eatly
increased. Whenever an epidemic breaks out, means are at once employed
to check it. There is a vaccination department for the purpose of
preventing the ravages of small-pox. Female infanticide, which had
prevailed to a frightful extent among certain castes, has been
diminished, though not, it is feared, wholly suppressed. It is well
known that famines have been sadly destructive of life, but there is
evidence that previous to our rule, when there were few roads and little
communication between one part of India and another, famines were still
more so. Among so vast a population directly dependent on the soil, in a
country where rain is so indispensable, and is now and then a failure,
we have too much reason to fear famines may yet recur; but such
provision is now made against their ravages, that it is hoped the
catastrophes of the past will be escaped.

It is believed that, as the result of the new order of things, India at
the present time has by many millions a larger population than it ever
had previously. Mention has been made of the improvement effected in
the Province of Kumaon; and other parts of India present instances of
equally successful administration, but the area of new cultivation has
not kept pace with the increase of population. It is sad that so many of
the people should be underfed. In our own country and in Ireland this
question of sufficient food for the entire population is one of the
pressing difficulties of the day. Much is within the power of people
themselves to improve their condition. We know it is so at home, and it
is so in India. There, there is a vast body of sturdy beggars, under the
guise of religious devotees, who feed on the people. Lending and
borrowing go on at a most hurtful rate. If a person finds himself
possessed of some twenty or thirty rupees, he either puts it into jewels
for the female members of his family, or lends it at an exorbitant rate
of interest. It has sometimes seemed as if creditors and debtors
included the entire population. Debt, not by law but by custom, is
hereditary, and a man is expected to pay the debts of his grand-parents.
Marriage expenses are so heavy, that very often a debt settles down on a
man on his marriage day under which he lies till the day of his death.
Government has done much to induce leading men to bind themselves to a
moderate expenditure on the occasion of marriages, in the hope that the
example might prevent the unreasonable and pe