Sketches of Social Life in India

CHAPTER III. ENGLISH COLONISTS IN BENGAL.

Hitherto we have written of “kings and tetrarchs and all great things” in India. Now let us go to a different degree in the social scale, to those who were alluded to as the real colonists of India in the first of these chapters. There are now hundreds, or rather thousands, of our countrymen settled in India who may be taken as representing the middle-classes of England; though it might be more correct to use the public-school term, the “upper-middle” classes. Some of these are employed in the cultivation and manufacture of indigo, or sugar, or jute, or other mercantile produce, in the hot and steamy plains of Bengal. Others, who are engaged in the management of tea gardens, occupy hilly tracts, many of which are as hot and steamy as the plains; though some tea is grown at high altitudes, and in a comparatively cooler climate, as on the mountain-slopes around Darjeling. Others are employed in managing 49and working the railways which now traverse the length and breadth of the country, and for these there is no escape from all the perils and vicissitudes of the greatest heat. In most of the large towns throughout the country there are established firms of merchants, of which some of the partners are constantly flitting backwards and forwards between India and England, though there is always some local representative of the name and business of the firm left in India. Amongst the trading or shop-keeping classes there are some who have their branch “establishments” at the great hill stations, such as Simla, to which they migrate in order to escape from the heat of the plains when the Court and fashion of the capital retire there with a similar object.

Under the name of colonists we may readily give the first place to those who are engaged in the cultivation and manufacture of indigo. Owing to circumstances to which we need not further allude, the indigo-planters have not fared well in recent times, especially in some parts of the country, where, to put the case simply, it was no longer possible to grow indigo at a profit, so that the business must have come to an end of itself without the mischievous meddling of agitators, or the irritating intervention of prejudiced Government officials. But there are still many parts of the country, especially in the province of Behar, where indigo may be cultivated successfully; and if the season is favourable, and the crop good, and the London market-price satisfactory, 50a handsome profit may be made. There are some few indigo-factories or “concerns” which may almost always be trusted year after year to yield a good and profitable out-turn. But it is not by any means a general rule to be so prosperous. At some places either too heavy rain or too little rain may spoil the growing crop. A neighbouring river may overflow its banks and drown all the hopes of the husbandmen, or the much-needed water may refuse to appear in the river at the proper time, so that the well-grown plant cannot be manufactured into the dye. These are but a few out of the many troubles that attend the cultivation of indigo. There are some years when the life of the indigo-planter is a life of mere agony and anxiety, and nothing that his skill or experience can suggest or devise is of the slightest avail to ward off the impending ruin of his crop and of his hopes for a successful season.

But for all this, the life of an indigo-planter is generally healthy and happy, and at all events it is more suited to the taste and disposition of most young Englishmen than the dull routine of a merchant’s office or a bank. Let us try to picture to ourselves the buildings and surroundings of the indigo-planter’s home. There is a cheerful and substantial house nestling in the shelter of some fine trees; there is a broad lawn, and a flower-garden full of roses and myrtles and variegated flowering shrubs. There is the well-stocked kitchen-garden with its constant supplies of 51English vegetables. There are the stables and coachhouses which we may presently inspect. There are the poultry-yards, where no small flock of fowls and ducks and geese and turkeys will be found. The rabbithutches are not neglected, and the pigeon-house literally swarms with pigeons. The sleek milch-cows, with their calves, have their appointed places; and you may be sure that there are good kennels for the dogs. A little apart from the dwelling-house the factory-buildings will usually be found, with the vats and apparatus for steeping and pressing the indigo to extract the dye, and the boiling-house with its tall and ugly chimney, and the drying-houses where the cakes of indigo are kept until it is time to pack and despatch them to Calcutta for sale. All the factory-buildings usually stand in one compound, as the local term goes, and this is in size almost equal to a small park, surrounded by a high grassy bank or fence to keep off trespassers, and usually studded with some fine groups of trees, in the shade of which the cattle take shelter from the mid-day heat. The English colonist is ever anxious to keep up the appearance of a comfortable English home, and not merely the appearance but the solid substance, so far as the difference of climate permits.

An indigo factory is usually managed by one of the owners or partners in the concern. Let us take the case of a healthy hardy man a little past thirty years of age, who has served an apprenticeship of several years as an assistant in the factory of which he at 52length stands forth as manager. He has acquired a certain share as part-owner in the factory, and will thus earn his quota in the profits of the season, whilst he has a separate fixed salary and sundry emoluments in his special capacity as manager. His position is thoroughly independent, if so be that he and his partners have sufficient capital of their own to carry on the expenditure of the concern. If they have not the requisite capital, their agents in Calcutta finance the concern, making such advances as are needed for the purchase of seed, the cost of cultivation, payment of rents, and all the other expenses which must be provided for until the produce of the season can be sold and brought to account. The profitable condition of an indigo factory depends chiefly on the capacity of the owners to provide their own funds, or on their having to borrow them. For as the cultivation is precarious, and the amount of the produce varies from year to year, money cannot be borrowed on such security except at a heavy charge for interest. With commission and other charges the borrower has to pay about twenty per cent. for the capital which he borrows. Of course, it makes a very great difference at the end of the season if twenty per cent. has to be deducted from the net profits of the concern.

At certain times of the year the indigo-planter has rather a hard-worked life. In what may be termed the spring-time, when the plant is growing, he must be up with the dawn for a long ride through the fields 53to see that the cultivators are looking properly after their work. The hot and blazing sun rises, but he heeds it little, as his anxious eyes are bent on noting any changes for good or bad that may have occurred in the crop since he last rode in this direction. He does not, however, disdain the shelter of a friendly tree, if so be that his course is arrested by a party of anxious villagers who seek his advice or orders about the right to use some water for irrigation, or to fish in some particular pond, or to settle some minute question of caste—such, for instance, as the grave question whether some new arrival is entitled to be shaved by the village barber. I have sat for more than an hour with a planter listening to all the earnest arguments submitted for his decision on this point. Sometimes also, his ride may be interrupted by less peaceable demonstrations, for an aggressive neighbour may have trespassed on his cultivated lands, or he may find a hostile force arrayed to prevent him from ploughing certain fields to which he considers himself entitled. Fortunately the stand-up fights of armed retainers, which were not uncommon years ago, are now almost unknown, and those who are wisest in their generation now are careful to avoid any recourse to force in settling their disputes with their neighbours. At length the morning round is finished, and he gallops home through the fiery sunshine, giving his horse the benefit of a little practice at a few jumps over any banks and ditches that lie conveniently in his path.

54As he rides up to his house the children and the “placens uxor” appear, probably to chide him for being so late out in the hot sun, as it seems to be the first duty of a good wife always to remind her husband that he ought to take more care of himself. Probably, however, the lady is anxious for her breakfast; whilst the children, who have had their breakfast, are only too glad to welcome their father and to follow him into his dressing-room to have their little talk with him, and to watch all the mysterious operations of dressing which seem to have such a fascination for children. In India each little child of two or three years old has its own special man or boy servant in charge of it, so that the children can be still cared for in their father’s dressing-room, which might be not quite so convenient in England, where children are in charge of nurses. But when their father has bathed and dressed, the children lead him out into the breakfast-room, and, probably having got some spoil from the breakfast-table, they retire to their mid-day slumbers and are seen no more.

The mid-day breakfast at a factory is usually one of the most pleasant hours of the day. The friends who are staying in the house, for planters are very hospitable, and any neighbours (neighbours meaning people living within twenty miles) who have come over for a morning visit, all present themselves at the well-decked table. It is hardly necessary to say that breakfast at 12 o’clock indicates that there is to be 55no lunch at 1 or 2 o’clock, and it is, in fact, breakfast and lunch combined. Therefore, the dishes are both numerous and serious; and as the sun is over the yard-arm, in nautical phrase, the men have fully earned their right to a draught of cool beer, or of claret or hock with such combinations of soda and iced materials as the heart desires. When a man has been in the saddle for several hours with a fine blazing sun overhead, and the temperature almost beyond the thermometer’s power of measurement, it is not astonishing that a good pull at a tankard of beer is something like a fabulous draught of nectar. It is a sort of medical axiom that as long as a man can take plenty of outdoor exercise in India, he can drink as much beer as is good for him; and vice versâ, if he wishes to drink beer he must be careful to take plenty of exercise. But to some constitutions beer is always hostile, and so they must have recourse to claret, or hock, or burgundy; or it may be brandy and soda, but this is always to be shunned as much as possible. However, breakfast must come to an end; and when the ladies of the house retire to the drawing-room, the men usually take their arm-chairs and a pipe, and not unfrequently the conversation gradually drops, until they have all quietly passed off into a gentle doze, which is nature’s best restorer at this hour of the day.

But it is not to be supposed that the planter’s work is now at an end. He must rouse himself after forty winks, and go off to his cutcherry or office, where he 56must pass a few hours in company with his native clerks and subordinates. His work is usually interesting and diversified. He must look to his letters from his Calcutta agents, who want to be kept well posted up as to the prospects of the coming crop, and the various heads of expenditure for which money has to be provided. There are communications more or less friendly or unfriendly from the district officials in whose courts civil or criminal suits are pending on behalf of or against people connected with the factory. However peaceably disposed a planter may be, some of his neighbours or some of his own people are sure to bring him before the courts in some way. He may have to receive a visit from his wealthy native neighbour, who has come with sweet words in his mouth, but whose heart is full of bitterness and war. He must listen to the complaints of his own people, and he must sometimes minister to their physical complaints also, though at most large factories a regular medical establishment is maintained to provide for those who are sick or suffering from accidental injuries. As a matter of fact, also, an influential planter administers justice in a quiet way among his own people, and prevents them, if he can, from taking their petty quarrels and disputes into the Government courts, where the expenses of litigation are often almost ruinous to the poorer classes. And thus it comes to pass that the planter finds plenty of occupation in his office for several hours in the afternoon, 57and he is only too glad when he receives a message from his wife to say that the carriages and horses are ready for the evening drive, or that he is expected to come forth to take his part in a game of polo or lawn-tennis.

Planters are always hospitable. In India it is a sort of maxim still that the guest confers the favour, for, of course, the guest is really very welcome when your nearest neighbour lives five miles from you. And so each planter gathers round him from time to time a little party of visitors and neighbours, and when the men are sufficiently numerous they get up a game of polo. Perhaps the best social game that was ever invented for India was Badminton, which has now been almost superseded by lawn-tennis. Badminton has never been much appreciated in England; but in India the absence of high wind and rain was much in its favour, and there were many ladies who played it almost as well as men. For, as was well said by a learned judge, men and women are almost on an equality as regards the upper part of their dress, and can use their hands and heads with nearly equal effect. But when a lawn-tennis ball makes a bound into the skirts of a lady’s dress she has not the same facility of escaping from it as her male adversary. Therefore, as the shuttlecock of Badminton was always flying high, and from head to head, so to speak, Badminton for a long time in India held its own against the introduction of lawn-tennis; though the day has come 58now when lawn-tennis has ousted its old opponent, and both ladies and men look forward to their game of lawn-tennis as soon as it is possible to find a court sheltered sufficiently by shady trees against the rays of the declining sun. The temperature may be above 80°, but, nevertheless, bright-faced and neatly-dressed girls come out arrayed for the combat, and thinking little of the heat and the fatigue if they can only get good partners and a good game. Those who are accustomed to judge of Indian ladies only from their pale and worn countenances when they return invalided to England, would hardly believe with what vigour and spirit the same ladies played lawn-tennis in India as long as their health and strength lasted.

When darkness puts an end to the play there is no lack of refreshment suited to the taste of each sex, and there are some men who are so selfish that they do not scruple to light their cigars and pipes in the presence of the ladies, but it is to be regretted that the good old fashion has passed away when no man smoked in the presence of a lady. Certainly the men have plenty of advantages special to themselves. For instance, when the ladies have to go into the house to prepare for dinner and change their dresses, the men usually adjourn to the swimming-bath. At many large factories there is a fine swimming-bath in a house built for the purpose, from 50 to 70 feet long, and more than half as wide. One of the greatest pleasures of which the human body is capable is to plunge 59hissing-hot into the clear and cool water of the bath, and to swim a few lazy strokes to the nearest resting-place. There used to be a medical myth, that it was dangerous for a man to bathe when very hot. But later and wiser doctors have discovered the error, and very grateful we should be for their discovery. To those who have learnt at Eton, or elsewhere, to take a good “header” we can recommend no more exquisite sensation than that which they will derive from plunging red hot into the cool water of a swimming-bath.

There may be more splendid entertainments elsewhere, but there are few more sociable and pleasant dinner-parties than those which crown the labours of the day at a good indigo factory. The ladies are not often quite equal in number to the men; but that is a fault on the right side so far as they are concerned, as they will receive all the more attention, whilst there are always one or more greedy or hungry men who are more inclined to devote themselves to the substance of their dinner than to the pleasures of conversation; nor are they absolutely in the wrong. The dishes may be simple, but they are sure to be good. Who does not remember the saddle of mutton from a sheep reared and carefully fed in the farm up to its fourth year? Neither the downs of Sussex nor the hills of Wales produce more delicate and well-flavoured meat. What is there to be compared with the whiteness and tenderness of the well-boiled capon, the last fortnight 60of whose life has been the subject of the most careful feeding, as he passed, day by day, through the separate compartments of the fattening range until he was promoted to the condemned cell at the head of the range? Capons should, of course, be well fed always, but for the last fortnight they should be taken up and fed most delicately in a fattening range specially constructed with fourteen or fifteen compartments with sliding panels between them, so that those who are being thus treated for about a fortnight, find themselves promoted day by day towards the highest compartment, a condemned cell, from which there is no promotion except to the kitchen. We cannot stop to enumerate all the fine vegetables, such as the potatoes which have been grown in a soil prepared with the refuse stalks of the indigo plant, which is most congenial to them, so that no better potatoes ever came out of Ireland. There are champion peas from Sutton’s best seed. There is celery equal to the best that England can exhibit. We will not even notice the better kinds of Indian vegetables; but the dinner is by no means a dinner of herbs, and those who have come to it with good appetite and good digestion are not likely to go empty away. Early hours are the rule at a factory, and when the men have joined the ladies in the drawing-room a little music may sometimes be supplemented by a little dancing; but as a rule most of the party are not unwilling to seek their bed-rooms, with the knowledge that they have to rise on the morrow 61with the early dawn, either for the renewal of their daily labour or to return to their own houses.

Doubtless there can scarcely be a more enjoyable life than that of a successful and healthy indigo-planter. But there must be at times a darker side to the picture. Illness may break out suddenly, and before any skilled medical aid can arrive the hand of death may have robbed the household of one of its darlings. We all know with what fearful rapidity cholera seizes on its victims, and when once cholera has marked a house it is seldom content with only one victim. Some of the numerous domestic servants are almost sure to take alarm, and to frighten themselves into the belief that they must die. It is an anxious and awful time. Nor are other minor dangers and alarms wanting. In some factories it is almost impossible to keep cobras and other dangerous snakes from coming into the house; and many a parent has found a deadly cobra in painful proximity to the pillow of a child sleeping happily unconscious of its danger, but liable to put itself in peril by the slightest movement. Or, whilst the master is still out on his morning rounds, the affrighted servants rush to their mistress with the news that a mad dog or a mad jackal is running about the garden, and has attacked and scared the gardeners. But it is useless to multiply instances. Fortunately, the larger animals of prey are no longer to be found 62in the district in which indigo is cultivated; but in the tea gardens, which are in the wilder and more jungly parts of the country, even a tiger is an occasional visitor, and leopards are constantly on the watch to carry off a pet dog, or a goat, or a calf from almost under the eyes of the planter.

