SMALL-POX IN CALCUTTA.                             3

Comparison
with naval ac-
tions.

4. The fearful carnage on board a ship of war during a naval
engagement is one easy of comprehension. Naval appliances for
wholesale slaughter are very perfect; with the enemy collected
together in individual ships, every condition is secured to render
destruction on a large scale very easy. When you search through
history for an example of a large fleet having so suffered as to serve
as a parallel for the death-rate from small-pox in Calcutta during the
year 1865, not the most remote approach to such an illustration can
be found in the whole annals of our naval warfare. By com-
bining together any number of our most noted and bloody actions
at sea, if you take only the killed into the account, it is difficult to
secure such an illustration. To get over this difficulty if every
wounded English sailor is added to the list of those killed, and you
make a list of naval engagements, as of those at St. Vincent, Camper-
down, the Nile, Trafalgar, Algiers, and Navarino, the total sum
of killed and wounded combined may be compared against the loss
of lives from small-pox in Calcutta in the-one year referred to. Even
then, however, the illustration falls considerably short of the full
number required.

Comparison
with wars on
land.

5. Again, the science of war ashore is by no means defective
in its means for destroying human life; let us take an example of
a war extending over a considerable period, and seek by having such
an instance in mind to appreciate the terrible loss of life from small-
pox. If we fix on a period of four years, the last years of the
Peninsular war will furnish the example. During this eventful period,
8,899 British soldiers were killed in action or died of their wounds.
If to the deaths from small-pox in the year 1865 just alluded to, we
add those which took place in another year (1850), we get a total
of 9,415.

Here we find that in this one city, 516 people died of this
disease in two years, over and above the total numbers that the whole
of the armies of Great Britain lost while engaged with a powerful
enemy for double that time. Small-pox killed more people in Calcutta
in two years, than all the shot, shell, and grape of the Artillery, all
the sabres of the Cavalry, and all the bullets and bayonets of the
Infantry could destroy, when used against large armies of English
soldiers for four years.

Comparison
with accidents
in civil life.

6. Come now to civil life : accidents here occur which every now
and again startle society from some horrible sacrifice of human life.