pay, the East India Company is, on the whole,
an exceedingly good master. The Furlough
Regulations, framed before any steam-vessel
had buffeted the broad Atlantic with its
paddles, and before locomotives whistled their
way through the world, were sensible enough.
The same Regulations being still in force, are
as unsuited to the service as a set of long-clothes
might be for a coachman's uniform.
The fact that the Regulations are outgrown, is
felt uncomfortably by every servant of the
Company employed in India; it is distinctly
seen by the Court of Directors, who have had
their eye on a new suit for some years past;
it is admitted as obvious by the Board of
Control, which Board must coincide with the
Directors in their mode of tailoring. No
private interests are interfered with, no
prejudices stand in the way of an amended set of
Regulations; every one unanimously votes
them necessary; so much unity of opinion
begets a calm, and the result is, that no way
is made. Nobody is being stirred by any opposition
into energy, and consequently the old
Furlough Regulations still remain in force,
and may remain in force for ever. Here they
are; contemporary fossils.

In the first place, each member of the East
India Company's service is allowed, after
completing ten years of actual duty in India,
a furlough of three years on his private affairs.
He receives furlough pay according to the
branch of service to which he may belong, and
the rank he has attained in it; but if he comes
to Europe, this pay is so small that it does not
pay more than the expenses of his journey
home and back, leaving him nothing to expend
in Europe. An officer may obtain a
furlough of two years to Europe, even before
the completion of his first ten years' service,
if he can satisfy the local Government that
the business on which he returns home is
absolutely urgent. But in this case he will
receive no pay whatever. Another exception
is made also in the case of sickness, when,
upon the certificate of his medical attendant,
an officer can obtain sick furlough for a period
of three years, receiving pay, if he should go
to Europe, according to the rate formerly
mentioned for an European furlough granted
after ten years' service. In every case of an
officer proceeding to Europe, whether on furlough,
sick certificate, or urgent private
affairs, he forfeits his Indian pay and allowances,
both staff and regimental. Furthermore,
he forfeits all claim to return to whatever
staff employ he may have left, and has to wait
for the good fortune which may reinstate him
in his old position, by the windfall of a new
appointment. The time elapsing between the
date of any officer's departure from India
until his return, in case he takes his holiday
in Europe, is not, under any circumstances,
allowed to count as a portion of the service
which entitles to a pension.

But if an officer contents himself with the
enjoyment of his furlough "within Indian
limits," the case is entirely different. For
six months he may at any time obtain leave
of absence on his private affairs, and, if he has
not over-passed the limits, will receive his full
pay and allowances, with the half-pay of any
staff appointment that he may be holding.
He may have sick leave for two years, to the
Cape of Good Hope, China, Egypt, New South
Wales—for these are places " within Indian
limits"—and still draw his full pay and allowances,
his half-staff pay, if he have any to
draw, and when he returns will return to the
full possession of his staff appointment. The
period of his absence, also, is allowed to count
as a period of service.

When these regulations were constructed,
the journey to England, before steamers were
in use, and Overland mails were known, was
round the Cape, and occupied five months.
It was duly considered that in case of
any emergency which would require the
presence of all available officers and troops,
an officer in Europe could not return in
obedience to a summons in much less time
than a twelvemonth. That was a serious
affair; heavy discouragement was therefore
put on European furloughs. The consequence
has been, and now is, that unless driven to
seek an European climate, by an almost
irreparably shattered health, very few, indeed, of
our Indian friends revisit us until the expiration
of their Indian service, extending in most
cases to thirty, and sometimes to forty, or
even fifty years.

Time has slipped by. To Europe now there
is a great high-road, and from India to
England is, we may fairly say, a few days' journey.
England is more quickly accessible from India
now than the Cape; an officer who comes
home to Europe is in fact more within call
than if he only journeyed up to the Nilgherry
Hills. We need say nothing of the moral and
material advantage to the Indian service
which must accrue from putting those who
left the centre of our civilisation in their
youth into a fair amount of communication
with the mother country. Engines of power
as these Indian servants are, what rusty
engines some of them must be, we feel when
we consider that some of our countrymen, in
India now, left us before we had a railroad,
and know nothing practically of our world as
it now is. We do not dwell upon the sentimental
part of the question, nor on any other
part of it either. There is nothing to urge.
The whole matter is obvious. Everybody
admits it. European furloughs should be at a
premium now, not a discount; the calculation
upon which the Indian Furlough Regulations
were framed by those who went before us was
good then, and prudent then; but by the
changes since made in the aspect of society,
it is now turned precisely upside down. The
authorities are quite aware of that. The
Court of Directors once upon a time even
sent to the Board of Control a pen-and-ink
sketch of a new set of Regulations adapted to