UC-NRLF DS 485 H3 H8 MAIN r DEI B 3 ma fi7i ^s IN io90 ^^^ 1891. COMPRISINa ALL THE LETTERS ON RABAD AFFAIRS WRITTEN TO THE MADRAS #•/ BY ITS HYDERABAD CORRESPONDENT DURING 1890 J^1 • . .' * . > ', » HYDEEABAD "■^-'''--■'■^ IN 1890 AND 1891. COMPRISINa ALL THE LETTERS ox HYDERABAD AFFAIRS WRITTEN TO THE MADRAS BY ITS HYDERABAD CORRESPONDENT DURING 1890 J^1o. People would do well to recognise where power is centered. It is no use allowing false notions of oldest and noblest Hindu families in the State info the scale against any possible oppo- sition in high places. But this consoled him, that the Rajah had been in the Clnb'.s rooms a few hours previously, and called away by urgent business els«,'where, left assurance of his sympa- thy with tlie object (f the meeting and as snch would no doubt subscribe his name to the memorial that might be voted to be submitted to the Government bv the meeting. Then i-eading out Mr. Krishnamachari's proposition, he continued : He knew every one would admit that the advantages accruing from a sojourn, however short, in the land of the most enlightened people on the face of the eartli, the English — in the land of those whom Providence had put in charge of the destinies of India — were very great. If a short sojourn by reason of giving an insight into the thoughts and feeliugs of the ^V'est was so advantageous, how much more must it be when made with the object ( f [ill e lucaii ,nal t;ainiug t'erc ? Whether the Shastras allowed of Hindus crossing the seas or not, he could not say. Opinions were divided upon the point — the same passages in the Shastras were differently construed. But this he could say, the times in which we were living were not the same as those in wliich our ancestors had lived, that we could not, with impunity, remain stationary while all the rest of the w^orld was moving, that the wave of enlightenment, of advanced thought was growing bigger and bigger day by day, that the tide was increasing in volume and to stem it back would be attended with grave ccmsequences. As to antagonism to Hindus going to England, it was not as strong as it had been — as time advan- ced it grew weaker. The caste people, even Brahmins, were now, in a way of cotu'se, willing to admit their Engiand-retuiiied n brethern back into cai5te— as pvir!f»nce(l in the case of a Brahmin Barrister in Bano-alore. This itself showed that belief and prejudice however stronc^ly gronndod must give way to the in- fluences of timo and circunistatices. The major portion of the population in the Nizam's Dominions was Hindu — and Govern- ment should be memorialised to show consideration to the claims of this portion, to encourage them educationally and in otiier ways, to give them opportunities of being serviceable to the State, such opportunities as those of proceeding to England in view to education. With these words, he called upon Mr. Krishuamachari to " move" his proposition. Mr. V. Krishuamachari, b. a., b. l., said : The chairman had said all that he might have said on the important question of Hindus making Sea-voyage. And he would not weary the meeting with any repetition. The Nizam's Government had sanctioned a number of scholavshij^s for the benefit of Hydera- badee youths desirous of prosecuting their studies in England. And they had entrusted the decision of the question of Hindus going to England to a number of men very orthodox and as such adverse to Hindus going to Englani]. This was a mistake and it needed to be corrected. Then he moved that the Nizam's Government be memoralized in the matter of sending Hindu students to England for purposes of education. Mr. P. Ramachandram Pillay, a member of the local bar, rising to second the proposition, said : He had been for many years resident in Secunderabad, in His Highness the Nizam's Dominions, and had alwavs taken interest in things affecting the welfare ot the people. Not being a high functionary in the State, he had not done much. But whatever it had been possible for him to 21 lectfition of a special public — was written within closed doors. This brings us to the first case. No information either about the working of the Accountant-General's Office or about the period **duriug which Jaya Eao was engaged in submitting the accounts of the li.'iliilities of the late Mukhtar-ul-mulk" — came out in evidence in ( 'ourt. Yet an account of the working of the ottice is given and reference is made to the period in the jiulguieut above referred