ment.

has more injured the cause of vaccination than dishonest and inefficient work. Collectors, even here, intermeddle by making a pretence of inspecting Taluka vaccinators' registers, simply to display their authority, and to show the natives. that they are paramount in their districts. It is difficult to convey, in words, an adequate idea of the blessings conferred on India by means of Jenner's discovery, which, it is only just to state, is infinitely better applied and appreciated in the cities of Bombay and Kurrachee and many other places in India than in some parts of England at the present time. The system, however, is not by any means perfect. There are many weak points in it which require the most careful consideration and attention. For instance, the control and supervision of vaccination in all Feudatory States should be absolutely in the hands of GovernThis has been, in vain, repeatedly urged as a precautionary measure of self-defence in the interests of our own fellow-subjects. The standard of excellence of vaccination as a protective against smallpox can only be properly judged by an expert, hence the importance of seeing that primary work is thoroughly honest and efficient, as it is seldom people take the trouble to get themselves revaccinated. Without careful inspection and testing of lymph, and comparing the results of operations on children's arms with the records of vaccinators and village registers, returns and figures are a delusion and a snare, as they give merely a sense of false security against the ravages of the most loathsome of diseases. In addition to the good work of vaccination done by the Sanitary Department, it is right to mention that the improvement in vital and mortal statistics effected of late years is due to the care and attention of the Deputy Sanitary Commissioners, in whose offices the Births and Deaths Registers are compiled from the vernacular returns received through the different departments.

The inspection of towns and villages as regards watersupplies, drainage, and conservancy, conferring with local authorities, and writing careful reports on these important

subjects take up a great deal of the time of sanitary officers, but it is to be regretted that the results of their efforts in this direction cannot be said to be so successful as that of their statistical and vaccination work, because little or no attention is ever given to their reiterated recommendations and suggestions, which, in fact, are not unfrequently treated with sneering disdain by officials deplorably ignorant of what hygiene and sanitary science has done to ameliorate human environments, improve health, and prolong life.

Truth in this case may seem stranger than fiction, but though bitter, it may prove more wholesome than a policy of laissez faire on the subject. The old order of things must, in the course of time, pass away. Exposing a public evil is often half its cure, and the discovery and removal of its cause should lead to satisfactory results and the good of the greatest number.

Sanitation in India should not be left to the whims of

local governments and municipalities, but controlled and carried out directly by the Imperial Government, thereby securing efficiency and economy as well as unity and uniformity. The home system might with advantage form the basis of a scheme for Sanitary Reform in India, with the necessary modifications in regard to area and population.

The question of caste is a most important one in the training and appointment of sanitary inspectors. No one whose religious views or prejudices regarding contact with noxious matter intervene should be appointed. Each municipality should have one or more trained inspectors as may be considered necessary under the orders and direction of the Civil Surgeon or Health Officer, with an adequate conservancy establishment. In non-municipal towns, and groups of villages, the supervision of sanitary inspectors should be entrusted to the Divisional Deputy Sanitary Commissioner, who would be held responsible by the head of his own department, that the sanitation of the different areas is receiving careful attention.

The Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of

India should be consulted on all sanitary projects and schemes before being carried out, and during his annual tours could satisfy himself on the spot in regard to local conditions and needs. The sanitary engineering should be devised and conducted by specialists, not by men who have been digging canals or dumping metal on roads most of their time, and who have suddenly set themselves up as amateur sanitary engineers. As a rule ordinary civil engineers are no more fit for sanitary work than general medical practitioners are for the duties of health officers, without special study and training. The real and pressing want for India is a scientific corps of men, invested with sufficient power, to regulate and amend the willing efforts of judiciously constituted district authorities, and controlled by a Board or Council at Simla of such administrative capacity and skill as would constitute them fit representatives of modern sanitary science and engineering.

The abolition of the Bombay and Madras Commandersin-Chief would seem to indicate the advisability of the Governors of these Presidencies being replaced by Lieutenant-Governors similar to Bengal, the Punjab and North-west Provinces, the area and population of each of these provinces being much greater than that of either Madras or Bombay, should form a just basis of comparison for administrative purposes. The savings in Councils, Military Secretaries, A.D.C.'s, Body Guards and Bands, and excessive office establishments, would prove to be very considerable, as such expensive and superfluous trappings are dispensed with by Lieutenant-Governors.

There is no reason to fear that either Madras or Bombay would in any way suffer by the change of mere designation from Presidency to Province, or would not be quite as efficiently ruled by an experienced LieutenantGovernor, as by the present costly and showy system, and the economy effected would be so much contributed towards averting famine and epidemics by extension and improvements in irrigation and sanitation. It is difficult to under

stand the necessity for a military secretary when the Governor is a civilian, and has no military functions to discharge. It may be urged in behalf of the Councils that they are required to direct and instruct Governors sent out from home without any experience of the work for which they are so handsomely remunerated by the State; but this surely would seem an irresistible argument for the abolition of both Governors and Councils, and the substitution of Lieutenant-Governors experienced in Indian administration. Reform in this respect is so obviously called for, that it cannot be much longer delayed, and it is hoped that in the interests of public health the Sanitary Department will be made something more than a name, and permitted to do its own work without the interference of other departments as has heretofore been the case. For the information and guidance of these departments, I may cite the ancient proverb quoted by Pliny-" Ne sutor ultra crepidam."

A MAHOMEDAN UNIVERSITY.

BY SALAHUDDIN KHUDA BUKHSH, B.A. (OXON.). THE death of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan-the prophet and apostle of Moslem rejuvenescence--is indeed a great blow to the Moslem community; but though his commanding figure is removed by death, yet the impulse communicated by him to education and reform is of a sufficiently enduring character.

His life reminds one of the life of the celebrated Cassiodorus. Like the Minister of Theodoric, he stood at the confines of two ages; like him he witnessed the close of one epoch and the beginning of another. But as the resemblance is striking, so is the difference. While with Cassiodorus the learning of Rome was buried in the monastery, with Syed Ahmed the fusion of Eastern and Western culture was brought into the forum. He toiled incessantly at the social regeneration of his countrymen, and, consciously or unconsciously, moved along the path of reform which was opened by Goethe, followed by Heine, and imitated by others of lesser note. He worked for the liberation of humanity, "the deliverance of men from inherited usage and rigid and unquestionable law." To dethrone the uncompromising and inflexible lawgiver custom, which exercises a more powerful influence in the East than in the West, to adapt himself to circumstances and to be abreast of the march of civilization; this was the burden of his life-long teaching. That at the outset he was deemed a setter-forth of strange things, is true; but, like every moral teacher, he has overcome the resistance, and strongly impressed the generation with his personality. To measure with any precision the imperceptible and subtle influence which a reformer must exercise on his contemporaries, is indeed impossible; but whatever may have been the merit of his political and religious teaching, we