by sentence of a general court-martial. I
have since heard that Locke lost his ill-gotten
gains in Ireland, and became eventually
marker at a billiard-room; and that Bunyan,
who also came to poverty, was seen driving a
cab, for hire, in Oxford Street.

It behoves me, however, to inform the reader
that, recently, the tone of Anglo-Indian
Society, during the hot seasons, is very much
improved. Six or seven years ago there
never was a season that did not end as
unhappily as that which I have attempted to
describe; but it is now four years since I
heard of a duel in the Upper Provinces,—
upwards of four years since I heard of a
victim to gambling,— and nearly three since
there was an elopement. It is true that the
records of courts-martial still occasionally
exhibit painful cases; but, if we compare
the past with the present, we must admit
that the change is very satisfactory. I do
not attribute this altered state of things
to the vigilance of commanding officers or
the determination of the commanders-in-chief
to punish severely those who offend. It
is due chiefly to the improved tone of
society in England, from which country we
get our habits and manners. The improvement
in the tone of Indian society has been
very gradual. Twenty years ago India
was famous for its infamy. Ten years ago
it was very bad. It is now tolerable. In
ten years from this date, if not in less
time, Indian society will be purged entirely
of those evils which now prey upon it, and
trials for drunkenness and other improper
conduct will happen as rarely as in England.
Year by year, this communication between
our fatherland and the upper part of India
will become more speedy and less expensive;
and thus will a greater number of officers be
enabled to come home on furlough for a year
or two. Nothing does an Indian officer so
much good as a visit to Europe. When a
man has once contracted bad habits in India,
he cannot reform in India. To be cured
he must be taken away for a while from
the country. There have been instances of
officers who have had strength of mind to
alter their course of life without leaving the
East; but those instances are very few.

The East India Company should do all in
its power to encourage young officers to
spend a certain time every seven years in
Europe. Instead of six months' leave to the
hills— which six months are spent in utter
idleness, and too frequently in dissipation—
give them nine months' leave to Europe. This
would admit of their spending six months in
England, or on the Continent, where they
would improve their minds and mend their
morals, as well as their constitutions.

The East India Company should also bring
the Peninsula and Oriental Company to
reasonable terms for the passage of officers to
and from India. A lieutenant who wishes
to come home, cannot at present get a passage
from Calcutta to Southampton under one
hundred and twenty pounds. So that he gives
up more than four months' pay for being
"kept" thirty-six days on board of a steamer.
Three pounds ten shillings per diem for food
and transit!

      A WHALE IN WHITECHAPEL.

A FEW days ago there appeared in the
Times an advertisement for a vacant bit of
ground whereon a whale might be exhibited.
We watched anxiously for the result, and
with success, for shortly we read another
notice to the effect that the whale had
arrived, and was now on view in the Mile
End Road, Whitechapel, near King Henry
the Eighth public-house. That same day
saw us on the top of a Bow and Stratford
omnibus, the conductor promising to set us
down "at the whale." Our money paid, we
entered a tent, and for the first time in our
life enjoyed a full and uninterrupted view of
the monster. We had expected to have seen
a skeleton; but instead, the proprietor has
preserved, stretched on a frame-work, the
skin entire. The head remains attached
with the bones, whalebone and all complete,
so that it was a stuffed whale we went to
see, and not a skeleton— none the less
interesting for that. It rarely happens that
Londoners have a chance of seeing a specimen
of the largest animal in creation.
Pictures certainly convey an idea of a whale,
but, to have a notion of its huge bulk, the
thing itself must be seen extended on the
ground, examined by the eyes, and felt by
the fingers. The specimen is a young female—
Rorqual, or razor-backed whale (so called
from its having a fin on its back somewhat
like a razor). It was driven on shore at
Winterton, eight miles from Great Yarmouth,
Norfolk, in a tremendous gale from east-south-east,
on the fifth day of January last. His
full length is forty-eight feet; his weight
about twenty-five tons. The colour of the
skin is dark brown on the back, vanishing off
towards the body in a bluish grey. The tail
measures, from tip to tip, eleven feet. This
is composed of a dense, fibrous mass, and
feels to the touch like a thick sheet of india-rubber.
It is placed at right angles to the
body, in the reverse way to that usually seen
in fish. The eye is remarkably small, and
the folds of the eye-lids well marked; as it
was impossible to preserve the eye in its
natural bright state, an artificial glass model
has been inserted into the eye-lids— the
natural colours of the eye having been closely
imitated. The liver of this animal completely
filled a one-horse cart, and was as much as
the horse could draw. The heart about filled
a good-sized washing-tub, and a section of
the principal artery (the aorta) would about
fit round an ordinary-sized bucket. The
weight of the blubber was not ascertained.