a favourite one , we should have better means for carrying out the great measures for holding India by an English army , and t he hill stations and arsenals , and we should experience no inconvenience from the number of women

    nominally attached to the army . We say nominally attached to the army , for in the praotical results the Indian army would become like the Royal Artillery or the divisions of Marines . At Woolwich , Chatham , Portsmouth and Plymouth are large settlements of the wives aud children of soldiers and marines , and so there would be at Darieeliilff , Simla , Murrce , Mount Aboo , Malheran , Ootakaimind , and the other great hill settlements . These would be the depots of women and children , and as they could stay there , and the women obtain employment , and with the portions of their husbands ^ ay mak e out a livelihood , they would have small emptation to undergo the perils and inconveniences of marches and campaigns in the plains or of residence in the low garrisons . J . he lew

    women who would inarch with the troops would be the women without children , who would constitute less encumbrance , than those now to be found with , regiments on sow ice , for we should no longer have nine hundred children in depdt at DumDura , as the women would be marching women , rendering some services to . the army ; and in nil European campaigns , with the greatest restrictions , women do marob . with the armies , and staff officers must expect to find them and to bear with thorn , and if the soldiers do not have women of their own nation with them as cantinieres or sutlers , whether in the field or m garrison , they form such connexions with the TOmen ..-. of'Ztho-f ? nHi n ! ti - Vy .. Aft-., A 3 duR gorpus . *!~ , operations of the enemy by "thei facilities given W

    spies . , ,, . Whatever advantage may anso , aocordmg w some , from intercourse between the English soldiers and uatiyo women , would still exist , but the muott greater advantage would bo obtained oi a large 3 ody of tho married men and of many men intending to marry , being woancd from association witU nSivo women . Tlfero would bo likewise the great advantage that the soldiory , who load a most

    combuildings have been lately added to the settlement . It is very true that the measure , though neglected , is still sure of practical though partial accomplishment , for the new cantonments at Darjeeling will receive . a thousand English . soldiers * thereby a considerable body of women and children , and they will all be safe while stationed at Darjeeling . There can , however , be little doubt that when once there a large number will remain when the regiment is movetl to other quarters , the widows and orphans will be there provided for , and many of the wives and elder children will obtain a maintenance in the town and neighbouring villages in various employments for which such services are now greatly needed .

    General Tremenheere , adopting these facts , not only proposes to establish the new school for the Bengal Government at Darjeeling , but to make this , the Lawrence Asylum , and . the other hill , military schools which may be established , centres for increasing the English population and developing civilisation . He lays it down as a principle that the European element requires , beyond any thing else ,, to be fostered and increased in India , and he states that there are boundless regions in the range of the Great Himalayas , where nature itself , by a vegetation of unmixed European type , points out

    that the Anglo-Saxon family will equally flour ish to any extent . For making these advantages available the railway system of the plains must be connected with the hills , and now that the Government has adopted as a principle and a practice the _ establishment of large European garrisons in tile hills of India , General Tremenheere proposes to make the military force contributory to the increase of the European population . He proposes , first , that the removal of all children of soldiers to the hills should be encouraged , and next , that the marriages of soLdiers should also be encouraged by allowing a greater number of marriages per company than the regulation now admits .

    IIu considers that there is no sufficient reason why , in time of peace , the marriage of soldiers about to embark for India should not be encouraged , aud even the enlistment of married men , provided they would allow their children at from lour to five years of age to be sent to a training establishment in the hills . It is truly said that it is an unnatural condition of things that the waste of that very clement which India so much requires should nny longer continue , It is maintained that , on the contrary , whether on the score of state policy or morality , that element should be freely encouraged to take root , until , in time , small townships of pure English citizens should spring up ,

    whence soldiers for the army might be drawn , and well-trained subordinates for other departments of the public , spmoe . as wq | l as . for private employ , might be obtained . Sir John Login ' . has made a very important proposition having likewiso the tendency to inoroase , by moans of military arrangements , the European element , by the organisation of a corps of workmen soldiers , to whom a free passage to India would be tho bounty for a few years' service , after which they would remain in the hills as civil settlers , but lbr-ming an cil ' ectivo military reserve . This proposition is being- matured , and has been under tho

