THE MARRIAGE MART, OR SOCIETY IN INDIA.

The Marriage Mart is the market title of this work. Its true designation is that which doubtless the author bestowed upon it, Society in India : and a very correct description of the book it is. Although there is a story, and the scenes and persona introduced into the volumes are mostly put in connexion with its heroine or her family, the greater part of the work consists of sketches of Anglo-Indian life and character at the military stations. Pri- vate parties, native fetes, country excursions in tents, with mess- dinners, and the other social occurrences at a large up-station, are presented in a lively and graphic manner, occasionally varied by episodes of travelling, water-robbers, or the minor incidents of war. The great forte of the writer, however, is in painting characters, and allowing them to develop their peculiarities in discourse : and some of his persons are drawn with truth and felicity. Mr. Heauton, the hearty good liver, who is always grumbling at the climate, bewailing his health, and lamenting Old England, and who eats as a duty to " keep up his stamina," is a pleasant reality : Captain Kightly, the Irish officer of dashing gal- lantry and good abilities, but marred in life by his addiction to the bottle, is a stronger and more striking sketch : Brevet-Captain Buxton, the unlucky officer, who is worn down by hope deferred, is also a painful reality ; and there are -many other people equally true, though less interesting, either from their peculiarities being less marked or from their not being in any way connected with the story. The native personages are all striking and character- istic.

The defect of Society in India is its individuality. The charac- ters all seem to be portraits, and probably are : but though this gives a great air of truth to ;he book, it imparts to it somewhat of literalness and littleness. Many of the characters are not suffi- ciently strong and general for fiction ; whilst the form of the work and the style of composition prevent the mind from receiving them as existing realities. This leads to another fault, looking at the book as a whole : some persons are introduced who have nothing whatever to do with the story—many who are in it yet scarcely of it; and these characters " to be let" are not only elaborated with great pains, but their history is conducted to its conclusion, where the apparent truthfulness mars the fiction ; for the termination does not result from any concatenation of the previous events, but arises from accidents.

The story in itself is simple enough—a match broken off in con- sequence of the lover's former but concealed connexion with a native girl, which connexion is discovered by his betrothed under exciting circumstances. Much of this tale has the truthful air we have already noticed ; but the necessities of fiction having in some parts compelled the author to aim at raising a greater interest than mere every-day truth will excite, his want of art is shown in a want of keeping. To elevate the lover Tanfylde, he is represented as the victim of circumstances in his connexion with the Indian Noorun; whose character is also raised much above that of her class. Yet Tanfylde's conduct is painted as selfish, reckless, hypocritical, and even cruel in the abrupt and cunning way in which he terminates the liaison,—all, indeed, very natural, and likely enough to happen, but scarcely consistent with the author's description of his hero, and totally destructive of our regard for him : the reader rejoices when Helen, who only knows part of his meanness, rejects him.

Amongst the various digressions of the author from his story, is one upon the often-mooted subject of the Russian invasion of In- dia. He discusses it like a man with a practical knowledge of the country, its natural capabilities for strategy, and its modes of warfare. But he assumes the hardest part of the task, by placing the Russian army in India. To get there overland is the difficulty. We know the hardships single travellers encounter in the easiest parts of the route ; we know, too, the immense loss incurred by our army on its advance to Cabul without an enemy in front, from the difficulty of feeding the men and cattle : how then could a Russian army be fed from the time it left the Caspian till it reached the de- files of Afghanistan or Beloochistan ? and how long could it even exist there with 9ur fence delaying its adyncte Y The dinuird-

tion, though defective in this main point, contains some incidental military remarks which have a value in themselves. Here is one on

IRREGULAR HORSE.

Too much stress must not be laid upon the probability that the invaders will be mostly composed of irregular troops, many mere auxiliaries, and principally cavalry. Perhaps a force comprising a hundred thousand disciplined troops [how are they to march to India ?J of all arms, and a cloud of irregular horse- men, is the best constituted for an invasion, though surely not for defence.

Schiller tells us that Count Mansfeldt's Bohemian levies were " more formi- dable to the provinces which might be the object of their attack, because they might be subsisted by plunder"; a system fatal to the discipline of regulars. Accustomed in Europe to see affairs decided by the obstinacy of infantry com- bats and the concentration of artillery in countries chiefly close or hilly, where cavalry are for the most part but auxiliaries to the other arms, and where con- sequently none but the regular cavalry of the best description in small num- bers can be subsisted or employed, we are apt to overlook the extreme facility of moving vast bodies of horse in the open plains of Hindoostan. These, by their freedom from encumbrances, by their very indiscipline, are most terrible to an invaded country.

Unshackled by magazines, artillery, sick or wounded ; abandoning every man or horse that loiters, straggles, or fails on the march ; without bond or con- nexion beyond that of mutual security, which, by allowing roving detachments to extend their incursions to great distances, enhances the popular idea of their numbers; while, on the other hand, the fate of these stragglers, if cut off, strikes no panic, because unknown to their companions. A body of predatory horse spreads terror and desolation over a whole pro- vince. Their ruthless barbarities in success affright the country-people, while their defeat, if checked, tends not to reassure ; for though easy to disperse them, it is not so easy to make a serious impression, and their flight, which is not attended to themselves by the serious consequences of defeat to regular troops, proves often but a means of inflicting their ravages upon more remote and de- fenceless districts, to which they repair for refuge and plunder.

