one of comparative
salubrity; mild and just laws are in operation; civil wars and foreign
invasions have ceased, and a peaceful condition of every-day life is
established. Such are some of the great improvements which have
accrued under English rule. This statement is made as a simple matter
of fact, not as an argument that England has a legitimate right on the
island, any more than she has in India. But the prosperity of the
Singhalese is no less a fact, and very pleasant to record.

The population of the island has more than doubled under the present
dynasty, while its marketable products have quadrupled. A few
pertinent facts occur to us in this connection which must surely
interest the general reader.

There are now about three hundred miles of railway in operation on the
island, and nearly as many more projected. To supplement this means of
transportation there are a hundred and seventy-five miles of organized
canal service, a legacy inherited from the Dutch. There are two
hundred and fifty post-offices, besides forty telegraphic stations, in
connection with which are sixteen hundred miles of telegraphic wire in
position. In this march of progress the interests of education have
not been entirely forgotten, and upon the whole, the Singhalese have
very little to complain of as regards the government under which they
live. Fate, however, has decreed that this people, as a nationality,
shall gradually pass away and be forgotten, like other aboriginal
races. The Alaska Indians are not more surely dying out than are these
Singhalese. The most sensitive matter with them and with nearly all
orientals is touching the sacredness of their religious rites. With
these the English government never interferes, neither here nor in
India proper. As we have shown, the orientals are a peaceable race,
and will submit to a considerable degree of arbitrary rule touching
their political relations, but the moment their religious convictions
and ceremonies are interfered with, they become frenzied.

It will be remembered that the great Indian mutiny, which occurred in
1857, was at first incited in the ranks of the natives at Cawnpore and
elsewhere by what was thought to be an intentional insult to their
religious convictions.

The English, soon after establishing themselves in Ceylon, tried the
experiment of forming a battalion of infantry, composed of the
natives. When being trained to service, it was nearly impossible, we
are told