    consideration of several leading statesmen . 'Xhere can bo littlo doubt that in one shapo or another Sir ^ John-rLQffiufwill-oinuvy » i t-iivLo ^ oircot ..,,,,, .,.,-, .,. „„ ,, „ ,. „ , Thcrois a great indisposition on tho part of many military men to consider , much less aoccpt , a proposition like that of General Tromonhocre , which is aupposod to invade a military canon . Ho proposes to'increase the number and prpportion of married soldiers in' a regiment : now , according , to all military traditions it will bo held that tho fewer married soldiers thore aro tho bettor , and tho fewer women with an army , in poaoeor war , and yet it may bo questionable whether , considered iu anothor

    taken a deep interest , and an active part in Indian railways . He is one of the distinguished men who , having engaged in the Northern Bengal Railway as a great measure for the welfare of the Presidency , have applied themselves to the extension of the system in its application to the interests of India at large , and whose efforts will perhaps produce . a greater influence on India than any of the

    remarkable events of the year . This he more particularly availed himself of the opportunity of doing in a paper , which he : read before the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Public Works of the Bengal Presidency , and before Mr . E wart ' s Committee on English Settlement in India . This paper has been published and likewise the report of the committee containing his evidence , so that his views arc before the public .

    General Tremenheere points out , in corroboration of Mr , llainald Martin , that in the thirteen years from 1839 to 1 S 51 . no less than 24 , 781 English soldiers have died in . . India and have left no trace . The children of those few who may have ~ bcen married men have died in the ratio of four but of every five . In the plains the-children of the soldiery . assuredly die , and yet there are accessible regions where they be maintained in . ¦ healthfulness , and brought up to be most valuable members of the community . That great man , Sir Henry

    Lawrence , provided an asylum for soldiers children at Kussowlee on the sub-Himalayas , and another asylum to the south at Mount Aboo , and lie proposed to " cndow a third on the Neilgherries , but religious bigotry impeded the realisation of this latter undertaking . . In the Lawrence asylums , which now receive aid from the State and from public subscription , a number of children—too few in number for the proportion who require such provision—arc brought up to become hardy and hcaltny youths ; they receive a crood education , and they will in the course

    of time become overseers , subordinate officers for the service of the State , assistants in factories , skilled agriculturists and teachers , who , when spread throughout the country-, will produce the best effects in diffusing the higher civilisation in India , the progress of which is materially impeded bv the deficiency of European teachers . The boys and girls of tho Lawrence asylums havo tho advantage that many of thorn arc conversant with the languages and customs of the natives , and therefore suited for employments of supervision , for

    which newly arrived ommigrants from England are unprepared . . ' ... In December of last year Dr . Macnamara , Secretary to tho Bengal Patriotic Fund , when advocating the claims of the Lawrence Asylum to public support , pointed out that there were then no less . than nine hundred boys and girls , children of soldiers , in tho dcp 6 t at Diim Duni , near Calcutta . Tho total is not now less ; but it is painful to contemplate how many of tho nine hundred enumerated by Dr . Maonamara have already sunk into their untimely graves , Ho then proposed that a homo similar to the Lawrence Asylum should bo established for tho

    clmdren at tho dcp 6 t at Dum Duni , and tho other ^ op 6 tsHinH ; hn 1 r ^ nT < ror u BciTgal 7 ^ nd-ho ^ roposcd ^ lrb home should be built at DarjecUng , tho torminus of tho Northern Bongal Hallway . That station , he states , is easily roaciiod from Calcutta ; its climate is known to bo peouliarly well adapted for ohildron , probably mqro so than any part of India , and where « rapid ohango cornea over tho pale , emaciated child lately brought up from tho plains . In tho course of a few months ho becomes sturdy and blooming , tho mind as well as tho body becomes invigorated j and instead of his growing up a tall ,

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    I N I > I A /

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    f no . 441 , September 4 , 1858 . ] T H E £ E A B E it . 911 _

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 4, 1858, page 911, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2258/page/23/