Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/78

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58
ADVICE TO OFFICERS

is the inveteracy of the native character that though every one once a-week protests against the damage done, yet no one has been able to effect reform. I need not say how unadvisable it is to beat native servants, as some irritable young men are apt to do. This practice should be seriously avoided, as it is certain sooner or later to get him into trouble. I have on many occasions known natives killed by a blow that was intended only as a chastisement, and courts martial on a charge of manslaughter the consequence.

7. GENERAL HOSPITAL.—The Assistant-surgeon may expect to be two, three or four months in Calcutta, with little or no duty to perform, but merely to accompany the Surgeons of the General Hospital in their visits, and gain experience in the diseases peculiar to the country. He will have one or two rooms allotted to him as quarters, but entirely unfurnished. He must therefore buy a small set of camp tables, two chairs, a brass basin and stand, a bed, a few pots and pans, and some crockery, and set up a bachelor's establishment. He must now consider himself in the vortex of Indian society; must conform to the manners and customs of his compatriots; must submit to the numerous prejudices of caste amongst the natives, and be contented. He will be somewhat disappointed in the small number of