We will pass from soldiers in mass to an individual.

THE BROKEN-DOWN OFFICER.

Perfectly aware of his failing and of its ruinous consequences, yet did this man become so wedded to it, that beyond the pleasures of the table, every thing was indifferent to him. The strong mind of Kightly did not, however, wholly break down ; be became a philosopher, and jested gaily at his own situation as not worthy a second thought ; openly professed Epicureanism ; would maintain i with great ingenuity and wit that nothing was worth striving for but pleasure; and as years increased and his medical friends warned him of the serious con- sequences of persisting in extreme indulgence in drinking, he so far acquiesced as to make amends for some slight abridgment of his liquor by good eating: a scorching wind and a cool tattoo, an iced bottle and a hot curry, were, he would say, his idols ; and having them, he wished for no more : and as his conversational powers were unimpaired, and his qualifications for convivial company of the first class, Captain Kightly was in some request at dinner and tiffin parties. He had now just returned from a trip to the Cape; whither his agents had enabled him to proceed in spite of the deranged state of his own finances, the principal partner being a countryman and old acquaintance; and Mr. Morton was now returning his visit, they having been shipmates in the commencement of their career.

Bloated in person, and with all the incipient signs of premature decay, Rightly was a sorry spectacle anywhere but at table : he still, however, con- trived to get through the routine duties of his profession, shirked parades as often as he could, and shuffled through them when they could not be avoided; no Sepoy or drummer in the battalion fell out so often as Captain Rightly to take "a drink of water" from the bhistee in the rear, during a long field-day ; and no one hailed its termination so gladly as he, when, with a handkerchief tied across his eyes to exclude the light, be threw himself upon his couch to prolong till tiffin the sleep that had been curtailed by the prolonged debauch of the preceding night. ' No one slunk so quietly into a spare doolee on the line of march as Captain Rightly ; no one was more an adept at keeping his gig close in the rear of a corps on a relief; and few so apt at taking a sly lift and slumber in it during the dark hours of the morning, when the most vigilant commandant was unable to observe whether his officers were with their men or not.

Perhaps there is no situation more irksome, more pitiable, than that of a military man become unfit for or weary of his profession. The mere routine is monotonous in the extreme; the duties of subordinates in quarters require nothing but a mechanical precision, and hold out nothing to exercise the under- standing or enlarge the intellect ; ;here is no discretion, no responsibility ; and with a certainty, like Rightly's, of limited prospects during the continuance of his service, what was there to enliven the scene ?

But his degradation was unfelt by the sensualist : so long as his commission supplied the means of indulgence, it was enough ; distinction he had ceased to hope for ; his duties he slurred over or evaded ; his debts he never intended to pay ; and as long as he could borrow a book worth reading and secure a dinner worth eating, he was satisfied.

Notwithstanding the regularity of the British rule, and of late years the freedom of its European servants from corruption direct or indirect, it is to be surmised that the natives employed under Government practise extortion upon the people to some extent. See an intimation of their mode, in

A NATIVE OFFICIAL BUILDING A HOUSE.

On Uhmud Alfa first installation at Nuwabgunj, he had commenced the erection of a house. It was planned agreeably to the notions of comfort and dignity of the owner; that is, it was to be a square brick stuccoed building, standing in a tolerably-sized enclosure, walled all round, with an open veranda looking to the court-yard ; diminutive windows closed by wooden shutters on the other sides, and an upper-storied room perched at one corner, with a door opening upon the flat roof, and shaded by a wooden gallery, carved and painted, at the window of which the functionary could display his now portly person, inhale the fresh air and his pipe, and see and be seen of the whole neighbour- hood.

Everybody was put in requisition towards the completion of this edifice, and willing or unwilling hands were found in abundance. Bricks and lime were supplied below the market-rates by the koomhars, who had received a significant hint to take care their jackasses did not get into the pound.

Wood was cut down without much ceremony from a mango-grove, respect- ing which the owner was given to understand that a most opportune complaint was about to be lodged for encroachments on the public road : masons and car- penters were privately informed that there was likely to be a requisition for workmen to construct bridges on the highway, and gladly agreed to serve on Mel wages, on the understanding that they would be exempt from seizure on that occasion : as for coolees to carry materials and water, nothing was more simple than to employ the convicts, in those days allowed to remain for road purposes at the several thannahs, and to eke out the number of begarees, pressed men, village watchmen, and other humble wretches, to whom a meal of the cheapest and coarsest species of grain was reckoned ample remuneration ;

and the owners of carts were officiously civil in proffering their vehicles, on its being buzzed abroad that troops would certainly be marching in that direction immediately upon the breaking up of the rains, when recusants would be pretty sure of being handed over to the tender mercies of the Sepoys and their baggage.