to. Where and how did Mr. Afsul Husaiii get information regarding these ? This question certainly does not furnish any contradiction to the ugly rumours I have alhuled to— it does not weaken the impression produced on the public mind by tlie rumours ; on the other hand, it strengthens it. Jus' as ^Ir. Gya Persad was taking charge of the office of the Deputy Accuuntant-Geueral, a memo was submitted to him from the Pre-audit Department. He attached thereto a memo expressing his opinions thereon and passed it on to the Accoun- tant-General for final orders. And the Accountant-Genei*al did issue an order holding the Assistant Accountant-General of the Pre-Audit Department wholly responsible for the cor- rectness of cheques. There is no doubt that the latter part of this order by itself is rather ambiguous. But taken as a wliole the order leaves not the slightest room for doubting that the Accountant General confirmed Mv. Gya Persad's memo. The Judue bftd it in his power to convince himself of this by refer- ring to the order-book in which this order, which had been circuhited in the Accountant General's office, finds jjlace. Although Mr. Gya Persad's Memo on the subject of the respon- sibility of issuing cheques is given in extenso in the judgment piablished in the Deccan Standard, all but a referrence to the Accountant General's order is studiously avoided — studiouBly, I saw advisedly, for the first two lines alone of this order ex- pose the falsity of the statement in the judgment, '^that the memo was not confirmed by the Nawab Mokaraub Jung Bahadur, the Accountant General when laid before him." So large was the amount and so varied the nature of the work that Mr. Gya Persad was expected to do, that shortly after he had take n 2S charge of the office of Depnty Accountant General, lie had to give up eren signing cheques "bliud-t'olded." In the light of all these factSj the portion of Afsul Husain'a judgment I have been concerned Tvith, furnishes the clearest possible case not only of suppressio veri but of sxiggestio falsi. No respectable member of the Bar bound to defend his client -would stoop to Buch subterfuges — Lut the senior puisne judge of ihe Adaiclut-ai- atiya is a privileged person ! It is stated in the judgment : "He (Mr. Gya Persad) farther admitted that such an innovation (as is suggested in his memo.) could not have been brought into force without the sanction of Government, and that such sanction was not obtained." "What .Mr. Gya Persad actually admitted was that if the Accountant Generals Office were a well-regulat- ed office no innovation in the "practices" oMt could be introduc- ed without the sanction of the Govermnent. I leave you to see how far this accords with the admission ascribed to Mr. G3'a Persad by the Judge. I may remark in passing that the Ac- countant General's office is one oE the worst managed offices in the State — not one man therein has his duties defined but de- pends for work solely on the discretion of the Accountant General. The judgment has it that '"'when Jaya Rao had to sign cheques he, either through misconception, or wilfully, also made it (the Accountant General's order on Mr. Gya Persad's memo.) a safeguard for himself, and leaning on it signed ficti- tious cheques. This is the very period during which Jaya Rao was enoraged in submittinor the account of the liabilities of the late Mukhtar-nl-mulk. ... At this time on account of intrigues in which both of them were engaged, Jaya Rao had become exceedingly bold. The link of these intrigues is in existence still." A tissue of statements more characterised by untruth and rancour, I have not come across. The first ficti- tious cheque, as shown in the statement given in the judgment became complete order for payment on the 21st Farwardi 1297 F, while the Salar Jung liability accounts had been settled long before that time, about Amerdad or Sharawar 1296 F. Yet the period of the issue of the fictitious cheques is said by Mr. Afsul 23 Hnsain to be syncronons with that of the settlement of the Salar Jung- liability-accounts, l^or Afsul ! Some one seems to have "^pilled" him to his heart's content. As for the latter part of the above quotation, where is the relevancy, I ask, of the remarks contained therein ? Further on in the judgment it is said : "Gaya Persad's evidence fully shows that he had gone to assist the Pleader in behalf of the accused. Under inch circumstances, the evidence given by him is of no use to the