It would be but an imperfect sketch of the planter-colonist’s social life if we did not give some account of the great annual festive gatherings which are held by them at the race meetings at Sonepore and other favourite places. It will be sufficient to take Sonepore as an example, as it is the oldest established meeting, and also is larger and more cosmopolitan (if such a big word is permissible) than other race meetings, and is the trysting place where the planters of several districts can best assemble. It is not very easy to convey to an English reader an idea of a Sonepore meeting except as a large picnic which lasts for about ten days. But the picnicers do not return to their homes at the end of each day; they live on the spot in tents which are gathered together in separate camps, or parties, or messes; so that independently of the general picnic life of the whole assemblage, there are wheels within wheels, and each separate camp or mess carries on its own picnic on its own independent and self-supporting arrangements. The ostensible primary object of the Sonepore meeting is a race-meeting, but it is also intimately connected with, and based upon, the large Native Fair which is held simultaneously with it, 63to which we shall presently recur. The race-course runs round a flat plain rather larger perhaps than the space enclosed by the course at Ascot or Epsom. Almost all round the outside of the race-course there are groves of mango trees not quite so stately as the horse-chestnuts of Bushey Park, or the elms of the Long Walk at Windsor, but fine old trees of considerable height, and with a thick green foliage that affords a grateful shade against the rays of the sun. Underneath these groves of mango trees, stretching for nearly a mile along the east side of the course, the several camps are formed. Each camping-ground has its well-defined boundaries and is rented from year to year. One camp belongs to the young Hindoo Rajah of Durbanga, who was lately the chief supporter of the races. In fact he may be said to have two camps, one for his native friends, and one for his English friends. The Government officials of the several neighbouring districts have their separate or combined camps. Sometimes the Viceroy of India has had a camp, and sometimes the Lieutenant-Governor has sent over his tents for the meeting. The regiments from the nearest military station have their own camps and messes, with their bands to discourse sweet music. The planters of the several districts have either joint or separate camps according to their numbers and strength, and they rival one another in hospitality. The tents of each camp are arranged as far as possible in a square of which one side is open and facing the road that runs 64through the grove of trees. The mess-tent of each camp is pitched at the further side from the entrance, and in front of it there is usually a huge awning (called in native parlance a shamyana) which serves as an al fresco drawing-room, comfortably arranged with couches and arm-chairs, and big Persian carpets and rugs, and other appliances. Each camp usually contains its own Badminton courts and its lawn-tennis court, if the trees will allow sufficient space. At the back of the mess-tent there come the cooking-tents and the tents for the servants, as well as for the horses and carriages of the party. Each camp is guarded by a party of native watchmen, who have the credit of being hereditary thieves, but are scrupulously honest for the occasion as regards the contents of the camp committed to their care which they are well paid to watch. But woe betide the self-sufficient stranger who dispenses with the services of these watchmen, confiding in his own prowess and the services of his own retainers.

The race-meeting at Sonepore usually takes place in November, when the weather is beginning to be really cool and pleasant. It is regulated by some native festival, much as the Derby day is dependent on the date of Easter. As the time approaches the stewards of the meeting take measures to have the race-stand and ball-room swept and garnished, and the camping-grounds and race-course put in proper order. A few days before the meet, trains of country bullock-carts may be seen 65approaching the ground laden with the ponderous tents, and beds and chairs and tables, and every kind of furniture that is needed for civilised life. Nor is the commissariat likely to be forgotten, whilst those who can manage it conveniently, send over their own cows to supply milk and butter, and the fatlings of the flock, and huge baskets and coops full of turkeys and geese and poultry. Ponderous deal boxes full of Fortnum and Masonry, and cases labelled with the names of the most promising brands of champagne and hock, and the well-known six-dozen chests of beer, with heavy supplies of soda and seltzer, occupy many of the carts. It is quite a study to see how skilfully the native servants get everything into order before their masters’ arrival; especially the cook, who at once sets to work and extemporises a mud kitchen, on which during the next week he will perform culinary wonders, although it may be well for the fastidious not to pry too narrowly into all his proceedings, but to live in faith and satisfy themselves with results.

As the races are the ostensible object of the meeting, all the arrangements are made with special reference to them. There are usually four days’ races, on alternate days, i.e. on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and the ensuing Tuesday. The races take place at seven in the morning. Thus most of the visitors arrive on Monday, and on Monday evening the first lotteries are held for speculation on the races which are to take place on Tuesday morning. On Tuesday evening there is a ball; 66on Wednesday everyone is supposed to be recovering from the effects of the combined dissipation of Tuesday’s races and ball; until Wednesday evening provides another lottery for speculation on the races of Thursday morning, which are to be followed by another ball on Thursday night; so that theoretically a day of rest comes in between each day of pleasure, or “trouble” as the Yankees more rightly call it.

We will attempt to describe the proceedings of one day at Sonepore. It is the first Tuesday, and we are startled from our sleep by the bang of a big cannon, which seems to be at the door of our tent. This is called “gunfire,” and means that dawn is breaking. Just as you are composing yourself to sleep again you hear the sound of music, and there comes the band of a native regiment playing some noisy tune as they march along the road through the centre of all the camps, and, having got to the end of it, back they come again playing louder than before. Meanwhile all the servants have been aroused, and your man comes into the tent and tells you that it is time to get up; and, in fact, unless you mean to cut the amusement altogether, it is best to get up and dress. By the time you reach your camp mess-tent you will probably find the charming hostess who presides over your camp ready and waiting for you with one or two of her pretty girls, whose fresh and bright faces never look better than at this early and trying time. Tea and coffee are ready for you, and, as the party gradually collects in the tent, 67the carriages come to the entrance of the camp, and you either drive to the race-stand, or join a walking party with those who want the little walk to warm them. The race-stand commands a good view of the races; but one race is very much like another, except that at an Indian race-course you probably know most of the owners of the horses, or some of the gentleman-riders, so that a stronger personal feeling exists; and the young ladies will insist on betting for gloves and backing the worst horse in the race, merely because it is to be ridden by that good-looking young officer to whom they are engaged for at least three dances at the coming ball. The races usually last till about 10 o’clock, when we all go back to our camps and make ready for breakfast.

In the hospitable camp to which I belonged for several years at Sonepore, the tea and coffee of breakfast were usually followed or superseded by “just one glass of champagne to begin with,” as our kind host would cheerfully say, and it seemed to be generally considered that a few glasses of good champagne were very acceptable at breakfast after the early morning’s work. After breakfast no one seems to think of repose. Some of the younger people at once set to work at Badminton and lawn-tennis; others make up parties to go to see the horses and elephants, and other sights of the native fair; whilst others set forth to pay visits at the other camps, for there is a sort of unwritten law of etiquette that all the camps should call on one another as fast 68as possible. By 2 o’clock we are summoned to lunch, and again the champagne flows freely for those who prefer it to beer or other liquids. After lunch the hostess of the camp usually tries to get some of the ladies to rest themselves in their tents, on the plea of looking after their dresses for the ball in the evening; but there are some perverse and indefatigable girls who will go on with lawn-tennis, or join in a Badminton tournament, until tea is announced. Then the carriages and horses come to the door, and we all drive or ride out to the course. There is probably a fierce game of polo going on between civil and military, or the planters of two rival districts, or the Public Schools against the World, or any other combination of forces that can be devised. On some days there are cricket-matches arranged between similar parties and factions. Meanwhile one of the military bands is playing in front of the race-stand, and there pour forth upon the course all the carriages and horses that can be mustered for the occasion. There are a few ladies riding with their attendant squires. There comes the drag of the young Raja of Durbanga covered with his lady guests, whilst the Raja himself handles the reins and puts his well-broken horses into a gallop along the back of the course. Tandems driven from high dog-carts seem to have a special attraction for some young ladies, and after the horses have steadied down a little to their work, the reins are usually transferred to the hands of the young lady until some impending danger makes it 69necessary to resume them from her. However, collisions and accidents rarely occur; and as darkness speedily comes on, the carriages and their occupants soon disappear from the course and return to their camps.

About 8 o’clock the camp-gong gives the signal for dinner, and a party of about twenty or thirty assemble in almost every mess-tent. In a well-managed camp the hostess generally takes care to fill up any vacancies at her table by inviting guests from the other camps. Any member of a camp who is going out to dinner is expected to give early notice to his hostess, so that she may be able to ask a friend from some other camp in his place. By this arrangement an agreeable exchange of hospitality is kept up, and the monotony of always having the same set of faces avoided. Many of the ladies appear at dinner ready dressed for the ball afterwards, but some of the most wary ones reserve a few final touches of dress for after dinner. It is astonishing what a magic effect is sometimes produced by those few final touches. It is hardly necessary to say that during dinner much fun and merriment prevail all round the table. However the guests may be told off and assorted at first, it is curious to observe how, after a day or two, certain young ladies and certain young gentlemen always happen to sit next or near to one another at the several meals, and take a sort of monopoly of certain seats for themselves and their own particular acquaintances. It not seldom happens that some unfortunate 70youth makes himself ridiculous or in some way obnoxious to the other young people, and then they all combine to make his life a burthen to him unless he shows symptoms of reformation and better behaviour. Of course, long before dinner the ball-cards of all the best dancers are filled up, but during dinner a half promise of one more “extra” may be secured, or some convenient exchange of promised dances arranged to suit the wishes of sisters or bosom friends. But we must not linger too long over the dinner-table. The carriages are announced to be ready, and are rapidly filled and sent off to the ball-room, from which sometimes they come back to be refilled by a second detachment of the party.

The ball-room at Sonepore is a well-proportioned room which holds about two hundred people conveniently. The music is provided by the regimental bands in turns, and is usually very good. A long verandah and corridor outside the ball-room, not too brilliantly lighted up, afford a convenient retreat for those who wish to improve the opportunities of the dance by a little further conversation with their partner before she returns to her chaperone, or is carried off by the man to whom she is engaged for the next dance. If you wander along the corridor you will come first to the tea-room, and then to the supper-room, which will not be opened before midnight. Dancing is usually kept up with much spirit; and as there are always more gentlemen than ladies, the latter seldom have to sit out a 71dance for want of a partner. But, of course, one ball is very like another ball, and they must all come to an end. Some prudent mammas insist on going away before supper, others more indulgently remain throughout the whole of the programme; but at last “God save the Queen” admonishes even the latest lingerers that it is time to go home. We must not follow the young ladies to their tents; but it is very well known that they do sit up there for a very long time, laughing and talking over all the incidents of the ball. To the men the hour after the ball is often one of grateful refreshment, as we gather together in the comfortable arm-chairs of the al fresco drawing-room, and sit wrapped in our great-coats, smoking the fragrant weed, and protecting ourselves from the cold night air with steaming glasses of whisky-and-water, and discussing the events of the day and the plans of the morrow, until we retreat to our tents comforted with the knowledge that there will be no big gun fired to wake us at daybreak, and there will be no horrid band marching through the camp to disturb our slumbers. And so end the labours of a long Tuesday.

Wednesday is theoretically to be a day of rest. The camp breakfast hour is fixed at 10, but there are some ardent spirits who know no repose, and your rest is disturbed by the noise made in the adjacent tent by your friends Jones and Smith, who are bent on an expedition to shoot snipe or quail before breakfast. Other men are getting up early to go down to the fair 72to look at the horses which are for sale; and presently the soft voices of fair girls are heard, and you find that two or more of them have emerged from their tents to have just one game of lawn tennis before breakfast, by way of practice for the impending tournament. How delightful it must be to be young and not to know what fatigue means! And so this theoretical day of rest goes on. After breakfast every sort of amusement is arranged for the day, and no one seems to think of resting. One of the things that has to be done at Sonepore is to go and see the native fair. It is most convenient to go to the fair on an elephant, as the crowds of people are so dense, and many of the roads at the fair are too narrow, or otherwise unsuited for carriages. So two or three elephants are brought round, and parties made up to mount them. There is usually room for about four persons on each elephant; and if two young men can find themselves on an elephant with two pretty girls, they seem to think themselves in the seventh heaven. The movements of an elephant are sometimes rather rough, and the fair riders not only hold on desperately at first to the ropes, but seldom object to be also held on by the stronger arm of man. However, away they go, jolting and swaying about under the trees, and trying to manage their umbrellas or parasols so as to keep off the sun, which still smites down fiercely with his rays. As we arrive at the native fair, we first come upon endless rows of horses tethered under the long ranges of trees. 73The horses are numbered by hundreds, or rather by thousands, and come from the most distant parts of India, and sometimes from Bokhara and Persia; some of them look very handsome with their arched necks and long manes. But we must not detain our fair charges here too long. Onwards we go, a large bell round the elephant’s neck warning the swarming crowd to keep out of the way. The fair is laid out in the usual Oriental style, with all the vendors of one sort of thing collected in one place, or bazaar, as it is called. Here is the shoe bazaar, with fifty little shops or stalls, full of every kind of leather shoe of native make, and the gayest slippers embroidered with gold thread, and also a small stock of patent-leather shoes of English make to suit the tastes of those who have been educated to consider a patent-leather shoe as emblematic of an acquisition of a knowledge of English. Next we come to the cloth bazaar, where, in another fifty shops, all the manufactures of Manchester are to be seen, either in the original bales, or opened out and temptingly displayed to attract customers. The next bazaar is full of shops containing eatables, not eatables suited to the English taste, but different sorts of rice and grains, and confections of sugar and almonds and cocoa-nuts and pastry, in which our native brethren delight. At a corner where two roads cross, and the crowd is densest, you will find an English or American missionary mounted on a chair, and addressing the multitude with a vehemence and earnestness which arrests 74their attention for a few moments, but, unfortunately, seldom produces any permanent results. Presently we come to the place where the dealers in elephants keep these animals for sale, and we pass among these rather dangerous monsters with some apprehension, lest a sudden fit of jealousy or excitement should make some irascible “Jumbo” attack our elephant. Hundreds of elephants are standing about in groups under the trees, whilst others are being taken down to bathe in the neighbouring river. Onward we go, to find ourselves amongst long strings of camels. Then we come to the police encampment, where the native officer in charge of the arrangements of the fair has provided a temporary lock-up for offenders; but offences are usually very few and trivial. Next we come to the bazaar where the sounds of music may be heard from morn till night, and through the long hours of the night; whilst nautch-girls dance and sing for the delectation of their native audience, who sit for hours like enchanted listeners. Finally, let us visit the bird-bazaar, where all kinds of fancy birds are collected, parrots of all sorts in hundreds, peacocks, quails, bulbuls, talking mynas, Java sparrows, and hundreds of other pretty feathered creatures. At length it is time to return to camp, and we wend our way back under the trees, weary and dusty, and grateful that our elephant has not walked over any of the hundreds of thousands of our Aryan brethren amongst whom we have been wandering. We alight from the 75elephant, feeling rather happy to be released from the back-breaking position; and, after exhibiting the wonderful bargains and purchases which we have made, we hasten to prepare ourselves for the pleasures of lunch and some well-iced refreshing drink.

It would be tedious to go on with a repetition of the daily laborious round of pleasure and enjoyment which lasts for the ten days of the meeting. We have only space to allude to one special form of pleasure, viz. the camp-fire evenings, for which Sonepore is particularly famous. The officers of the English regiment usually issue an invitation for a camp-fire party after dinner, with their band to play; or they kindly lend their band to some other camp which may have a larger and more convenient space for a good camp-fire. A huge bonfire is then piled up in the centre of the space before the camp, and when the torch is applied it blazes up fiercely, whilst all the guests sit round on chairs and couches and listen to the music of the band. Sometimes a few songs and glees are sung. It is a weird but charming scene as we look round on all the quaint figures wrapped up in shawls and cloaks and great-coats and extemporised head-dresses; for it is just cold enough to make a few warm garments acceptable, though there is no great risk of catching cold in the calm and soft night air. There is certainly something almost savouring of the supernatural which comes over the mind at these camp-fire evenings, and it is well known that many a fair 76maiden has found the time and place not unsuitable to receive the confession of undying love and affection which her youthful admirer had previously hesitated to make. It may be that the bonfire was burning low; but when it suddenly blazes out again with fresh and bright flames, watchful eyes are not wanting to observe how by some casual movement the unsuspecting young pair have come into a proximity which obviously indicates that a great and happy change has suddenly come over their future destiny.

No one who has been at a Sonepore race-meeting can ever forget the pleasures, in so many new and varied forms, which he there enjoyed. The life in the open air under the shady trees, the perfect liberty of the friendly interchange of hospitality, the cordial greetings of old friends, the pleasant introductions to new acquaintances, all throw a special charm over the reminiscences of it. It is not to be wondered at that by the planters of the adjoining districts, and also by the Government officials, the Sonepore meeting is looked forward to as the great event of the year. As soon as one meeting is half over, plans and engagements are entered into with a view to prepare for the enjoyment of the meeting of the coming year. Let us hope that these meetings may long continue to flourish; and if any of my old hosts were to send a very pressing invitation to me, I am half-inclined to think that I would go out all the way from England to India to take advantage of it.

