The Number of the Gleanings in Science for September, 1831, contained an article "On the Duration of Life in the Bengal Civil Service" with several tables, exhibiting the results at which the author had arrived by various processes of calculation. The subject is of first-rate interest to all residents in India, and the manner in which these tables have been given forth is likely to lead to their being taken upon trust as of full authority. The results however are too startling to be admitted without a strict examination of the data, which are the basis of calculation; and as the registers and statements from which these profess to be taken were compiled principally in my office, and have recently been brought to more accuracy than they possessed when first prepared and furnished to the Finance Committee, and to other departments and public officers, I have thought it my duty to recast them myself into a tabular form, so as to allow the results afforded by them to be compared with those asssumed in the article in question. I am sorry to say, that they differ too widely to be adjusted by any compendious explanation of discrepancies; and, as I have found reason moreover to doubt whether any accurate conclusions can be drawn from the specific results which are there exhibited as the basis of calculation, I am compelled to adopt somewhat different forms. For these reasons, no less than for assurance, that the data have not been lightly assumed, my first table has extended to a size and contains a quantity of detail which may prove inconvenient.
It is necessary to premise that the materials we possess are: first, the appointments made in each year by the Honorable Court of Directors. Secondly, the arrivals in India under these appointments; which are necessarily irregular in date, and not equal in number with the nominations. Thirdly, the retirements; which is rather a wide class, including as well those who absolutely resign, as those who leave the country upon temporary leave, and overstay the period of five years fixed by Act of Parliament as the limit for absence from India without loss of the service. Civil Servants on Furlough, or in Europe, under temporary leave, being still borne on the registers, and their deaths being reported, are considered as still in the service, and though dying perhaps in Europe or on shipboard would be entered amongst the deaths. The dismissals from service are included in the head of Retirements. Fourthly, Deaths; the reports of which, with the dates, are ordinarily on record;
