ABSTRACT
The married soldier is, as a rule, much better off in India than at home, and were it not for the loss of health which residence in a tropical climate entails on women and children, Indian service would for them also be far preferable. Of late years efforts have been made, no doubt, to improve the condition of the soldier in every way, but the soldier’s family very often fares badly on home service. The Government of India laid down a scale of accommodation for married soldiers in 1864, by which each of them was provided with two rooms, one measuring 16ft by 14ft, the other 14ft by 10ft. This scale was fixed mainly with reference to quarters in the plains. According to the late report of sanitary measures in India, the accommodation for hill stations has since been considered, and provision has moreover been made to some extent to adapt the size of the rooms to the requirements of large and small families. Each set of quarters is to have a bath-room attached, and the floor of the buildings is always to be raised one foot at least from the ground. We learn from the same report that the statistics of sickness and mortality among soldiers’ wives throughout India in 1873 presented a very favourable contrast to those of the previous year; and the children of European soldiers also suffered much less than usual during 1873. These favourable results do not seem, however, to be attributable to any general or special sanitary improvements, but to the fact that the year under report was an exceptionally healthy one in India.—Lancet.