CHAPTER IV. THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE.

Lord Ellenborough, once Governor-General of India, and formerly President of the Board of Control, records in his political diary how the Duke of Wellington always mentioned in high terms the gallantry of the Indian army and the purity of the Civil Service. We must leave it to others to write of the Indian army. For the present we propose to devote our attention to the Civil Service in its extensive social relations in India. The purity of the Civil Service may well be said to be its distinguishing characteristic; and for this quality it was specially held in honour by the great Duke. The pure light of the Civil Service of India still shines like a guiding star before the faces of the millions of our Oriental subjects and allies.

And yet there are many people in England who have much to learn about the Indian Civil Service. 78They have heard of the Civil Service Supply Association in London, and they know that it is managed by the Civil Servants of the Government public offices in London, who are fully entitled to call themselves the Civil Servants of the Crown. In a single year about 15,000 candidates compete for the Home Civil Service, and about 5,000 are passed. Their name is legion, and they pervade the whole country. But the Indian Civil Service is a much more select and exclusive service. Only about forty new candidates are admitted to it by competitive examination each year. These are the recruits who are sent out annually to replenish the Civil Service throughout the whole of India in the three Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras, and their dependencies. There are less than 1,000 members of the Civil Service in the whole of India. In the lower provinces of Bengal, to which this article is chiefly devoted, the Civil Service consisted recently of only 255 members. It is but a little leaven to leaven the whole mass of the native population of Lower Bengal, which numbers more than sixty millions according to the last census.

It is no easy task to attempt to describe the duties of the Indian Civil Service. As to the Indian civilian himself, the pen might almost hesitate to describe him. It reminds us of the epitaph on a good wife—

It would perhaps be easier to say what an Indian 79civilian should be than what he is. He should be not less capable and omniscient than the late Lord John Russell, prepared to command the Channel fleet, or to perform an operation in lithotomy. There is a story current of a distinguished civilian in the mutinies of 1857–58 to whom Lord Clyde said, “Why, Mr. P., you seem to wish to command the army.” “And a very laudable ambition too, I think, my Lord,” replied Mr. P., unabashed. The government of a province and its millions of inhabitants is avowedly the ultimate aim and object of each civilian’s official life; but whilst he is serving his apprenticeship for the higher offices of Government, he must be prepared to adapt his mind to the most humble and unintellectual duties. He must learn to obey, so that he may understand how to rule. He will have to look after the scavengers who are occupied with the drainage and sanitation of the town in which he lives. He will have to count and deliver out postage-stamps with his own hands, and woe betide him if his treasury accounts and cash balances do not agree to the uttermost farthing. The capacity of a civilian’s mental power should be similar to that of the elephant’s trunk, which can pick up a pin and pull down a mighty forest tree. There is nothing too great, and hardly anything too small, to which he may not in the course of his career be expected to apply himself.

The civilian is not unfrequently described in the local newspapers as a Celestial official. There is a 80linguistic basis for this epithet Celestial. Where the Sanskrit and Bengali languages prevail, the civilian is usually addressed by the title of Dhurmavatar, or Incarnation of Justice. Where the Persian and Hindustani languages are more in vogue, he is usually styled Khudawand, which may be translated as “Lord” or “God.” The civilian from his official cradle being thus addressed as a superhuman personage, not unnaturally sucks in the high-sounding titles and mentally feeds upon them. What wonder, then, if he unconsciously begins to think with thoughts that are not as those of ordinary mortal men. And thus it comes to pass that the young members of the Civil Service, nurtured on sweet words and addressed continually by flattering and exaggerated titles, surrounded from day to day by suppliant and subservient attendants, and frequently cut off from any direct communication with English friends, do acquire a manner of thought and speech which may strike the non-official observer as savouring of the superhuman or Celestial type. It is unwholesome for the human mind to live in an atmosphere of flattery and honeyed words. We remember a native gentleman of high rank and position who asked for an appointment in a Government office for one of his younger sons. “He is a good lad,” he said, “but I want to get him placed where he will find himself addressed by some title less than Maharajah, as he now hears himself called by all the servants on my establishment.”

81A member of the Civil Service was formerly bound by a covenant to serve the East India Company for the best part of his life. He now enters into a covenant to serve the Queen-Empress of India for a similar term of years. There is a great gulf between the covenanted and uncovenanted servants of the Queen, but at present we can only treat of the covenanted man. In “vulgar parlance” he used to be described as an individual worth £300 a year dead or alive, and this is still his specific social valuation. If he dies and leaves a widow, she will receive from the Civil Fund an annual sum of £300 a year. If whilst he lives he falls into trouble or sickness, he is still entitled by his covenant to a subsistence allowance of £300 a year. He may be, and usually is, a much larger partaker in the pecuniary advantages of his service. But the time was when in the matrimonial market of Calcutta the solid advantages of the covenanted young civilian might thus be weighed against the brilliant uniforms and ever-willing swords of his military rivals; and if the young man owned a buggy, and a silver teapot, and had subscribed to the Civil Fund, he was looked on as eligible for immediate wedlock.

Under the competitive system of admission to the Civil Service, the civilian is now such a very superior person in ability and acquirements, that we will not attempt to describe him. But we will first refer to the men of the old school, before the competitive system was invented and applied to the Indian Civil Service. 82We will look back to the time when the civilian in the earliest stage of his Indian career was a most important factor in the fashionable world of Calcutta. Forty or fifty years ago the young civilian, on landing in India, was entered as a student in the College of Fort William. He had passed through the course of instruction and examinations of the old college at Hertford and Haileybury. Discipline at those institutions is said to have been sufficiently lax and irregular. But it was required by the ruling authorities of India that the young civilian, on arriving in India, should again submit himself to some sort of college discipline whilst he was studying the native languages of India in Calcutta. A fine range of buildings called Writers’ Buildings represented the Calcutta College. A young civilian was in those times styled a Writer. His appointment was called a Writership. This was an inheritance of the mercantile nomenclature of the East India Company. The Calcutta College owed its constitution and existence in a great measure to the classical theories of the great Marquis of Wellesley when Governor-General of India. But classical theories combined with Oriental developments are calculated to produce a somewhat hybrid progeny. The young civilians landed in India with a not unjustifiable notion of their own personal and social importance. On leaving their English college, the Chairman of the Court of Directors had solemnly addressed them on the dignity and responsibility of 83their position. They had been informed that they were to be the future governors of India; they had been told that it was their duty to demean themselves as Christian gentlemen, to become a light to the heathen, and the leaders of Oriental civilisation. Is it then a matter of wonder that these young men on arriving in Calcutta found it somewhat difficult to submit themselves again to anything having the name or the appearance of college or scholastic discipline? Be it remembered that each young man on his arrival in India was entitled to an income equivalent to nearly four hundred pounds a year. A gentleman commoner at an English university with £400 a year and confiding tradesmen to give him credit, is not usually found a good subject for discipline. What, then, could be expected from the young men in Calcutta, with a salary of £400 a year, and open access to the purses of every wealthy money-lender in the country? Nor was this all. The Government, aware of the danger of the native money-lender’s fatal influence, endeavoured to anticipate and avert it. Each young civilian, whilst in college in Calcutta, was authorised to borrow a sum of £400 from Government. The object of this benevolence was to prevent him from getting into the clutches of the native money-lenders. What was the result? The taste of blood is said to lead to the appetite for more. The young man who had found a loan of £400 almost forced on him by a paternal Government, experienced no difficulty in 84borrowing several thousand pounds from the native money-lender, who, it may be said, felt confident that the Government would eventually see that he was repaid. The wildest extravagance naturally resulted from this system. The nabob who in the plenitude of his acquired wealth ordered “more curricles,” was practically outdone by the young civilian who, with a nominal income of £400 a year, maintained an establishment in Calcutta in which he would not allow the Arab horses in his stable to be counted. He seldom had less than forty horses, but he considered it unlucky to count them. This officer rose subsequently to the highest eminence in the service, and not only paid all his debts, but acquired a respectable competency. A cousin of this gentleman, who also achieved the highest official honours, had a similar love for horses. He had a stud of English race-horses and an English jockey in charge of them. It would be easy but tedious to enumerate other splendid examples of youthful extravagance. It was the fashion to get in debt to the amount of a lakh of rupees, or £10,000, before leaving college. The cautious and canny young man who did not condescend to borrow the £400 proffered to him by Government, was looked upon with very little feeling of respect by anyone, except perhaps his mother.

The time came in due course when the college of Fort William was reformed. Writers’ Buildings were closed as a residential college. The young writers on 85arriving in India were ordered to remain in Calcutta to obtain a certain qualification in the native languages, but they were expected to live with friends who would keep them under greater social restraint; or to find their own habitations, where it is needless to say that there was no social restraint. The result was that three or four young men who had been friends at the college of Haileybury, in England, joined one another in setting up a house or mess in Calcutta. The Government no longer offered its loan of £400 to each young man. The chief evidence of college discipline (the name of the college being still maintained) consisted in the daily appearance of a venerable native gentleman called a Moonshee or a Pundit; and in a monthly examination in the College Hall, before the Principal and two paid examiners. The venerable native gentlemen who came as instructors in the languages were usually ignorant of English, and were therefore unacceptable to their pupils. They had no personal interest in their pupils, as they drew their Government salary without reference to the progress of their pupils. They attended solemnly from day to day, and were as solemnly requested to come again to-morrow. When a young writer really wished to learn the languages, he invoked the help of one of the two private teachers, Raj Chunder and Harry Mohun who were good English scholars, and so made the path of learning a little more pleasant. Each young writer was required to qualify in the languages in either one 86or two years after his arrival in India, and so the time came at last when he was obliged to call in the private tutors. Somehow or other these private tutors had a great prophetic power of anticipating the particular passages in the text-books, and the particular papers for translation which would be used at any coming examination. Or if it turned out that they had been mistaken when the day of examination came, they were usually in attendance within reach of the examination hall, and mysteriously entered into some electro-biological or theosophical communication with their pupils, if any of these were nervous or doubtful of their own powers. We would beg, however, emphatically to record that most of the men passed their examinations by their own knowledge and ability. There were always a certain number of men who attained honours and pecuniary rewards and medals for their superior proficiency in the languages; but there were sometimes a few whose idleness and negligence compelled them at the last moment to have recourse to electro-biological assistance.

But whilst the studious existence of the College was thus carried on, its social existence was much more pleasant and influential. Three or four young men living together kept up an establishment which seldom cost any one of them less than £100 per month, his pay from Government being £35. Almost every young civilian used to keep at least three horses and a buggy. The number of their native servants was so 87large that we hesitate to write it. The use of the hookah was fashionable, and almost every young man kept a man and a boy to look after this elaborate smoking apparatus. Each student had two or three table servants, arrayed in gay liveries with silver crests. Every student belonged to the Bengal Club, to the Racket Club, to the Cricket Club, to the Swimming Club, to the Turf Club, and a few really good riders were admitted to the Tent Club. Proficiency at billiards was a common accomplishment. Play rather than proficiency at whist was the rule, and the stakes were not less than four sovereigns on each rubber, whilst a little quiet betting easily doubled and quadrupled these petty stakes. But there were many other pleasant and necessary expenses. Private parties to ladies, theatricals, and public balls were to be got up at the expense of the young civilians in college, of course in return for the pleasant and ample hospitality extended to them by the residents of Calcutta. Even the expense of dress was not inconsiderable. The usual number of young civilians belonging to the college was about thirty, and at least twenty of this number would appear on the Course, or Rotten Row of Calcutta, every evening, dressed in the highest light of fashion, as an example to the rest of the fashionable world who had been longer exiled from England. But in addition to the ordinary civil society of Calcutta, the young civilian had to keep himself on good terms with the messes of the regiments in Fort 88William and at Barrackpore, and at the famous old Artillery mess at Dumdum which was then in its palmy days. It was nothing unusual for a young civilian to entertain a large party of his young friends at the Bengal Club, when champagne flowed like water; sometimes, perhaps, it flowed too freely. There is an old but true story of a young civilian who had been entertaining his friends at the Bengal Club. After dinner, and, we may add, after midnight, he was driving home to his house with his new buggy and his best horse and harness, all purchased within the last week, when at an awkward turn of the road he pulled the wrong rein, and his spirited horse plunged headlong into a deep tank or reservoir of water. How the master and his groom saved their lives is hardly known. The unfortunate horse was drowned, and the buggy was fished out next day looking anything but gay. The young man wrote home to his father, asking for funds to buy a new horse and buggy, but he received a stern reply:—“I cannot understand, my dear son, how a young man in your position can require to keep three horses, three grooms, and a cabriolet.” But the good old man sent the money asked for.

At the present day the college of Fort William no longer exists as a college for young civilians. They are so fully crammed and instructed and examined under the competition system that they are supposed to arrive in India fully acquainted with the native languages. 89They are, therefore, at once sent off to join their official appointments as subordinates in various districts. They have thus no longer any opportunity of exercising or learning to exercise in the capital that social influence which their predecessors enjoyed. Perhaps it is fortunate for society that it is not subjected to the combined and overwhelming galaxy of talent that would be found in a band of twenty or thirty young men radiant with all the honour and glory of successful competition in England, and having as yet had little or no opportunity of finding their proper level with the rest of the working world. We have heard of a story of a young competitive civilian who was asked to dine at the Bengal Club, an institution of which the members are chiefly barristers, merchants, and bankers, with a sprinkling of civilians and military men, who all fancy that they live rather well and generously. “I think,” said the young man to his host of the evening, “I could venture to point out to you several solecisms in your club dinner; for instance, the servants actually handed me two kinds of fish at the same time.” The host kindly explained that the servants had shown the two dishes to the young stranger because he could not understand what they tried to say to him in the native language. Presently, on adjourning to the billiard-room, this young stranger observed an indifferent player pocket his adversary’s ball. “Ah,” he said, “do you allow that play here? The club to which I belonged in 90London considered it ungentlemanly.” But, fortunately, competitive civilians of this highly aristocratic breed and exquisite sweetness and light are rather uncommon, and many of them are as fine specimens of manly and well-educated Englishmen as it could be possible to find in any part of the world.

When a young civilian enters upon the active duties of his profession he is first styled an assistant. Under this description he is the assistant to the magistrate and collector of a particular district. He is vested with certain limited judicial and fiscal authority. He can inflict a small amount of imprisonment, and impose moderate fines in the criminal cases which he tries as assistant magistrate. He may be put in charge of the treasury, and have to deal with sundry matters connected with the land revenue in his capacity of assistant collector. The making or marring of a young assistant sometimes depends not a little on the character of the magistrate-collector under whom he is appointed to serve. The assistant may know a great many things, but when he comes face to face with his actual work in office he finds that he has still very much to learn. He is probably stuffed full of English, Mahomedan, and Hindoo law; he has doubtless passed his examinations in the Oriental languages; but when he takes his seat in court he promptly finds that there is something very wrong. The natives by whom he is surrounded apparently do not understand their own language; they pronounce it so strangely 91that what they say is not intelligible to him. They certainly fail to understand what he says to them; and as to the legal knowledge with which he expected to astonish them, he finds no opportunity for displaying it. He hears something about an Act—and about duffers—and he suspects that he is being rudely chaffed as a duffer. Now-a-days, relief comes to him usually from one of the native officials in attendance on him, who can speak English, and insinuatingly becomes his interpreter—in fact, his guide, philosopher, and friend. But an assistant is often and ought always to be saved from this abrupt and false position, in entering on his duties, if he will take a little quiet instruction from the magistrate and collector under whom he is to serve. When he joins his district he should first practise anatomy on a few defunct bodies, instead of beginning with vivisection on an actual case. If he will read through the records of a few old decided cases, under the friendly guidance of his magistrate, and in the privacy of his own room, he will soon become master of all the leading technicalities and phraseology of the cases, which he will ordinarily have to decide. He will soon become used to the language of the native officers appointed to attend on him, and will learn to practise his own tongue to the colloquial abbreviations and expressions which differ so widely from the language of the vernacular text-books. Above all things, let him not fear to ask for an explanation of whatever he does not understand, and let him take a note of the explanation 92given. In after days he will look back at his notes with much satisfaction and amusement at his own quondam ignorance, and he will be the more ready to give help and instruction to the young men who come after him.

