By a general order, issued from Simla October 4, all
officers and soldiers, of whatever grade, who took part in the
operations about Candahar, the defence of Khelat-i-Ghiljie, the
recapture of Ghazni or Cabul, or the forcing of the Khyber
Pass, are to receive a silver medal with appropriate
inscriptions--a similar distinction having been previously
conferred on the defenders of Jellalabad. _What is at present
the value of the Order of the Doorani Empire_, with its showy
decorations of the first, second, and third classes, the last
of which was so rightfully spurned by poor Dennie?

[39] The following remarks of the _Madras United Service
Gazette_, though intended to apply only to the Secunderabad
disturbances, deserve general attention at present:--"We
attribute the lately-diminished attachment of the sepoys for
their European officers to _a diminished inclination for the
service_, the duties whereof have of late years increased in
about the same proportion that its advantages have been
reduced. The cavalry soldier of the present day has more than
double the work to do that a trooper had forty years ago;...
and the infantry sepoy's garrison guard-work has been for years
most fatiguing at every station, from the numerical strength of
the troops being quite inadequate to the duties.... These
several unfavourable changes have gradually given the sepoy a
distaste for the service, which has been augmented by the
stagnant state of promotion, caused by the reductions in 1829,
when one-fifth of the infantry, and one-fourth of the cavalry,
native commissioned and non-commissioned officers, became
supernumerary, thus effectually closing the door of promotion
to the inferior grades for years to come. Hopeless of
advancement, the sepoy from that time became gradually less
attentive to his duties, less respectful to his superiors, as
careless of a service which no longer held out any prospect of
promotion. Still, however, the bonds of discipline were not
altogether loosened, till Lord W. Bentinck's abolition of
corporal punishment; and from the promulgation of that
ill-judged order may be dated the decided change for the worse
which has taken place in the character of the native soldiery."

[40] This corps, it will be remembered, was broken for its