is stated, may to some extent be attributed to
the high price of wood in India, as well as to its
tendency to decay.

The amount paid to the several companies for
guaranteed interest up to the 31st December,
1862, was £8,269,190. This sum is subject to a
deduction of about £1,600,000, which the government
had received from the earnings of the
railways, leaving a debt of about £6,650,000
against the companies. The annual amount
which will be due from the government for
guaranteed interest, when the lines are finished,
may be taken at £3,000,000; but the profits
per mile per week of the lines are now rapidly
increasing. A considerable portion of the above
sum will consequently be met by payments into
the government treasuries in India. The liability
of the State will thus diminish gradually until
it ceases altogether, and the railways are
financially able to run alone. The amount of
gross mileage receipts which should be earned
by the companies to relieve the government
from the payment of guaranteed interest, varies,
of course, with the cost of construction, and of
maintaining and working each mile; but taking
the aggregate amount of capital to be expended
upon 4600 miles to be £60,000,000, the gross
receipts necessary to earn the guaranteed
interest, supposing that fifty per cent is
sufficient for maintenance and working, would be
£6,000,000 a year, or about £1300 a mile a
year, or £25 a mile a week. In connexion with
this fact, it is satisfactory to know that the gross
receipts of the East Indian Railway, when the
line is completed, should be about £36, and of
the Great Indian Peninsular about £25 per mile
per week; and that they are both earning
upwards of £22, and are increasing their receipts
every month.

That the railways will before long prove
remunerative themselves without government
aid, there is no reason to doubt; and it will be
a great day for the companies, as well as for the
government, when they shall be released from
the supervision which authority naturally insists
upon, when it undertakes responsibility. At
present, the Indian government has a regular
"Railway Department," and its offices in the
presidencies and the provinces must necessarily
conflict, at times unpleasantly, with those of
the companies. The check is not only justifiable,
but necessary. It does not, however, conduce
to perfect harmony, and the sooner the companies
have earned independent control, the better for
themselves, and everybody else. The commercial,
social, and political advantages gained to the
country by the establishment of the iron roads,
are becoming more and more apparent. It is
something, as the last report says, to have
already raised the condition of the labourer by
increasing his wages 60 or even 80 per cent;
and it is something to have enabled upwards of
6,000,000 of people to have travelled by railway
in twelve months, who, ten years ago, had not
seen a locomotive engine. It is something,
also, to have earned nearly £2,000,000 since the
lines were opened. In a few months, the great
cotton-fields of Central India and of Guzerat
will be in direct communication with Bombay ;
and Delhi, at the present time, is probably
within two days' reach of Calcutta. In many
districts between, where there has been hitherto
no communication at all, a sure and rapid means
of transit is fast being established ; and in
many places before unknown to the merchant
will shortly be established markets where
no interchange of commodities has yet taken
place.

Much dread has always been felt by our
countrymen at home of the climate in India; and the
loss of life in high places of late years has induced
something like a panic among men who would
otherwise desire to cast their fortunes in the East.
The fear felt in this country is generally
delusive; the mortality which has taken place being
mainly caused by exceptional circumstances. The
wear and tear of the mutinies killed many men
who might have battled with the climate for
years. Lord Dalhousie, who, by the way, had
not to face the political crisis, died through
ailments quite independent of the influences to
which he was subjected during his viceroyalty.
Lord Canning, who bore the brunt, wore himself
out with work and anxiety, which would have
killed a man of his nervous temperament in any
climate in the world. Lord Elgin, whose loss
has so lately been lamented, died of heart disease,
brought to a fatal conclusion by climbing a
mountain, which would have been an equal
enemy had it been an Alp. There is scarcely
any man having the command of five hundred
a year in India, and who is not driven by duty
into particular exposure, who cannot take as
good care of his life as a governor-general.
Civil and military officers die continually in the
country, whose deaths are not laid to the climate,
and deaths in high places should not tell against
it more than deaths in low places. An assistant
magistrate or a lieutenant dies, and nobody
thinks the worse of the climate; but, let a
great man become, what in military returns
is called a "casualty," and people on all sides
discover that India must be essentially unfitted
for Europeans. Indian invalids will find in
the railway system a safeguard such as they
never before enjoyed. The majority of maladies
in the East require, before everything, to be
taken in time. Change of air is the great
restorative in most cases; but a race for life to
the hills or the sea was more than most invalids
could endure in the days of the road. Many a
man and woman have been killed by the wear and
tear of the dâk journey, who might have lived a
long life, had they been able to get quietly to
the journey's end. By the railway they may
travel from one climate to another in a few
hours, without trouble, with very little fatigue,
and with the satisfaction of knowing that the
chances are greatly against the engine proving
a screw, refusing to move, jibbing, bolting, buck-
jumping, or overturning the carriage.

The effect of Indian railways upon commerce
and material prosperity need scarcely be pointed
out. Already they have given a wonderful