If the assistant will open his eyes and look round him thoughtfully, he will soon come to observe the gravity and importance of the official position which he now holds. The district contains more than a million inhabitants. The assistant will be surprised to find that he holds the fourth place in the official hierarchy of the district. There are the judge, the collector-magistrate, and the joint-magistrate ranking above him, but his official place is fourth on the list. What a difference this is from his position in his native land, where he was probably next to nobody, and certainly exercised no sort of authority. Now he has become the fourth in rank amongst a million of people. Many young men are rather slow to perceive this. Very probably a becoming sense of modesty restrains them from attempting to assert the position. But the fact remains, and the official responsibility positively exists. Many an assistant, owing to the casual illness or temporary absence of his official superiors, has suddenly found himself actually the first official among a million of people. In no other part of the world, in no other condition of society, does official responsibility so suddenly thrust itself on a young man about twenty years of age.

93In the ordinary routine of social life at a small civil station, the assistant at first holds a comparatively humble position. A civil station is the capital of a district. The society consists principally of members of the Civil Service; there is the judge, who is usually between thirty and forty years of age; the collector-magistrate is now sometimes senior, sometimes junior, to the judge; next comes the joint-magistrate and deputy-collector, a sort of second in command to the collector-magistrate; and next comes the assistant. Outside this nucleus of the Civil Service there come the police officers, the doctor, the clergyman, and one or two other minor English officials, and perhaps a few independent men employed in mercantile business or owning landed estates. If there is a railway running through the district, it may contribute an engineer to the little society, or there may be an officer of the Public Works Department located there. In Bengal, military detachments very seldom help to swell the numbers of a civil station. In fact, with the ladies of the several families, a party of twenty can seldom be assembled, except on the most important festive occasions.

In a very small world such as this, it is not surprising that the assistant, to some extent, acquiesces in his native designation as the “chota saheb,” or little saheb, of the community. He is treated as a newcomer, willing to learn and to be pleased at acquiring experience from the older folks around him. If he is 94a sensible man, he really feels how very much of practical life he has yet to learn.

After an assistant has been about a year at a district station, and when he has passed certain examinations with which the Government still persists in unnecessarily tormenting its junior servants, he is usually sent to what is called a sub-division of the district. The inventor of sub-divisions was undoubtedly an enemy to his brethren. To be in charge of a sub-division means, in most cases, that the assistant is cut off from all communication with his fellow-Englishmen. He is undoubtedly monarch of all he surveys, but his realms are rather pitiful. He has an official dwelling, usually much out of repair; sometimes it is only a mat and thatched building, but too frequently one part of the building serves as a dwelling-house, and the other part serves as the public office, so that privacy or quiet is almost unattainable. Within a few yards of the dwelling-house the lock-up of the prisoners under trial or under sentence presents itself, with a guard-house for the police detachment. A small tank or pond, in which the prisoners and their guard bathe, also serves to supply the assistant and his domestics with water. There may be some half-cultivated scrap of garden, and sometimes there is actually a bit of road along which a wheeled vehicle can be driven, at least as far as the broken bridge, for the repair of which the estimates have been several months under consideration before some superior officer. The reader may imagine 95the feelings of the young official on finding himself in charge of such a kingdom as this. There is not another white face to be seen. If he falls ill, there is a half-trained native doctor to attend to him. His nearest white neighbour is probably an indigo-planter, with whom he may not be on good terms, as he may have decided cases adversely to the planter’s interests. Meanwhile his official duties are not only onerous but irksome. He is expected to be a jack-of-all-trades. He has complicated criminal cases before him in his magisterial capacity. The native lawyers who practise in his court are usually men of inferior quality, who have not succeeded in their business at the chief station of the district. The native officers who belong to his court are ill-paid, and too often inefficient. They have at the best a very limited experience, and are not qualified to supply the assistant’s own want of experience. He has to look after his treasury, and to send in all sorts of accounts to the head-quarters of the district. There is hardly a sub-division in which the accounts are kept correctly. In too many there are embezzlements or some fraudulent practices which the assistant fails to detect until he has become in a measure responsible for them, so that when he discovers them he has practically to report evil of himself. His work is carried on for many hours in a crowded room, in a hot and reeking atmosphere. Just as he hopes that his daily labours are coming to an end, there arrives from a remote police-station a corpse 96and a confessing murderer. The corpse has to be sent to the native doctor for a post-mortem examination, with such information as the assistant can obtain from the police reports as to the nature of the injuries which caused death. This must be done promptly—for corpses will not keep, in fact, they are often very unpleasant when they reach the assistant’s office. Nor will the murderer’s confession keep; it must be taken down at once, while the criminal is still in a state of awe and repentance, and faint with hunger. The police are careful not to let a confessing criminal have too much to eat until he has repeated his confession voluntarily and entirely of his own free will, before the assistant. So, however weary the assistant may be, he must solemnly admonish the prisoner not to confess unless he likes to do so, and then record what the unfortunate creature has to state. When this is over, he hopes to get away, but there is an emergent application for postage-stamps which he does not dare postpone, and he has to count them out from the chest in his little murky den of a treasury, and check all the entries in the account-books before he can close them with a correct balance of the stamps still in store. At last he may gain the privacy of his own rooms, and the company of his sole and faithful companion, his dog. But even then his troubles are not always at an end. Perhaps an alarm of fire is given from the neighbouring village. The sky is red with flames, and dense clouds of smoke fill the air. The assistant quickly 97mounts his horse, and dashes off to the scene, to try and control the crowd, and to direct the efforts of those few who seem to have their senses left, in attempting to extinguish the flames, or prevent the conflagration from spreading. He will be lucky if he succeeds in doing any good. He will be very lucky if he escapes without some personal injury, and he will probably meet with execrations instead of thanks from those people whose huts have had to be pulled down in order to prevent the fire from spreading.

There is sometimes at a sub-division a great opportunity for getting good sport if the assistant is fond of hunting or shooting. Near the principal station of many districts the game is becoming exhausted; but in a remote sub-division there are usually some natural game-preserves which have not been so often invaded by the adventurous English sportsman. As to snipe, he will probably find them in his own garden any time between September and March; and the rice-swamps which come up to the edge of his garden are sure to be full of snipe in different places as the waters of the annual inundation begin to subside. Wild ducks of infinite variety and in numbers innumerable are to be found in some of the quiet inland backwaters branching from the nearest great river. The wild hogs are seldom wanting. The villagers will gladly point out these dangerous enemies to their crops; and if the ground is rideable, some friends with their horses and spears may occasionally be brought together for a 98good day’s sport. Leopards are to be heard of in many villages, and when a particular leopard makes itself troublesome by killing the goats of the villagers or perhaps scratching and wounding some old woman, the assistant will be asked to go and shoot it. Tigers are scarce animals now; but they roam over large distances, and a tiger sometimes makes its appearance and establishes itself in a village, to the utter dismay of the inhabitants, who see their cattle killed daily, and live in constant apprehension for their own safety. But when a tiger is thus heard of, let the assistant not trust too much to his own prowess, or to the aid of any native companions who are willing to accompany him to kill the tiger. Let him remember the fate of poor Langdon, who went out a few years ago with a single-barrelled gun in his hand and a revolver in his belt to slay a tiger that had taken up its abode in a neighbouring village. He was attended by a crowd of natives armed with matchlocks, swords, and clubs. They formed a sort of line and advanced upon the tiger, who was sitting on his haunches in an open rice-field, looking at them. Poor Langdon fired his single barrel when he was about twenty yards from the tiger. He probably missed the beast, who came down with a bound and seized him by the neck and killed him like a terrier kills a rat. His native companions very naturally took to their heels. They are hardly to be blamed. They had little chance of killing the tiger, and their only safety was in flight. Not 99long previous to poor Langdon’s death a stray tiger similarly visited another district, and two or three of the young civilians, with a police officer who had shot many tigers, made an expedition to slay it. They found the tiger lying by a little hut in an open field. They approached cautiously, and made certain of their prey. A crowd of gaping villagers watched them from a high bank of earth, which seemed a safe place of refuge. At a given signal the experienced police-officer fired the first shot, and his companions each fired off both barrels. The tiger rose unharmed and looked at them; but fortunately his wrath was directed to the noisy native villagers on the high bank and he rushed off towards them, scattering them like a flock of sheep. The young officials and their police-mentor returned to their homes sadder and wiser men, not likely to go out again on foot in quest of a tiger.

The life of an assistant civilian at a sub-division is a life of toil and drudgery. But relief may come unexpectedly. One gloomy day, when his misfortunes seem at their worst, he finds a letter informing him that he has been appointed to act as under-secretary to the Government of the province. He can hardly understand or believe, at first, the good fortune that has come to him. He had begun to fancy that he was forgotten by all the world and by his friends. But when he tells the news to his native officials they are not slow to congratulate him. They tell him how 100under-secretaries are the men who eventually become lieutenant-governors. They almost worship him, and pray that their humble services may not be forgotten when he comes into his kingdom. But he must wait anxiously for a few days until his successor comes to relieve him, and then he rushes off eagerly to the capital, with hardly less change in his position and prospects than that of the butterfly who has emerged from his previous humble form.

In the ordinary routine of the career of an Indian civilian in Bengal, he rises from an assistant to be a joint-magistrate, and he then becomes either a collector-magistrate or a judge of a district—and he never emerges from this quiet and hard-working career. If he is a judge he may, after twenty years or more, hope to obtain a seat in the High Court. If he is a collector-magistrate he may similarly hope to become a commissioner, and eventually to rise to be a member of the Board of Revenue. But outside the ordinary routine of appointments there are a certain number of offices which may be considered to be the special prizes of the service. To get into the secretariat is the very laudable desire of almost every young civilian. In the first place the pay of the under-secretary is very much larger than that of most of his contemporaries. But the pay is mere dross in comparison with the power and change of position which a secretariat appointment confers. His other brethren are the ordinary rank and file—but he has become 101an officer in command, and he issues his orders accordingly. It is much more pleasant to command than to obey, especially to those who have themselves been disciplined in the school of obedience. It is true that the under-secretary, in writing an official letter, informs his correspondent that he is directed by his honour the lieutenant-governor of the province to bid him do this or abstain from doing that; but the personality of the under-secretary is not always concealed, or rather it derives part of its glory and brilliancy from the association of his name with that of the lieutenant-governor. But it is not merely to his own friends and contemporaries that the young under-secretary stands forth as the representative of the highest authority. When he was an assistant he may have demeaned himself humbly before the collector-magistrate who was his immediate master. He probably felt a sort of mysterious awe as regards the officer styled a commissioner of division, who is the superior master of several collector-magistrates and their assistants. But as an under-secretary he finds himself issuing orders to these commissioners, with instructions to them to communicate his orders to the collector-magistrates. In fact, official etiquette in the secretariat almost precludes him from direct communication with his former superior, the collector-magistrate. There is yet another strong point of contrast between the position of the under-secretary and that of his unpromoted brethren, the sub-divisional 102officers whom we have tried to describe. The latter have hardly anyone to help them in their offices. Their work is usually carried on in a noisy, crowded room, with many interruptions. They have to draft their own letters, and will do wisely even to examine the despatch copies made by their clerks. But in the secretariat everything is very different. The under-secretary has his comfortable and quiet room, to which no one has access except on business, and with his permission. His work is all neatly prepared for him. The red-taped bundles are sorted in their proper boxes. Office-notes are put up explaining the subject, or giving a convenient clue to important papers. If anything appears obscure the under-secretary touches his bell and summons an experienced office-clerk to his aid. He can order further information to be supplied from the office. But, above all, he finds a draft, put up from the office, of almost every letter that is to issue. It is much less laborious work to sign a well-prepared draft, or even to correct an ill-composed draft, than to have to write each letter with his own hand. When the despatch copies of the letters are brought for his signature he signs them by the dozen bravely, and trusts to the office “examiner” for their correctness. There are, of course, many important cases where the under-secretary must compile notes, and prepare the papers for submission to his superior, the secretary, and he must expect sometimes to have them sent back to him from the secretary for further 103elucidation. Sometimes the secretary or the lieutenant-governor himself wants some orders issued very urgently, and the under-secretary may have a few hours of hard work, or slavery, if he likes to call it so. But, as a rule, he has a very pleasant time of it in his office; and if he keeps his work well in hand, and does not allow any arrears of bundles to accumulate against him, he will discover the value of the motto “Mihi res non me rebus,” and will find little to interfere with his enjoyment of the social pleasures of the capital. He may even find time for hunting and shooting, if such are his tastes. He can ride and play polo, or he can make his choice between rackets and lawn-tennis, or cricket when cricket is in season. The doors of every fashionable house are open to him if he chooses to leave his card. If he is a good musician he will be all the more welcome. If he can dance well he will have no difficulty in finding partners. At his club he becomes a sort of authority, and has to practice the affectation of being mysterious about trifles, so as to keep himself in training to baffle inconvenient questions on official matters of importance. Whatever social pleasures and amenities life in the capital of Bengal affords, these are all at the disposal of the fortunate civilian under-secretary.

We have hitherto written of the junior officers in the Civil Service. Promotion in the ordinary course is regulated principally by seniority. The whole scheme of the Civil Service in Bengal and in the other provinces 104of India is like the iron framework of a machine, in which all the principal parts consist of members of the Civil Service. As the older members are used up and worn out, the younger members are fitted into their places. The Government sometimes removes a man who does not seem strong enough for his share in the work, and transfers him to a position where the strain on his power is less, and replaces him by a stronger man. To most men the first direct object of their ambition is to obtain charge of a district. After about ten years of subordinate service, the civilian finds himself appointed as collector and magistrate to the charge of a district, and he thus becomes the direct representative of the executive government of the country. The title “collector-magistrate” is somewhat vague and misleading, especially to English readers unacquainted with India. The word “collector” has no special dignity or authority about it. Our own juvenile reminiscence of a collector in England was of the local collector of taxes, a man with a white apron and a pen behind his ear, and a portable ink-bottle at his waist. An Indian collector, at least in Bengal, is a collector almost only in name. The revenues of the district are doubtless collected under his superintendence, but he has almost as little connection personally with the actual collection as the Governor of the Bank of England has with the sovereigns and bank-notes which pass through his bank. The title of “magistrate” is scarcely less misleading. 105It is true that he is the chief magistrate of the district, but he has very little direct concern with the actual trial of the criminal cases in his district. But the title of “collector-magistrate” exists in Bengal, and therefore we must deal with it. In reality he is the administrator of a small province which contains a population from one to two million inhabitants. For the details of his administration he has civilian and non-civilian subordinates, each of whom is invested with certain fiscal or magisterial powers. He distributes the work of the district amongst these officers. To one he assigns the care of his treasury and accounts; to another he delegates the management of the excise; to a third he makes over the duty of measuring and assessing landed estates which require a readjustment of the burden of their land revenue; to a fourth he entrusts the special care of those properties belonging to minors and others which come under him as the representative of the Court of Wards. In his magisterial capacity he makes over certain classes of criminal cases to certain subordinates, or assigns to them a limited local jurisdiction for the criminal cases that may occur in it. He is the head of the police of the district, although he has a special officer styled the district superintendent of police by whom all the details of police work are carried on. He is usually the chairman of municipal committees, and of any local body of management connected with education, hospitals, or charitable dispensaries. All 106schools, especially vernacular schools, are supposed to be his peculiar care. The local jail and its prisoners are under his control, though the doctor or some special officer is in immediate charge of the jail. He is expected to keep himself well-informed as to the trading and commercial interests of the district, and is responsible for the care of the roads and bridges throughout the country. He is expected to keep himself well-informed of all that is going on in the sub-divisions of his district which are in the immediate charge of the sub-divisional officers whom we have already described. If cattle-disease breaks out in the interior, he is expected to report on it and take measures to put an end to it. If fever or cholera begin to devastate any part of his dominion, he must at once take action to contend with the enemy. If troops are marching through the district, he must see to the clearance of the encampment grounds, and to the provision of rations for the soldiers and their camp-followers. If there is no clergyman at the station, he may be called on to baptise infant children, and much more certainly to bury anyone who dies. He will have also to provide for the conduct of the weekly church service. We have by no means exhausted the list of his duties; but finally, if a prisoner in his jurisdiction is sentenced to be hung, it will be his duty to superintend the execution. He is held personally responsible by the Government that everything goes right in the district. He has many hands to help him 107in the details of his numerous duties, but still he is expected to put his own finger occasionally into every man’s pie; and if he abstains as much as possible from exercising any primary authority, there is hardly a matter in which he is not referred to as the appellate authority by those who are dissatisfied with the orders of his subordinates. To carry out all his functions he should be an Argus and a Briareus. He is often a little sickly-looking man in spectacles.

