India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    India was increased by about 30,000 men. In 1900 the total strength was nearly 223,000 officers and men of all arms, of whom rather more than 76,000 were British. This is exclusive of the active Reserve, con- sisting of men who have served with the colours in the Native infantry from five to twelve years. There are now about 20,000 m&nffin the Reserve, but it may ultimately attain much larger proportions. Apart from the addition to its numbers, the efficiency of the British troops in India has been greatly increased by other causes. Among all the changes that have occurred since the transfer of the Government to the Crown, there is not one over which we have better reason to rejoice than the improvement in the health of our soldiers. The Royal Commission which inquired in 1859 into the sanitary condition of the army reported that the average death-rate among the British troops in India, for the forty years ending with 1856, had been 69 per thousand. This was six times as high as the rate among Englishmen of the same ages at home. The Commission expressed the hope that the rate might be reduced by measures of sanitary improvement to 20 per thousand, or even lower. This hope has been more than fulfilled. In the ten years ending with 1879 the death-rate was 19 per thousand, and during recent years the average has been less than 16 per thousand.1 No efforts have been spared to improve in every way the position of the British soldiers in India. They now live in barracks which, in comfort and in all sanitary conditions, excepting those conditions of climate over which we have no control, probably surpass any that 1 It must be admitted that this comparison is not altogether accurate, because the figures given by the Royal Commission included all the deaths that had occurred in the numerous campaigns of the previous forty years. Making, however, allowance for this, the rate of mortality was extremely high.
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