In Bengal, after the success, which attended the admirable institution of the Orphan Society, which was organised about 1784,

The Bombay Military Fund was established, on 1st May, 1816; and the following statement has reference to 1st May 1848, after 32 years.

Original Subscribers, 1st May, 18th May Dead. On 1st May, 1848, the subscribing

1816.

Living
1848.

members were as follows.

it was determined to set on foot a similar fund for the benefit of widows; and, in the commencement of the present century, some benevolent and active officers obtained the support of a considerable number of contributors, both married and unmarried, whose object was to provide annuities on a liberal scale for the bereaved wives of their brethren in arms.

In August 1805, the Government in India had already authorised the Pay-Masters of the Bengal Army to receive the amount of donations and subscriptions, at the Up-Country stations, and to remit the amount monthly to the Treasury at Fort Williamthus giving a valuable public aid and official sanction to the undertaking.

The Military Widows' Fund worked well for about twenty years. It admitted officers of the Royal Army to a participation of the benefits, and was a popular, and, to all appearance, a respectably-conducted Society. We shall shortly have to advert to a gross fraud, that was practised on its resources for a long series of years, by Mr. Martindell, its Secretary; but, in the year 1824, when it was merged in the more generally useful institution, called the Military Fund, it had a list of married members, amounting to 251 in number, of all ranks, and no less than 166 unmarried subscribers, who either supported it from charitable and benevolent motives, or from a hope at some future day of themselves attaining the honours of matrimony. At that period, there were eighty-seven widows in receipt of pensionary stipends from the Fund; and it possessed about nine and a half lakhs of reserve capital.

At this period, or rather in 1823, the Court of Directorsfinding that more efficient funds had been established at Madras and Bombay for some years, embracing the grant of benefits to sick subalterns, children and others, besides the mere pensions to widows, and their affording more general advantages to their respective armies than that in Bengal-forwarded instruc tions to the Government at Fort William to call on the army to frame a new fund similar to those of the other Presidencies; and intimated that, unless this were carried out, the Government would withhold the usual annual donation of 22,000 rupees, and the high rate of interest of eight per cent. per annum, which had been granted to the accumulating capital of the Widows' Fund. The members of the last-mentioned Society had therefore no choice, but to submit to the army a proposition to authorise the old Widows' Fund, with its incumbents, subscribers, and capital, to merge into a new Bengal Military Fund, framed on the basis and rules, pointed out for their guidance, as established at Madras and Bombay :-and thus, in 1824, rose into being the noble institution we are describing.

An idea may be formed of the progress and powerful in

crease of the operations and resources of the Military Fund since 1824, by contrasting a few of the details at the two periods. The first year exhibited is that of 1825-26, after one year's operations; the year 1850 gives the accounts for 1849, as closed 31st December, 1849:

In the year 1849, no less than forty-two widows were admitted to the benefit of the pensions, and forty-seven subalterns to that of income allowance in Europe-forty-six having the grant of outfit allowance, and fifteen that of passage money.

The value and extensive advantages of the Fund may be gathered from the fact, that, at the present moment in Europe, there are

Besides, there are fifty-five widows remaining as chargeable to the Military Fund, from the eighty-seven pensions and the other claimants handed over from the Widows' Fund in 1824-these widows receiving pensions, varying from £100 to £300.

We have adverted, in a former paragraph, to heavy losses, which the former Widows' Fund, and the succeeding Military Fund, incurred from frauds practised by a former Secretary, named Mr. Henry Martindell, who was employed by the Fund in that capacity for a period of nearly forty years. Mr. Martindell died in the beginning of 1840; and, on his death, some inaccuracies in his cash-book, and certain suspicious-looking entries, led the Directors to look narrowly into his books. It was then discovered that, for upwards of thirty years, he had contrived to suppress all record, in his otherwise most regularly balanced ledgers and