CHAPTER V. THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE ( continued ).

Those who have seen Tom Taylor’s play, “The Overland Route” at the Haymarket Theatre, have probably been amused at the representation of the old civilians Sir Solomon Fraser, K.C.B., and Mr. Colepepper, who are two of the principal characters of the piece. It may also be said to afford a favourable opportunity for old Indians of seeing themselves as others see them. Sir Solomon is the representative of the old school of political officers, who passed the chief part of their life as residents in native independent states. Mr. Colepepper is the hard-working old man who finished his career in the service as a commissioner, without any special rewards or titles, and under some mysterious liability to Government for many thousands of pounds, certain vouchers having been lost in the mutinies. With reference to these imaginary individuals we will give a brief sketch of 109a few more of the many branches into which the career of an Indian civilian may develop itself.

The Political Department, as it was called, in India, was for a long time considered the most eligible and enviable line in which a young civil officer could shape his career. There was a time when the most promising young men were specially selected by Government, and sent off to the famous capital at Hyderabad to graduate under the guidance of the eminent chief Charles Metcalfe, then resident at that native court. Residents and Governor-General’s agents were formerly to be found in many parts of India. The resident was the officer who was supposed to advise, or, we ought to say, imperceptibly to influence, the independent native prince or princess to whose court he was accredited. The Governor-General’s agent was the representative of British authority, or, to put it more plainly, the instructor or bear-leader of those native princes whose authority was not independent, but who needed to be instructed or to be led according to their own individual capacity or incapacity in exercising their own limited power and jurisdiction. The officer employed in either position was supposed to be well-versed in all matters connected with the etiquette and ceremonial of native courts, and it was essential that he himself should be distinguished for his grave and imperturbable courtesy of demeanour and speech. He was expected to be a master of all the arts of intrigue, 110not so much for the purpose of carrying on any active intrigue, but rather for the sake of baffling those intrigues which are the life and breath of a native court, where mine must occasionally be met by counter-mine. For the word intrigue includes, and indeed usually consists of, the very smallest matters, in dealing with which the political officer only keeps his weapons sharpened in readiness to deal with any matter of real gravity and importance. A resident formerly was almost isolated from the fellowship of his own countrymen, save of those who constituted his own staff or assistants. But this form of society is always mentally unwholesome, as the chief finds no one who is prepared openly to differ from his opinions, or to maintain any serious argument against him. Hence the resident of the pre-mutiny period sometimes became a rather pompous self-opiniated punctilious and artificial sort of person, who is exemplified in Sir Solomon Fraser, K.C.B. The race of political officers is now comparatively extinct, and the circumstances under which they exist have been so materially altered by the introduction of railways and the general improvement in the means of interchanging ideas with their fellow-men, that any man who allowed himself to acquire the ways and habits, of his fossil predecessors would probably be deemed unfit for his post, although he will still be careful to observe the professional courtesy and demeanour for which we ought not to fail to give due credit to the 111members of the old school of politicals. Writing as we are with reference to the province of Bengal, it may be said that political residents are non-existent, and the few Governor-General’s agents, who are still employed at the Court of the Nawab of Morshedabad and on some of the frontier divisions, have been much shorn of their honours and emoluments.

With regard to Mr. Colepepper, who has been presented in the play as the type of the commissioner, we do not mean to say that the portrait will be actually recognised, as there are few now left who are able to identify the men who served their country so well and so patiently both before and during the mutinies; but we are inclined to think that someone has unconsciously sat for his portrait on this occasion, and we do not feel that he has anything to be ashamed of in it. A man who has spent his life under an Eastern sun, surrounded by Oriental influences, must not suppose that he is like his contemporaries who have never left the shores of England. His curious garb, his white sun-hat, his thin white coat and trousers, present as great a contrast to the broad-cloth garments and regulation hat of his English compeer as may be found in their respective thoughts and feelings. And we are not at all prepared to admit that all the mental advantage or even the physical superiority is on the side of the stay-at-home Englishman. It may be that the man who has served in India has attained all his Oriental learning and practical administrative 112experience in addition to his natural privileges and mental acquirements as an Englishman. He has, perhaps, seen some things from the wrong end of the telescope; but have his brethren in England always taken a more correct view of Indian objects? The heart and mind of the one have probably been enlarged by an enlightened sympathy for millions of new and strange people, whilst the other has passed his life in the narrow prejudices of his own profession or business, and in the surroundings of his own country parish. The one may have endured the burden and heat of the sun, which has blanched the colour from his cheeks, and left him a lean and yellow visage and disorganised liver. But is the other very much better off who has grown corpulent and unwieldy with too much good-living and too much old port wine, whilst his limbs are often racked by rheumatism, if he has not become a victim to gout and dyspepsia?

However, though there may be individual exceptions to every rule, the mind of the British public is tolerably well made up that Mr. Colepepper is a genuine specimen commissioner of the Indian Civil Service, and we are content to leave them in that belief. But the title of commissioner conveys no sort of distinct idea to the English mind. It is curious how wanting many Indian titles are in precision, or even in affording any suggestion of their meaning. We remember a story where a good-natured old commissioner was sitting at dinner 113next the colonel of a regiment which had just come to Calcutta from the North-West Provinces. The commissioner casually said to the colonel, “I am the animal which is called a commissioner in this part of the world.” The colonel was immensely delighted. He had been accustomed to their high mightinesses the commissioners of the North-West Provinces; and it was a strange thing to him to find a commissioner speaking almost disrespectfully of his own title. But there are commissioners and commissioners. The commissioner in Bengal is the officer in chief executive charge of a territorial division, each division containing six or seven separate districts, with a total population of about eight or ten millions inhabitants. There are some divisions in which for geographical reasons the area is smaller, and the population of the division less numerous. The commissioner is usually an officer in what may be called the prime of Indian official life, about forty years of age, and of about twenty years’ standing in his service. He is usually selected by Government from the executive officers known as collector-magistrates of districts, and the selection not unfrequently causes considerable jealousy and dissatisfaction, especially if the selected commissioner happens to be junior to any of the collector-magistrates in the division to which he is appointed. The commissioner is the local representative of Government in his own division. The Government sends its orders to him, and he passes them on to the collector-magistrates. 114On the same principle the collector-magistrates submit their reports to Government through the commissioner. He is the chief local authority, save that the district judges are entirely independent of him; and the judicial independent authority thus established is the recognised constitutional safety-valve, which is intended to provide against any injudicious or casual stretch of authority on the part of the executive. The commissioner is the head of the police throughout his division; but here again there are some subtle niceties of discipline and practice. The commissioner receives written reports from the police, through the district-magistrate, of the progress of their investigations in all heinous and important cases. But his power is limited. He cannot issue direct orders to the actual police officers investigating a case, so as to bid them arrest one suspected person or release another. He may offer friendly advice and suggestions to the magistrate with regard to the action of the police; and he may also, if dissatisfied with their proceedings, make unpleasant remarks and comments. But the discipline of the police force is regulated by a hierarchy of its own, consisting of district-superintendents and deputy inspectors-general, and an inspector general, who is equal in official rank to the commissioner, and in direct communication with Government. And as the commissioner may interfere with the police only under certain limitations, so, on the other hand, he must be very cautious to abstain from interference with any case the moment that it has been 115sent up by the police for trial before any magisterial or judicial officer. Any interference by the executive in the judicial trial of a case is strongly resented; but it is open to a commissioner to set the public prosecutor in motion, or to employ special counsel to look after the effective prosecution of a difficult and important case. Eventually, if a particular case, or any class of cases, becomes of such deep interest as to require the attention of Government—or if the Government has called for a report—it is the commissioner who has to represent the whole of the facts to Government, and it is then open to him to express his opinion unreservedly on the good or bad conduct of the police, and this is also his opportunity for pointing out to Government any defects that may have occurred in the judicial proceedings. But in this part of the business he will do well to temper his words with discretion. If the commissioner expresses an opinion, in his report to Government, that the magistrate or judge who tried the case has made any serious mistake as to his facts or to his law, this practically amounts to a proclamation of war. The Government on receiving the commissioner’s report to this effect will not be in a hurry to pronounce an opinion. It will probably send the report of the commissioner to the judges of the High Court, and will request them to inquire and report what the magistrate or judge has to say on his own behalf. Of course the magistrate or judge in most instances stoutly maintains that he was right, and it may be that the judges of the 116High Court also take the part of the judge or magistrate, or at all events extenuate his errors. Then the Government may either give the commissioner an opportunity for a rejoinder, or it may proceed to put an end to the case by passing a decision on it. The approved Government secretariat style of decision is to find a little fault with everybody; and the principle of decisions of this kind is simple and obvious, because it discourages all the officers concerned from desiring again to bring their quarrels or differences into prominence, so that they will not come up bothering the Government again for a long time to come. It may be observed that the Government is usually very careful to agree as far as possible with the judges of the High Court, and to throw over the complainant commissioner. So the commissioner probably finds, to his annoyance, that he has taken a great deal of trouble to do his duty, with the highly satisfactory result that he is told, like a naughty boy, not to do it again.

The commissioner is also the chief revenue authority throughout his division, the collectors being his subordinates in this capacity, whilst he himself is directly subject to the control of the Board of Revenue. In most parts of Bengal, the collection of the ordinary Land Revenue gives no trouble. The instalments of the Government Revenue are paid in with a punctuality which would gratify any Government under the sun. This is one of the fortunate results of the much-abused permanent settlement in Bengal, the very 117mention of which is so like a red rag to a bull with some persons, that we shall say no more about it, except to observe that there are some other well-informed persons who believe that if there had been no permanent settlement in Bengal in 1793, there would have been no British authority left in India in 1883. According to the true British method of procedure, the Government being now fully secure in its own share of the Land Revenue from the land-owners, has so altered and modified the laws which it made for the protection of the land-owners in the collection of their rents that it leaves them to collect them as best they may. The latest device is to compel the land-owner to sue his defaulting tenants in the civil courts, as they are pleasantly called, so that the Government derives a large indirect revenue through its stamp laws, an ad valorem stamp being required on the institution of a suit; whilst the costs of the case are a heavy addition to the tenant’s rent if the suit is decided against him, as it must almost always be decided from the nature of things. But this is all the result of pure benevolence and the well-meaning but possibly misguided kindness of those philanthropists who have constituted themselves the champions of the poor tenant, with no very complete understanding of the poor tenant’s real wants and necessities. Be this as it may, the commissioner and the collector have now very little trouble in the collection of the Government land revenue in Bengal. 118Occasionally a landed estate, as it is officially called, is sold by auction for non-payment of revenue; and if the owner of the defaulting estate is dissatisfied, he appeals to the commissioner to quash the auction sale. But it is very seldom that an estate is sold at auction, except with the wish and knowledge of the owners. An auction-sale conveys a clear and indefeasible title on the purchaser, who can thus afford to pay a much higher price for the property than if he attempted to buy it privately, for where there are many shareholders in an estate it almost passes the skill of the most able legal conveyancer to devise a perfect title exhaustive of all previously existing rights and encumbrances. With regard to the other revenue duties of a commissioner, they are more easily enumerated than they can be described or made intelligible. He has to provide for the management of the estates of minors, lunatics, and others, which have come under the control of the Court of Wards. He has to keep an eye on the great gains or losses arising from alluvion and diluvion along the banks of the huge rivers which sweep through Bengal, changing their courses and washing away their banks, not merely by a few yards, but sometimes by miles at a time. The commissioner has to look after the excise revenue of the districts under him. He must take thought regarding the application of the stamp laws, and be prepared to explain to the Board of Revenue the reason why the stamp revenue increases in one district 119and decreases in another district. This is sometimes a rather difficult task, as the collector in whose district an increase is shown blandly attributes it to the abundance of the harvest; whilst, unfortunately, the collector of the district in which a decrease appears also attributes the decrease to the abundance of the harvest; and though it is perfectly possible that there may be some truth in each of these explanations, it will not do for the commissioner to send up both explanations to the Board in their conflicting nudity and crudity. The commissioner has also to superintend the collection of that very curious tax which is known under the name of the license-tax. It is the only existing form of direct personal taxation, and is apparently called the license-tax because the Government was not permitted to call it an income-tax. A previous Government had taken much credit to itself for the abolition of the income-tax, and neither political party in England is now willing to allow itself to be connected with the re-imposition of the income-tax. But as some sort of direct taxation was deemed necessary, and is admittedly necessary, in order to reach the rich trading classes, it was introduced under the name of a license-tax, whilst it is only a disguised and deformed income-tax, utterly failing to produce the amount which would be derived from a well-administered income-tax, and only tolerated because the taxpayers subject to it are well aware that almost any change in the law is likely to add to the 120amount of their taxation. The original income-tax was abolished when it had begun to work, quite smoothly, in Lower Bengal, and the chief defects of the law had been eradicated and cured. Its ghost, the license-tax, now reigns in its stead, and people who pay the license-tax receive a license to do nothing, or, in some cases, to carry on the business for which they have to pay another license-tax under the local municipal laws.

The commissioner of a division has his head-quarters at one of the principal stations of the districts subject to his authority; but he is expected to make at least one tour of inspection in the course of the year, so as to visit all his districts. In some divisions the railways now make travelling easy, and his visitations can be made at any time that suits his convenience. But there are some divisions in which there are no railways, and even the local roads are hardly passable except at certain times of the year. In some parts the broad rivers afford the only means of communication, and he has to travel by boat or steamer. The commissioner’s visit of inspection in remote districts is one of the important events of the year. The officials, with their usual hospitality, make every effort to welcome and entertain him. The principal native residents of the district come in from their country residences with a large band of their retainers to pay their respects to him, and to represent their wishes, and also their grievances. He has to 121inspect the public offices and to satisfy himself in many matters of detail, such, for instance, as the amount of treasure contained in the collector’s treasury, and the number of stamps, including postage stamps, which are or ought to be in the collector’s custody. He has to visit all the local schools and pose as an amateur examiner in history and mathematics and the vernacular languages. He must inspect the local jail and lunatic asylum; not interfering in their management, as they are under special departments, but recording in the visitor’s book his opinion on what he sees, and on what he conceives to be wanting for the improvement of these establishments. He must inspect the old burial-grounds, and see that due care is taken of the monuments and tombstones of the otherwise long-forgotten dead. The opportunity of his visit will probably be taken to hold a public meeting to encourage subscriptions in support of some local charitable institutions, such as hospitals and dispensaries, or for the construction of some new work of public utility, such as a new road or bridge. And if any local feuds or factions exist, either among the English residents or in different sections of the native community, he is expected to act as a peace-maker, and to devise a modus vivendi for the future.

The duties of a commissioner are almost as varied and numerous as it is possible to imagine, but he must also fully appreciate the doctrine lately enunciated by Mr. Gladstone regarding the duties of the Chancellor 122of the Exchequer. It is not sufficient that he shall deal with all the work that comes to his hand, but he must have time to look about him, and seek for and make work, and initiate those reforms and improvements for which there is such ample opportunity in almost every condition of civilised society. He must be prepared for disappointment as well as encouragement in his endeavours to do good. Sometimes his own subordinates fail to support or adopt his proposals, or a zealous and active subordinate who gladly and eagerly carried out his plans is removed to some other sphere of usefulness, whilst his successor is a man who cares for nothing but his own ideas and abhors all unnecessary responsibility. Sometimes the Government discredits and discountenances his well-meant proposals, and he is graciously informed that local knowledge is always wrong—a curious paradox at first sight, but not by any means devoid of truth when analysed from the broader Government point of view. On the whole, the life and work of a commissioner is, or ought to be, exceedingly enjoyable to a man of active mind and body; but when mental and bodily activity are impaired, it only remains for a commissioner to retire like Mr. Colepepper to his native country to spend the remainder of his days in dignified repose.

There are still several positions in the life of a civilian which may be worthy of more than passing notice. When an officer has elected to join the judicial 123branch of the service, he in course of time becomes the judge of a district, an officer of much authority and dignity, and not badly remunerated. The position of a judge has one feature in it which makes it highly commendable, especially in contrast with that of the collector-magistrate, who has elected the executive branch. The latter officer has many masters, and his time is never his own, and even his private house is not sacred against the invasions of emergent business. But the judge has but one master, the High Court. He goes to his court at a fixed hour, and leaves it also at the appointed time, and he regulates these hours according to his own convenience. His business is carried on solely in his court; when he leaves his court his work is at an end. It would be considered both unbecoming and irregular for any suitor or pleader to seek to follow him to his own house. The duty of a judge is not so difficult as some people suppose. It is a well-known truism that in almost all law-suits the difficulty is to ascertain the real facts of the case. If the facts are found, the application of the law to those facts is a comparatively simple process. In the court of a district judge there are pleaders of good ability and considerable legal acquirements, who are not likely to allow him to be misled as to the law, however much they may strive to twist the facts of a case in favour of their client. The greater part of a judge’s work consists in hearing appeals from the decisions of the native judges 124subordinate to him, so that he has only to deal with the written evidence on the record, the effect of which has been usually well-weighed and represented in the decision of the subordinate judge. The judge, therefore, can easily master the leading facts of a case as set forth in the decision of the lower court, before he begins to hear the arguments of the counsel who appear to impugn or to support that decision. A case may be more or less complicated, but for a man of ordinary capacity and common sense it is a pleasant intellectual entertainment to listen to the arguments of the contending pleaders. Most of the leading pleaders can speak English well, and state their cases and arguments with a lucidity which might meet with the approval of Matthew Arnold. It only remains for the judge to prepare and pronounce his decision; and if he is a prudent man he will write out his decision in the quiet and privacy of his own study. This is the more necessary because the judge’s decision in its turn may become the subject of appeal to the High Court, and it therefore behoves a judge to try to make his decision impregnable.

The most difficult part of a judge’s duty consists in trying criminal cases at the sessions. When an accused person is committed by a magistrate on a charge of murder or any other offence with which the magistrate cannot deal finally, he is tried by the sessions judge and by a jury of his countrymen. The prosecution is usually conducted by the Government pleader, whilst 125the accused retains the services of the best counsel that he can afford to pay. The judge records the evidence in English with his own hand, being himself the interpreter of the actual words in the native language in which it is delivered, whilst simultaneously a native clerk records, or is supposed to record, the actual words spoken by the witness. This imposes a severe task on the judge. He has to listen to what the witness says in the vernacular, he has to interpret and record its meaning in English, and he has to consider the effect of each successive question and answer on the whole of the witnesses’ evidence. This triple mental operation is very severe, and imposes too hard a strain upon the judge. When the evidence for the prosecution and the defence is completed, and the counsel on either side have exhausted their eloquence, the judge has the pleasure of summing up the evidence and directing the jury in their vernacular language, a rather arduous task, but we have heard many men do it with much credit to themselves. Perhaps some of our judges in England would not be quite at ease if they had to sum up the evidence and address an English jury in French, or in dog-Latin; but the suggestion may convey to the reader some idea of the difficulty to which an English judge in India is subject. Finally, the judge records his decision elaborately in English, in case the prisoner, if convicted, should appeal to the High Court against his sentence.

From the ranks of the district judges the best men 126are selected for a seat in the High Court of Calcutta. It is not very easy to select the best men, and the process of selection is uncertain, because the patronage is exercised nominally by the Viceroy, who has the least actual knowledge of the merits of individual officers, and must therefore be guided by the advice of others. We are prepared to admit that usually the best men are selected, but on every occasion there are several men who consider their own claims superior to those of the officer selected. The position of a judge of the High Court is certainly a very enviable one. It may be said to combine almost the highest amount of official dignity with no inconsiderable degree of otium. In the usual routine of the court work two judges sit together, and constitute what is called a bench. When two judges are sitting together it follows as a matter of course that one of them takes the leading part in the conduct of the case which is before them. Where two men ride on one horse, one must ride behind the other. As a matter of practice, where several cases come before them on the same day, they take the conduct of the cases alternately; but sometimes, where one judge is of a more masterly temperament than the other, he practically assumes the management of every case, whilst the other judge acquiesces in the arrangement. This leads to a powerful development of what has been called the power of the cypher. One judge, Mr. A., is a masterly man, and he scores as 1. The other judge follows 127his lead, and he therefore scores as 0. But 1 and 0 count ten, and in practice the working power of a bench thus constituted is far more effective than that of a bench where the two judges are antagonistic to one another and are disposed to take conflicting views of a case. It is therefore easy to conceive that whenever a judge is not disinclined to subordinate his own mental powers to those of his colleague, he can pass his time on the bench without any great strain on his intellectual faculties. He may be supposed to be taking copious notes of the arguments, but as a fact he is inditing an overland letter to his absent wife or his children in England. When the case is ripe for decision, and the arguments of counsel are at an end, a brief conference with his colleague satisfies his conscience, and he is prepared to sign his name in concurrence to the decision more or less elaborate which his colleague is ready to compose. The hours during which the High Court sits are not very long or exhausting. The judges usually take their seats at 11 o’clock, and after a sitting of three hours the court withdraws at 2 o’clock for lunch, the contending counsel gladly following their example. It is nearly 3 o’clock before the judges resume their seats on the bench, and by the time that the clock has rolled on to 4, it begins to be a question whether, on the conclusion of a particular case, there is sufficient time to take up and finish a new case, and so it not unfrequently happens that about 4 o’clock 128the judges retire to their carriages and are driven home to take their rest. At all events, 5 o’clock is the appointed hour for their rising, be the case finished or unfinished; so that it may be taken that about five hours of work is considered a good day’s average sitting. Each judge is accustomed to take one day in the week at home for the purpose of writing out his decisions, and for certain administrative and consultative functions. It not unfrequently happens that a judge, on arriving at court, finds that his colleague on the bench is disabled by indisposition from attending court, so that he is obliged to go home again for the day, unless it so chances that another judge on another bench is casually indisposed, and then the two odd men may combine and make up a sort of scratch bench between them for the day.

Whilst the ordinary daily work of a High Court judge is not very severe, the judges are indulged in a much longer vacation, and they have many more holidays than any other class of Government officials. We do not grudge them their holidays, and we are of opinion that many Government officers would be much more competent to work with full mental and bodily vigour if they had a few more holidays and enforced periods of rest. The judges of the High Court have an annual long vacation extending over a period of two months, from about the beginning of September to the beginning of November, when the season, especially in Calcutta, may be said to be most unhealthy and 129unfavourable to the English constitution. The High Court also closes for a week or ten days at Christmas, and for a similar period at Easter. The native Hindoo and Mahomedan holidays, which come on fixed or variable dates, are religiously observed in the High Court. An eclipse of the sun or moon, if visible, becomes the occasion for a holiday, out of deference to native feeling. We are sorry to say that there is a growing tendency to mutilate and diminish the holiday privileges of the judges. It was formerly open to them to combine a month’s privilege leave, under the Service Leave Rules, with the long vacation of the court, so that they got a holiday of three months, which enabled them to pay a flying visit to England. Sundry old gentlemen at the India Office are said to have taken offence at the sight of several High Court judges making their appearance in London for a few days, and actually entitled to their full pay whilst thus absent from duty. This was the real gravamen of the offence. It has always been a sort of principle in connection with leave of any kind to mulct the delinquent of his official salary, and so starve him into a return to his duty. It was, therefore, deemed to be an infringement of this principle that a judge should be seen walking about London with his pockets full of rupees, just as if he were in the streets of Calcutta. We are not able to give the precise history of the official communications between the India Office in London and the Government of India at Simla. But it may be easily understood 130with how much virtuous zeal and good-will the authorities at Simla set themselves to work to give effect to the suggestions of the India Office. The Viceroy and his Councillors, and the secretaries at Simla, are not in the habit of taking any holidays. What are holidays to them when they are living in a cool and healthy climate, drawing salaries which were fixed on a scale suitable to a warmer temperature? Their only avowed relaxation is found in the interval of the moves from Calcutta to Simla, and from Simla back to Calcutta, when their offices are temporarily closed, and their travelling expenses are defrayed by Government. The financial secretary and his department always go to Simla, and they never feel the beam that is in their own eyes, however diligently they espy the motes when an ordinary toiler in the hot plains wants his travelling expenses paid. So it has come to pass that between the parsimony of the India Office, where the scale of salaries is notoriously so low, and the unsympathising sternness of the Indian Government at Simla (sometimes called Capua), the poor judges of the High Court have been shorn of many of their leave privileges; and, even worse, a reduced rate of salary has now been assigned to them. At the end of the last century, we believe, some of the judges of the old Supreme Court went to court in palanqueens, with a stately retinue of sontaburdars, and chobdars, and khidmudgars, and hookahburdars, and chuprassies, and peadahs. Perhaps the time is not remote when we shall see the impoverished High Court 131judge making his way along Chowringhee Road in a tram-car, and taking a dirty hired palkee to convey him from the nearest point of the tramway to the entrance of the court-house. The leading barristers of the court make an income of £10,000 a year, and will probably give an occasional lift in their carriages to the poor judges who can no longer afford to keep a carriage and horse of their own. Sometimes briefless young barristers may be seen walking early to court, to spend the day in the bar-library, and tramping back again at sunset to their homes. They will hereafter probably find themselves in the honourable company of some of the under-paid judges of their court, who desire to combine exercise with economy.

There is one other position or grade in the Civil Service which we must not omit to describe. A seat in the Board of Revenue is the object of ambition set before commissioners and all executive officers as the reward of their persevering labours and acknowledged merit. Unfortunately it is a haven which few are destined to enter and to be at rest. In the good old days, forty years ago, there were two Boards, each Board consisting of three members. One Board was styled the Board of Land Revenue, the other was the Board of Customs, Salt, and Opium. Each Board had its own separate office and establishment, and its senior and junior civilian secretaries. In those good times there was a chance for many men of arriving at the dignity of a seat in one of the two Boards. But a 132wicked man was found, whose name must not be even mentioned, who proclaimed to the world that “Boards are screens,” and so the days of Boards were numbered, and the screen which for so many long years had served as a cover to the multitudinous sins of Government (yes, of Government, and not of the Board itself) was ruthlessly torn down. The Board consists now only of two members, who are expected to carry on the work for which six men were formerly needed, and their four secretaries have been reduced to two. Nor is this the only change. The Board is now a Board only in name. The two members take charge of separate departments, and each member carries on his work independently, and without consultation with his colleague, except in some few special matters which it is needless to enumerate. One member takes the Land Revenue Department, which provides him with plenty of employment. The other member takes what is absurdly called the Miscellaneous Land Revenue Department, which includes the Excise, Customs, Salt and Opium, Stamps and Stationery, and License-Tax Departments, with a few odds and ends from the Land Revenue (proper), such as the acquisition of land for public purposes, and the partition of landed estates. Occasionally the two members sit together to hear appeals, when there is a probability that the decision of a commissioner will be reversed, as the concurrence of both members is required to set aside the decision of such an experienced officer as a commissioner.

133An appeal before the Board is usually supported by the most able counsel in the capital; and where the litigants are wealthy it is not uncommon to see the Advocate-General and two or three of the leading members of the High Court bar arrayed on one side, whilst on the other side the Government Solicitor-General and several other barristers are retained regardless of expense. Some serious dispute regarding land has arisen, and though the intrinsic value of the causa belli may be but small, it is a point of honour which neither side can yield. In former days the rival parties would doubtless have fought for it with their bands of armed retainers; but in more peaceful modern times it is safer, though not less expensive, to retain a small army of lawyers. The case has probably been locally investigated by a deputy collector, reinvestigated and decided by a district collector, whose decision has been disputed before the commissioner, and now the final appeal lies to the Board of Revenue. This is merely a sample of the kind of cases which sometimes come before the members of the Board. In less important cases, or in cases between less wealthy and potent litigants, the services of counsel are almost invariably engaged, and several of the native pleaders who devote themselves to practise before the Board are almost unrivalled in their knowledge of all the details of revenue law, and also in the clearness and precision with which they state the facts and the points of their case. The appellate duties of the Board are 134much more important than is generally known or understood, and as in very many cases each member sits singly his labour is ordinarily quite as severe as that of any two judges of the High Court when sitting together as a bench.

The greater part of the Board’s work is carried on by correspondence, partly with commissioners and partly with Government. The new letters are served up daily to each member in boxes, with all the important papers connected with each question. Lucid notes and suggestions are put up by the secretary subordinate to the member, so that the order to be issued can usually be passed with comparatively little difficulty, especially if the secretary is a man of practical experience and sound ability. There is, therefore, a smooth as well as a rough side to a seat in the Board. The member can, if he pleases, dispose of much of his correspondence in the quiet solitude of his own house. He is practically master of his own hours, and of his time for going to office and for leaving it. Sometimes a member spends the whole day at his office, and an instance has been known where a very zealous member actually took up his abode at the Board, so as to work uninterruptedly on some difficult subject on which he was engaged. On the other hand there have been members who only visited their office fitfully and carried on the greater part of their work at home. The members of the Board are also at liberty to make tours of inspection into the interior, 135and, in fact, they are authorised and encouraged by Government to make such tours, and occasionally they are expressly deputed by Government to visit a particular district to inquire and report upon some difficult question. So upon the whole the members of the Board lead a pleasant and well-employed life individually, although they often enjoy collectively the abuse and enmity of those who are under their authority; and, on the other hand, the Government usually takes advantage of the Board’s intervention to give them the discredit of anything that does not turn out satisfactorily, and to appropriate to itself the credit of anything that has been done well. So that the Board still continues to fulfil its old mission as a convenient screen.

The public generally may be said to mistrust the Board, partly from its now suspected title, and partly because it has no proper appreciation of those very ponderous publications which are known as the Board’s annual reports. The Board prepares and submits to Government an annual report on each principal subject that comes under its control. There is the annual report on the Land Revenue. There are annual reports on the Excise Department, on the Customs Department, on Salt, on Opium, on License-Tax, on Stamps, on Stationery, on the Shipping Office, and whatever other miscellaneous subject is susceptible of an annual report. Parliamentary Blue Books are light and cheerful reading in comparison with most 136of the Board’s reports, but fortunately they find very few readers. Nevertheless annual reports may be said to represent the circulation of the blood in the whole official community. Every official throughout the country contributes his quota to them. The Board’s reports may be compared to Aaron’s rod, as they swallow up the reports of all their subordinates, and reproduce them for the edification of Government. For weeks, and even for months, some unfortunate clerks in the Board’s office are toiling in the preparation of the rough drafts and the figured statements which form the basis of the Board’s reports. The drafting clerk has the report of the previous year as his immediate model, and his chief duty is to incorporate in his draft the principal new facts and opinions which he can glean from the new reports of the officers subordinate to the Board. From time to time the clerk consults the secretary as the work progresses, and the day comes at last when the secretary takes the draft into his own hands, and polishes it up into a presentable shape. He then sends it off to the printer for a broad-margined proof, and in this shape it at last comes before the member of the Board, who has to read and revise it, and put in a few patches of adornment—or technical bunkum. When the report is thus complete, it is submitted to Government. When it has reached Government it is carefully analyzed by a secretariat clerk, who prepares the draft of a resolution on it. The Government secretary 137next dresses up the resolution and adds a few pungent remarks, and submits it for the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor. The Lieutenant-Governor is expected to read the resolution which issues under his authority, and it is to be hoped that he always does so. The Government resolution is then communicated to the Board, and the Board pass it on with a copy of their report to their subordinates, many of whom are anxiously looking out for it in the hope of official praise, and in dread of some inconvenient censure. And thus the report on each subject circulates throughout the whole framework of the official body; and subsides to rest until the coming of another year sets it again in motion. Each annual report may well bear the same motto, “Adscribar numero, reddarque tenebris.”