general accounts, of certain chance arrears of subscriptions and of payments to him, which reached the Fund irregularly, from the constant moving of officers from pay-division to pay-division, their frequent furloughs, fines, marriage donations, &c. &c., which, from the fluctuating and uncertain nature of the circumstances, could not be entered monthly and uninterruptedly on the different public pay office accounts. These sums, it appeared, he managed always to receive himself, or through the agency of some confederate sircars and, as he never entered them in the daily cash-books, or let them appear in his public accounts, while the said public accounts were ever beautifully prepared, as to book-keeping appearance, posted and accurately balanced, and abstracted in the minutest particulars, he fairly blinded, for thirty years, some of the best accountants, auditors, and others, who were successively appointed Directors, during that long period of his delinquencies. To deceive individual officers, who must have known the date of their separate respective payments to the Fund, he had artfully prepared, in a peculiar form, a description of separate ledger in his own handwriting, for the purpose of shewing distinct accounts to each officer, who might refer to him for the present state of his subscriptions: and, as this record only professed to balance each individual's account from time to time, and most accurately exhibited even the purloined sums, while it afforded, from the deceptive manner of its construction, no means of clashing with, or comparison with, the public yearly accounts, it continued to deceive hundreds and hundreds of officers, who applied to him. Since Fauntleroy's celebrated forgeries, and falsification of books and accounts in Europe, so continued and successful a series of frauds has not occurred in the history of swindling: and, as during the number of years they were in operation, Mr. Martindell frequently abstracted more than 10,000 Rs. per annum, the loss to the Funds must have proved immense. Upwards of two and a half lakhs of defalcations were traced: and, if we add the loss of eight per cent., which the Funds were deprived of for years, the actual injury to the present accumulated capital of the institution cannot be estimated at a less sum probably than six or seven lakhs of rupees.

We have entered so fully into the history of this astonishing fraud, mainly with a view to shew that the resources of the Military Fund must be indeed great, and its capabilities beyond doubt (as indicated by Mr. Neison in his Report), when the present solvent and flourishing condition of its assets can be thus exhibited by an eminent actuary, like Mr. Neison, in

spite of so perilous a loss, as that inflicted on them by the disgraceful robbery, which we have described.

But to revert to Mr. Neison's Report itself. If the accuracy of his results is to be held as unimpugned and unassailable, the facts stated by him are of more importance to the Indian community, than may strike many at first sight. All former authorities have stated the rates of mortality in India among the better class of Europeans (that is, excluding the seamen and private soldiers), to average about three per cent. per annum. Mr. Neison asserts, that the mortality is not above 2.6 per cent. In other words, as we have before stated, Mr. Neison asserts that in every thousand of the gentlemen, composing the Military Service, who are exposed to the climate for one year, there survive at the end of the year in India 974 persons, while twenty-six have been carried off by death. Former authorities would leave only 970 alive, and affirm that thirty must have died.

One of the great points, affected by these facts, is that of the calculating of promotion in the army. The Indian army is a seni ority service, like the Marine corps, and other Ordnance branches, in Her Majesty's army. Nothing can be worse for efficiency in the higher ranks than such a system. Were the mortality twice as great, the fortunate survivors would nevertheless be old men, before they could reach the command of a regiment: but, as it is, with the few retirements or resignations that take place in the first twenty-five years of service to quicken promotion among the juniors, the case is hopeless. Mr. Neison has shewn that, in twenty-five years after joining the army, out of 5,199 officers, only 230 have retired, 53 have been invalided, 75 have been dismissed by Court Martial, 54 have been pensioned, and 186 have resigned; the whole giving a total only of 598 withdrawn during the first twenty five years of service, from the entire 5,199 Cadets, who have joined the army since 1800. Out of the remaining number, while clinging to the service, 1,662 have died in the first twenty-five years of their Indian career; there must remain therefore a large residue of men, who, in their forty-fourth or forty-fifth year of age, have to be provided for in the higher ranks of the service. But there are only about 300 field offi. cera in the Bengal army. How many therefore of inferior rank must hopelessly toil on as captains, long after the first energies of life have expended themselves, and who must be worn out and effete for years, before they can hope to reach the command of a regiment. The conclusion is evident. If the officers of the Indian army wish to reach the higher ranks in a reasonable time, it must be by their own exertions, and