We have very nearly exhausted the catalogue of the various official duties to which a civilian may be required to devote himself in the course of his career. There are a few miscellaneous appointments connected with the post-office and the sea-customs, and opium and survey and registration, and there are the much-prized but very laborious offices which the secretaries of Government fill. But we will not weary our readers with further details. The Civil Service, as a body, are a hard-working and not over-paid set of men, considering the heavy responsibilities which are imposed upon them, and the great power which they have to exercise. There are very few men, save a few prudent bachelors, 138who are able to save anything like a competence from their incomes. A man with a wife and rising family soon finds his means consumed by the expenses of two establishments, one in India and another in England, and perhaps a third in the hills. There is no lack of youthful candidates who are induced to enter the service by the prospect of early independence and a secured income, which tempts some of them into early matrimony. But now that competition has introduced into the service so many men of a very high average ability, it may safely be said that almost all of them would have done as well for themselves in any of the liberal professions in England, if they could have afforded to wait at home till their opportunity came. It has been said that in some social points the men of the new school are not equal to those of the old school, but we doubt if this is susceptible of proof. There may be this difference between them. The hard-bargains of the old régime were chiefly their own enemies; the hard-bargains of the new régime sometimes manage to make themselves enemies by their own conceit and indocility. But we have every reason to believe and hope that the new race of men have already been found to be no unworthy successors to the traditions of the old service, and that they are a body of men in whose character and services the English nation may place full confidence.

CHAPTER VI. NATIVE LIFE IN INDIA.

There are some people who seem to think that in writing about social life in India, the first place should be given to a consideration of the natives of the land. But we say it with sorrow, though without shame, that we can only add our testimony to that of many of the best friends of India, that the more an Englishman sees of India, the less competent he feels to write about the natives of the country. They are a good and loveable people, towards whom our hearts go forth only too readily, but we never seem to come to a true and thorough knowledge of them. The substance eludes our grasp, and we find ourselves contemplating an imaginary shadow. Possibly the day may come when some traveller like Miss Bird, who has given us such graphic accounts of the people of Japan and the Sandwich islands, may find her way to Bengal, and succeed in penetrating the veil of mystery. But up to the present time we know of no English 140writer who has been able thoroughly to master the whole subject. The natives themselves, from time to time, tell us something about themselves, and we find a very vivid picture of village life in Bengal in the admirable novel called “Gobind Samunt,” which was written some years ago by the Rev. Lall Behari Dey. This, however, is a picture of the natives painted by one of themselves. What the English public want is a faithful picture of native life, drawn by an Englishman or a foreigner.

It is very natural to imagine that a member of the Civil Service has the most favourable opportunities of making himself acquainted with the natives. He certainly may have some advantages over non-official people, but, on the other hand, he is at many great disadvantages compared with non-official people. The official status puts him out of focus, if we may use the expression; he sees the natives under a false light, whilst they present themselves to his view with a fictitious colouring. Most of our readers have heard of Cicero and his writings and speeches. But it is not everyone who has read Cicero’s treatise on the duties of a magistrate. We shall try to explain, on the authority of Cicero, how it comes to pass that in the exchange of intercourse between the Indian civilian and his native acquaintances, there is very much the same difficulty as there was between a Roman officer and the people of Asia Minor in days long past. It happened that when Cicero was one of the Consuls at 141Rome, in the zenith of his power, he had a brother named Quintus, who was proprætor or governor of Asia Minor. The ordinary term of a proprætor’s government seems to have been for two years, but Cicero managed to get an extension of service for his brother for a third year. In sending the good news to his brother, Cicero took the opportunity of writing him a lecture, partly to show his own superior knowledge of all sublunary things, and partly because it is tolerably clear that the brother required a lecture. A little good advice might do him good, and it could not do him any harm. He was evidently an irascible, overbearing man, but Cicero particularly desires it to be understood that his hands were pure, and that he took no bribes. Admitting this to be so, he seems to have stood very much in the position which the Indian civilian sometimes fills. He too is often suspected of being irascible and overbearing, and is, fortunately, not often accused of any want of honesty or high principle.

With regard to the people of Asia Minor, Cicero writes that the province is composed first of that kind of allies who, of all the human race, are the most humanised, and in the next place, of those Roman citizens who are, either farmers of the public revenue or have become rich by trade. Yet, he observes, “even among these men serious disputes exist, many injustices are committed, and great contentions are the consequence.” Here, then, we have a sort of parallel with the people of India. The natives themselves are proud of a civilisation 142which dates back to a period long anterior to our own. There are English merchants and planters and jute manufacturers settled in India, some of whom become rich, and are also, unhappily, not free from disputes between themselves and with the natives.

Cicero warns his brother to be careful that the inhabitants are not alarmed at his journeys, that they are not frightened by his approach; that there should be the utmost rejoicing, both public and private, wherever he goes; that every town should seem to receive him as its guardian, not as its tyrant. Do not these remarks call to mind the progress of great Indian officials with their large camps and retainers innumerable, who are only too apt to prey upon the people of the country through which they pass, unless the most vigilant supervision is maintained? Even the smallest civilian who goes out into camp in his district will find that unless he himself sees that everything is paid for, his servants and followers will endeavour to live at free quarters in the name of their master.

Cicero says to his brother: “Let all the province be sensible how dearly you prize the welfare, the children, the fame and the fortunes of all who are under your command. Let it be notorious that you will be equally the enemy of the man who gives a present as of him who receives it; for no one will give when it is clearly perceived that those who pretend to have the greatest interest with you are accustomed to 143obtain nothing from you. It is not that I would have you treat your dependants in a too severe and suspicious manner. If you have got any person who has been thoroughly admitted to your intimacy, consider how far you ought to trust him—not but that there may be many worthy men amongst the provincials, this it is lawful to hope but dangerous to determine; for every man’s nature is concealed with many folds of disguise and covered with various veils. His nature, his brows, his eyes and his countenance are deceitful; and his speech is most commonly a lie. Where can you find one who will sincerely love you, a mere stranger to them, and not merely pretend to do so for his own advantage? It would seem to me strange, as these men seldom pay any regard to private men, while they invariably attach themselves to the prætors. If amongst such men you should find one (for the thing is not impossible) who loves you more than he does his own interests, enrol him as a friend; but if you do not perceive this, there is no class of acquaintance more to be avoided; because they know all the arts of getting money, they do nothing but for money, and they are indifferent about the opinion of any man with whom they are not to continue to live. For the Greeks in general are deceitful and treacherous, and trained up by perpetual subjection in the art of sycophancy. All of them should be liberally treated, and the best of them received into friendship; but too close intimacies with them are not very safe, for 144though they dare not oppose your wishes, yet they are jealous not only of our countrymen, but even of their own. Though they dare not fly in the face of a Roman magistrate, yet at the bottom they hate not only us but their own countrymen.”

Those who have been invested with the official authority which a civilian exercises during his career in India can most easily tell how much there is in the warnings of Cicero which comes home to their feelings. Accustomed to receive every outward token of respect and affection, they are hardly willing to ask themselves the question why it was that such regard to themselves as public officers was paid by the men who seldom show much regard to any private men. Have they never felt, when circumstances caused them to be transferred from one district to another, how indifferent their former admirers soon became towards the man with whom they were no longer to continue to live?

From the very beginning of his career the civilian is put in a peculiar position as to his native surroundings. He has no difficulty in obtaining domestic servants. He will do well to understand that in India, as perhaps in other countries, although the master fancies that he is selecting a servant, it is in reality the servant who chooses his master. The master is a sort of speculation into which the servant enters, if it suits his convenience and is likely to pay. A young civilian is certain to have a good income 145and a respectable expenditure, out of which the servant may make a profit. The young civilian will also exercise official authority, and the servant speculates that he will make some pickings out of it. A civilian in high authority once remonstrated with his servant, who professed to complain of too much work, and asked him why, if he was dissatisfied, he did not take service with some rich Calcutta merchant whose whole day was spent at his office. “Sir,” replied the man, “they have no visitors.” Whenever a native gentleman comes to call at the house of a high official, the native servants always expect a fee. The visitor pays it, for the amount is not large, and he does not know what might happen if he did not pay. There are many petty slights, or really insults, which the servants could pass upon him with impunity if he did not render the accustomed tribute. And thus it comes to pass that a civilian has no difficulty in obtaining and keeping his native servants, provided that he treats them with reasonable kindness and due consideration for their shortcomings towards himself. The native servants who surround a young man at the beginning of his career sometimes have a considerable influence on his subsequent demeanour towards all other natives. It usually happens that a young man is delighted with some of his first native servants, whom he finds so intelligent and attentive and desirous of pleasing him. The servant rises to the occasion, and is not slow to attempt to help his master in matters which ought 146not to be a subject of communication between them. But the cause and effect are very natural. The master returns home weary from his office, and has no one to speak to but his servant. He casually mentions something that has happened in office during the day, or perhaps tries to ascertain from his servant if he has rightly understood some explanation given to him in the course of business. The servant is not slow to profit by such an opportunity. When his master has gone to bed the servant speeds off to the native town, and soon finds out the particular case to which his master must have alluded. He is thus in a position to make the parties interested in the case believe that he can influence his master on the subject, and the possession of such a power is, of course, equivalent to a mine of wealth. We can vouch for the truth of a story regarding the head-servant of an officer, who never exchanged a word with him on any official business. But the servant was sufficiently clever to make outsiders believe that he had great influence with his master, and the time came when he gracefully retired from his master’s service, and went home to his native village to figure as a landed proprietor, with a herd of several hundred head of cattle! Well might Cicero warn the proprætor of Asia Minor against putting too much confidence in his own domestics, or in permitting them to abuse the show of his authority.

We next come to the civilian in his public office, 147where by the necessity of the case he is surrounded and assisted by native subordinates of various ranks and degrees of authority. These native subordinates are to the English civilian in India somewhat in the same position as the permanent clerks in an English Government Office to the temporary ministerial secretary. The civilian changes office only too frequently. He is transferred from one district to another. To-day he is an assistant at Dacca, to-morrow he is joint-magistrate at Patna. The next day he is collector at Calcutta. But wherever he goes he finds himself introduced to a set of grave, white-robed native officers, from whom he must try to learn much of what has gone before, and through whom he must conduct the business of the office in which he presides. Many of these men have no want of ability or experience. They have received some education, and now-a-days are more or less conversant with the English language. But their salaries are small, and though they are much higher than the salaries of former times, they are still insufficient to meet the ever-increasing wants of modern civilisation and expenditure. Each of these men will do his best to ingratiate himself with his civilian superior. They try to help him in all his difficulties, and are ready to devote themselves to the execution of all his orders. Hence it very naturally follows that their superior takes a lively interest in them and welcomes their aid; but it also very frequently follows that some of 148them succeed in gaining a greater amount of favour than their fellows. Not unfrequently one man becomes his master’s special favourite and adviser. The sahib learns to see everything through his favourite’s spectacles, and to be guided, however unconsciously, by his suggestions and promptings. The result is inevitable. Those who have failed to gain favour combine and intrigue against the favourite—but their machinations fail. There is however, a Nemesis in store. The civilian is transferred, and another officer takes his place. The old favourite makes a struggle to maintain his position and authority with the new man, but probably in vain. The mere fact that he was a favourite with Mr. A—— is sufficient to discredit him with Mr. B——; and it sometimes, on the other hand, happens that the native officer whose influence with Mr. A—— was supreme finds himself utterly indisposed and unwilling to render the same allegiance to Mr. B——, however much Mr. B—— may have been inclined to appreciate him.

The next grade of native officials with whom the young civilian comes in contact are the officers styled deputy collectors and deputy magistrates, who exercise a very large amount of authority, and constitute the chief administrative staff of each district. These gentlemen are usually men of large practical experience, and if the young civilian has the good fortune to make a friendly acquaintance with any of them he will find them most valuable and useful friends and allies. He 149can consult them with confidence in any matters that are new to him, and they will gladly help him in his official anxieties. But whilst the native deputy demeans himself with due consideration and respect to all those who are or may be in authority over him, there are some of them who do not always lay their hearts open to the advances of a young civilian. The old-fashioned deputy who had risen from the ranks of practical experience, and had never troubled himself with the study of the English language, was usually a trustworthy friend. But in recent times the graduates of the Calcutta university, with their English accomplishments and classical diplomas, have filled the office of deputies, and they are not unusually of opinion that they could do all the official work of the country much better than the young Englishmen who are sent out to manage the districts and practically rule the country. It is much to be deplored, but it is unfortunately the fact that an education in the English-teaching schools and colleges does not ordinarily generate a sense of affection for the English Government or its representatives. The result is not unnatural. They have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and find that they are naked. They see their English rulers in the enjoyment of the best things which they naturally think should have fallen to their lot, and they are not disposed to be content with the good things which they have obtained under the English Government. They see that their English rulers are always ready to 150improve their position, and (not to put too fine a point on it) to increase their pay. So they constantly agitate for more pay and more power, and renewed concessions have only the effect of producing increased demands. Whether any concessions will satisfy them is quite another question. When the subordinate native judges, some years ago, had their pay increased from £600 to £1,200 a year, one of them called on a civilian judge, who proceeded to congratulate him on his good fortune. “I am quite disgusted, Sir!” replied the native gentleman. “I wanted to be appointed to the Patna district, and the Lieutenant-Governor has appointed me to Hooghly.” He did not pretend to care for the increased pay which he had obtained, but he still wanted something more. With regard to almost any officer in this position of well-paid independence, it might safely be predicated that if there had been no English Government to provide him with employment his paternal acres would have seldom yielded him an income of £50 a year, and possibly, as the retainer of some great man, he might have earned another £20 a year by some sort of service. But under no form of oriental native government would he have dreamt of a salary of £1,200 a year to be followed by a retiring pension of £600 a year. Very few people are aware of the very great strides by which the salaries of native officers have increased. We could name four able men, members of a middle class but talented native family, who before 1850 were collectively drawing pay which 151gave them £400 a year, and they were not discontented. In 1870, these same four men had so floated upwards with the stream that their united income was not less than £4,000 a year, and still they were hoping for more.

We began this paper by protesting against the incompetence of an Englishman to give a satisfactory account of the natives of India. But we will now give a special reason for this. The women of the country are a sealed book to the stranger. He has no opportunity of seeing them or speaking to them, and he can learn very little about them. Let anyone imagine the case of a native Indian gentleman coming to England, or France, or America, and having his eyes closed to the whole of the female population. In India, as long as a woman has any youth and beauty she is kept in strict seclusion from the public gaze. In large towns in certain quarters a few painted Jezebels may be seen looking down from their upper stories, but otherwise an European visitor might believe that youth and beauty did not exist in the land. And not only does the eye never behold the best portion of the female sex, but a rigid etiquette must be observed in conversation with a native gentleman in even alluding to the female members of his household. But it is not to be supposed that women in India do not exercise a considerable influence upon the men. They are doubtless good mothers, good wives, and affectionate sisters. They have their strong 152religious feelings, and are seldom negligent of the duties connected with the domestic worship of their household gods. But to the foreigners they are practically unknown. One might as well attempt to give an account of the terrestrial system, recognising the power of the sun, but utterly ignoring all the more genial influences of the moon. Perhaps the time may come when the women of India may assert themselves more publicly, and insist on the enjoyment of those privileges which their European sisters have as their birthright; but until that time comes, how can any Englishman venture to write about the real people of India? A civilian has no more true knowledge of the female portion of the native population than a native has of the members of the English peerage. Even in his court, as a magistrate, women are seldom brought forward, either as criminals or witnesses, though occasionally some sort of she-wolf is arraigned for having murdered some unfortunate child for the sake of its ornaments. Or it may be that some quarrel about a woman has led to a murderous dispute, and perhaps a muffled bundle of clothes said to contain a female is produced as a witness in the case before him. But it is exceedingly difficult even to understand the language as spoken by a woman, and he would certainly be a bold person who would venture to generalise on the national female character from such specimens as he may casually see from time to time in court.

153Still we are unwilling not to record a grateful reminiscence of the many kindnesses which we have received at the hands of many influential and wealthy native friends. How could our official duties have been performed with any amount of satisfaction or success, without the able and intelligent assistance so freely and zealously rendered by those over whom we were set in authority? And how can we forbear from acknowledging the long and unwearying faithful services of successive generations of native servants, who so often anticipated our wishes and carried out our orders to the best of their ability!

It is the privilege of every civilian officer to have the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the principal native gentlemen of the district in which he is employed. Soon after his arrival at a new station they come to call on him; whilst those who live within a convenient distance, and are inclined to be sociable, repeat their visits at intervals. There are, unfortunately, some native gentlemen who seem to think it unnecessary or undesirable to make such calls; and as the ways and habits of different civilians differ considerably, there are some officers who do not encourage such visits, so that their successors have some difficulty in making it known that they will gladly receive visitors. It is unnecessary to analyse too minutely the particular object which each visitor has in calling; but it is much better for a civilian to run the risk of any abuse of the opportunity by his visitor, than to shut his door upon 154a mere suspicion. Most native gentlemen are far too honourable to attempt any allusion in the course of their visit to any subject which it would be unbecoming to mention; and if any such attempt were made, it is easily in the power of the officer receiving the visit to put the subject aside with due regard to his own dignity. But the benefit, and pleasure, and information which are to be derived from such visits far outweigh any inconvenience or annoyance that may possibly arise from them. It is true that a portly native gentleman, whilst uttering the usual formal compliments of introduction, does not always remember to suppress those ebullitions which are considered amongst his own people to be indicative of his having enjoyed his breakfast; it is true that the language of polite flattery is sometimes rather over-strained; but when the first effervescence of such frothy nothings has subsided, the time will come when the visitor will work down to his natural powers of conversation, according to the capacity which he possesses. It is to be observed that two native gentlemen calling at the same time prefer to be received separately, unless, of course, they have some common object in calling; but, on the other hand, an officer in a high position will often find his advantage in having his visitors admitted simultaneously, especially if he has one day of the week particularly set apart for the reception of his native visitors.

But it may be said that these kind of visits do not amount to social intercourse. Certainly not. Nor, on 155the other hand, do we admit that there is any social intercourse, in the true meaning of the word, where the official goes to a party at the house of a wealthy native gentleman, to some special entertainment such as a nautch or fireworks in honour of a wedding or any other domestic occurrence. It will be admitted that two of the main elements of social intercourse according to English ideas consist (1) in dining together, (2) in the interchange of ladies’ society. But the native gentleman will seldom come to dine with the English gentleman; and although an English lady has no objection to receive the visit of a native gentleman, or to go to his entertainments, there seems to be little prospect at present of seeing a native lady come forth to welcome the English visitors at her husband’s house. Behind the mere external difficulties there come all the complications of caste and religious observance, and also of dress, of which the etiquette is almost unfathomable. The natives themselves are not in accord with one another on many points which come into prominence in their contact with English society; and although many parties are now given in the capital of Calcutta and in other large towns by high officials on the one hand, and by native gentlemen on the other hand, where people of both races meet for one or two hours, we fear that on such occasions there is very little real mutual enjoyment, and that the hosts are usually very glad when the last of the guests has departed.

156Several wealthy native noblemen and gentlemen in the interior keep a neatly-furnished bungalow or house, in which they can entertain their English friends who visit them on their estates for the sake of hunting and shooting. In the Burdwan district the late Maharajah used in former years to entertain parties of his English friends at the Dilkoosha and Kishensaugor garden-houses, especially at the time of the Burdwan Races. We could name several other similar places, but we must give the preference to the recollection of the happy days spent in the country house of our good old friend Rajah Kalinaraian Roy of Dacca. He had built a suite of apartments contiguous to his own old native palace, and it was his pleasure to invite his English friends from Dacca to come out and stay with him, to shoot tigers and hunt wild hogs. His property was very extensive, and contained a great portion of the Madhupore jungle, which runs more than fifty miles to the north of Dacca, with an average breadth of about ten miles. The ground is undulating and slightly hilly in parts, and is well intersected with streams of fresh water, so that it afforded a good harbour for all sorts of game, tigers, leopards, bears, buffaloes, sambur and spotted and hog deer, and a few wild boars, with a fair sprinkling of hares and partridges and jungle-fowl, and occasionally a woodcock. An easy drive of about twenty miles from Dacca brought the visitors to the Rajah’s palace, where the Rajah was sure to be ready to greet them 157on their arrival. He was a fine-looking man, with pleasant features and a strong vigorous figure. When he came out to join the shooting-party on his elephant he used to be stripped to the waist, and his shoulders and chest were covered with thick grey hairs, which were suggestive of the στηθεσσιν λασιοισι of Homer. A little fillet of white muslin bound round his temples protected his head from the sun; but of course his servant behind him in the howdah always carried an umbrella. He had a good battery of guns and rifles, and was a very good shot. It was almost always a sure sign that there was a tiger to be got when the Rajah came out with the party. The visitors were always ready to go out at any time to shoot whatever turned up, as they had come out for perhaps only a few days’ holiday and must take their chance. One great advantage of the shooting at the Rajah’s was that we usually went after a tiger on receiving information of “a kill.” An excited peasant would come rushing in with the news that his cow had just been killed, and imploring the Rajah to go out to take revenge. It was a pleasure to see the Rajah’s face when he felt sure that the information was true, and from his knowledge of the country he also was certain that the tiger was watching the carcase from a patch of cover which could be conveniently beaten by the elephants. By approaching the cover judiciously, and with due regard to the wind, we were almost certain to find a tiger, and it was our fault if it was not killed.

158The Rajah was a large landholder, and the visitors at his house had a most favourable opportunity of seeing how he managed his property and conducted his affairs with his tenants and his neighbours. The people flocked in daily in considerable numbers to attend the Rajah’s office, and if they had leisure they would come and have a good stare at the English visitors. The principal part of the office-work was carried on by the Rajah’s native ministerial officers of various grades and titles; but he almost invariably took his seat in office for an hour or two, and had no objection to our going to hear what passed between him and his people, for he was always courteous and considerate to them, and their complaints and grievances were not often directed against him, but were chiefly the result of petty disputes among themselves about caste and other such matters of which the Rajah was a highly competent judge. He would occasionally order a fine to be paid, or compensation to be levied from the delinquent party, and disregard to such an order was seldom exhibited. It sometimes happened that our visits to the Rajah’s palace were paid on the native holidays and festivals; and on these occasions the whole country-side used to flock to the entertainments given at the Rajah’s expense. It is hardly necessary to say that he distributed charitable gifts in food and money day by day to a considerable number of religious mendicants and professional beggars; but on the great holidays or festivals the 159expenditure of gratuitous food was something enormous, and due respect was shown to the visitors according to their various ranks and grades in native society. Music and song and dancing would last long past midnight, and few of the guests were allowed to go away empty-handed. It would be difficult to imagine a more genial and healthy state of relations than that which existed generally on the Rajah’s estates between him and his people. Doubtless many of them were poor and ignorant, but the mild despotism with which the Rajah ruled them required very little tempering from the interference of English law or officials.

With regard to his English visitors, the Rajah showed the kindest hospitality. He did not object if they took out their own provisions and wines, and their own cook, for the better preservation of their own health. But the Rajah always had supplies of food provided for his visitors, and his wines were undoubtedly the most costly that could be purchased by him from the Armenian shops in Dacca. The Rajah would usually look in to see his visitors when breakfast was nearly over, and preparations were beginning for the day’s sport. But his great delight was to come in at dessert when the visitors had done their dinner, and he would not object to smoke a quiet cigar with them. He was full of fun, and liked his little jokes and puns, especially if any visitor had any knowledge of the Persian language to enable the Rajah to show his proficiency in that tongue. For 160the Rajah did not know English, his education having been completed in the olden time, when Persian was the Court and fashionable language. He was full of anecdotes connected with shooting, and the various adventures with tigers in which he had shared with the best sportsmen from Dacca for a long course of years. He was a capital mimic, and it was easy to recognise his imitation of some of the old sportsmen in their moments of excitement. He used to have his little son and daughter brought into the room in their smartest native dresses. The son has now grown up, and is a worthy and liberal successor to his father. The daughter came very quickly to the marriageable age, and after she was married it was no longer permissible for her to come down and talk to strange gentlemen. But she used to take opportunities of seeing the visitors, she herself being unseen; and, as a fact, the visitors were almost always paraded quietly so that they might be seen by all the ladies of the Rajah’s household. He had two wives, of whom the eldest was childless, the second wife being the mother of his two children. To those with whom he was best acquainted he was in the habit of discoursing about his domestic affairs, and, if imperious native custom had not forbidden it, we believe that he would have been very willing to have introduced them to his wives, when English ladies were of the party, they were always taken into the inner apartments to make the acquaintance of the ladies. Perhaps one of the 161most curious illustrations of the incongruity of native and English feeling occurred during one of our visits. The Rajah’s daughter had been married to a Kulin Brahmin of the highest caste, who lived with her at the Rajah’s palace. But as he was a man of specially high caste, it was his privilege to be married to any number of wives whose parents could pay for their espousal to him. And so we became accidentally witnesses of the occasion on which the young husband set forth with a grand marriage procession from his own first wife’s house, in order to be married to another young lady of high family. It is an Hindoo institution, and it was not in the Rajah’s power to resist it for his own daughter’s sake. But to the English visitors, especially to the ladies who were present, the whole proceeding seemed very uncomfortable, and the more so as we were fully aware that the Rajah and his daughter were, in their inmost hearts, most averse to what was taking place.

As we have ventured to write of our old Hindoo friend, Rajah Kalinaraian Roy, we feel bound to speak in no less grateful terms of the chief Mahomedan zemindars in Dacca, the Nawab Khajeh Abdul Gunnee, and his son, the Nawab Khajeh Ahsanoollah. They too had a shooting-box at a convenient distance from Dacca, to which they would invite their English friends, and they kept a stud of about twenty elephants, some of which were of the finest and staunchest of their kind. They were most liberal and 162good-natured in lending their elephants to those whom they could trust, though there were always plenty of elephants at Dacca, as it is the head-quarters of the Government elephant depôt. Many years after I had left Dacca, they sent a couple of elephants to meet a friend of mine nearly a hundred miles from Dacca, when he wanted them with the Calcutta Tent Club. In every public and private work of utility and charity both father and son were equally munificent. They sent their handsome contributions to the subscriptions raised for various charitable purposes in England. They were always amongst the first to give whatever was needed for the improvement of the town and district of Dacca, and for the good of its inhabitants. To the poor and needy they never turned a deaf ear, and whenever an opportunity presented itself they were always ready with their handsome entertainments in honour of the Lieutenant-Governors or any other great people who visited Dacca. We wish them long life and prosperity. But we must reluctantly put an end to the record of those many pleasant days which we spent in Dacca, nearly twenty years ago, with this imperfect acknowledgment of how much was due to the kindness of our Hindoo and Mahomedan friends there.

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Introductory: General Remarks on Tropical Climates.

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Management and Rearing of Children.

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Precedents in Military Law; including the Practice of Courts-Martial; the Mode of Conducting Trials; the Duties of Officers at Military Courts of Inquests, Courts of Inquiry, Courts of Requests, &c., &c. The following are a portion of the Contents:—

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Contents of Vol. I.:—Book I.—Introductory.—The Conquest of the Punjab and Pegu.—The “Right of Lapse.”—The Annexation of Oude.—Progress of Englishism. Book II.—The Sepoy Army: its Rise, Progress, and Decline.—Early History of the Native Army.—Deteriorating Influences.—The Sindh Mutinies.—The Punjaub Mutinies.—Discipline of the Bengal Army. Book III.—The Outbreak of the Mutiny.—Lord Canning and his Council.—The Oude Administration and the Persian War.—The Rising of the Storm.—The First Mutiny.—Progress of Mutiny.—Excitement in Upper India.—Bursting of the Storm.—Appendix.

Contents of Vol II.:—Book IV.—The Rising in the North-west.—The Delhi History.—The Outbreak at Meerut.—The Seizure of Delhi.—Calcutta in May.—Last Days of General Anson.—The March upon Delhi. Book V.—Progress of Rebellion in Upper India.—Benares and Allahabad.—Cawnpore.—The March to Cawnpore.—Re-occupation of Cawnpore. Book VI.—The Punjab and Delhi.—First Conflicts in the Punjab.—Peshawur and Rawul Pinder.—Progress of Events in the Punjab.—Delhi.—First Weeks of the Siege.—Progress of the Siege.—The Last Succours from the Punjab.

Contents of Vol III.:—Book VII.—Bengal, Behar, and the North-west Provinces.—At the Seat of Government.—The Insurrection in Behar.—The Siege of Arrah.—Behar and Bengal. Book VIII.—Mutiny and Rebellion in the North-west Provinces.—Agra in May.—Insurrection in the Districts.—Bearing of the Native Chiefs.—Agra in June, July, August and September. Book IX.—Lucknow and Delhi.—Rebellion in Oude.—Revolt in the Districts.—Lucknow in June and July.—The siege and Capture of Delhi.

(For continuation, see “History of the Indian Mutiny,” by Colonel G. B. Malleson, p. 23.)

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CIVIL.—Gradation Lists of Civil Service, Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. Civil Annuitants. Legislative Council, Ecclesiastical Establishments, Educational, Public Works, Judicial, Marine, Medical, Land Revenue, Political, Postal, Police, Customs and Salt, Forest, Registration and Railway and Telegraph Departments, Law Courts, Surveys, &c. &c.

MILITARY.—Gradation List of the General and Field Officers (British and Local) of the three Presidencies, Staff Corps, Adjutants-General’s and Quartermasters-General’s Offices, Army Commissariat Departments, British Troops serving in India (including Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Cavalry, Infantry, and Medical Department), List of Native Regiments, Commander-in-Chief and Staff, Garrison Instruction Staff, Indian Medical Department, Ordnance Departments, Punjab Frontier Force, Military Departments of the three Presidencies, Veterinary Departments, Tables showing the Distribution of the Army in India, Lists of Retired Officers of the three Presidencies.

HOME.—Departments of the Officer of the Secretary of State, Coopers Hill College, List of Selected Candidates for the Civil and Forest Services, Indian Troop Service.

MISCELLANEOUS.—Orders of the Bath, Star of India, and St. Michael and St. George. Order of Precedence in India. Regulations for Admission to Civil Service. Regulations for Admission of Chaplains. Civil Leave Code and Supplements. Civil Service Pension Code—relating to the Covenanted and Uncovenanted Services. Rules for the Indian Medical Service. Furlough and Retirement Regulations of the Indian Army. Family Pension Fund. Staff Corps Regulations. Salaries of Staff Officers. Regulations for Promotion. English Furlough Pay.

Containing a Correct List of the Twenty-First Imperial Parliament, summoned to meet for their First Session—March 5th, 1874.

House of Peers—House of Commons—Sovereigns and Rulers of States of Europe—Orders of Knighthood—Science and Art Department—Queen’s Household—Government Offices—Mint—Customs—Inland Revenue—Post Office—Foreign Ministers and Consuls—Queen’s Consuls Abroad—Naval Department—Navy List—Army Department—Army List—Law Courts—Police—Ecclesiastical Department—Clergy List—Foundation Schools—Literary Institutions—City of London—Banks—Railway Companies—Hospitals and Institutions—Charities—Miscellaneous Institutions—Scotland, Ireland, India, and the Colonies; and other useful information.

Allen’s Indian Mail contains the fullest and most authentic Reports of all important Occurrences in the Countries to which it is devoted, compiled chiefly from private and exclusive sources. It has been pronounced by the Press in general to be indispensable to all who have Friends or Relatives in the East, as affording the only correct information regarding the Services, Movements of Troops, Shipping, and all events of Domestic and individual interest.

The subjoined list of the usual Contents will show the importance and variety of the information concentrated in Allen’s Indian Mail.

GEORGE ELIOT.

EMILY BRONTË.

GEORGE SAND.

MARY LAMB.

MARGARET FULLER.

MARIA EDGEWORTH.