accused." How the evidence given by one who went to assist the accused's Pleader could bo of no use — the "learned'' Judge best knows himielf. So much about the sins of commission. Now I shall say a few words about those of omission. Here too Afsul Husain does not come off with flying colours. You will see from the foregoing that I have studiously avoided saying anything anient the merits of the case itself. But now it becomes absolutely necessary to refer to a point which in the trial of Jaya Rao and others was — intentionally or not I cannot say — altogether lost sight of. And the point is the question — whether the Treasury (as distinguished from the Accouutant-Generals Office )was quite guiltless (in a criminal sense) or nncnlpable (in a departmental sense). There is no doubt that the cheques were fictitioua. But in favour of whom were they cashed and why ? The cheques of the Accountant-Generals Office are payable to the person named therein or to his order, — and not to bearer. Now, it is an established fact that in few cases a first class Bank would undertake to receive cheques payable - to a particular person or "to order." But when once the res- ponsibility is undertaken, it becomes the duty of the Bank to satisfy itself of the genuineness of the endorsements on the cheques before they are cashed. What then were the steps, I ask, taken by the Treasury to assure itself that the endow- ments on the reverse of the fictitious cheques were genuine and bore the signatures of the persons in whose favour they were " drawn "? The failure to ascertain the genuineness or otherwise of the cheques means connivance, collusion or culpable neglect of duty. Has any attempt been made to make the Treasury Officer or his office people account for the failure ? No ; and wlij not ? Because as a favourite of the ^Minister, Muuaverkhan, then TreasuryiOflScer and now Officiatin<5 Accoun- laut-General, stands next only to the Nawab Tntesar Junj^. A potent reason to be sure ; and this is labelled Justice in Hy- derabad. I believe I have noticed the judgment enough for to-day to give you an idea of the prejudice and influences that Afsul Husain has allowed to be brought to bear upon his judgment This is the man vrho, secure from his positiou on the Bench against the penalties prescribed for defamation characterises the evidence of a witness as untrustworthy, without a shred of a reason for doing so, and indulges in gratuitous insinnations with respect to him. And this is the man too who sat in judg- ment over Java Rao, once Deputy Accountant-Geueral and sentenced him to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 5,000 and who sits in judgment over such men as the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung and the Rajah Srinivas Rao, to award —God knows ! — what punishment. 2B Htdeeabad, 27th November 1890. The gnasbiug of teeth and searching of hearts caused in certain official circles by uiy letter on the Hyderabad Treasury frauds published in your issue of the 14th Instaut— the' running man might have seen. Speculation has been rife in some quarters as to the authorship of the letter — and I am credibly- informed that tlie house of a poor innocent suspect who has the misfortune to live in the Moglai Jurisdiction was searched. But no one has ventured to gainsayi,the facts mentioned therein or question the inferences drawn therefrom. The Government oro-an, as expected, attempted a reply to my letter, but the reply only tended to expose the extreme weakness of the cause it essayed to advocate. Evidently on the principle, "Call a dog by a bad name and then hang it," the "Deccan Standard" termed my experience "'unfledged"' and slurred over my remarks anent the administration of Justice m Hyderabad. Though it is not pleasant or convenient for interested men here to remember, it may interest your readers to know, that what I said in my letter about the way in which things are managed in the Hyderabad Courts had been stated before that in stronger terms by a well- known Barrister who has had a great deal to do with these courts in connection with Gribble vs. Gallagher thus: "It is a well-knoAvn fact that Justice in Hjalerabad is a toss-up, and the Judges are all more or less i)artizans of the Government." The '"Hyderabad Record" reproduced my letter on the Treasury frauds iu its issue of the 24lh Instant. But for its having changed hands, the letter wonld 1 am sure, have been allowed to pass unnoticed by the "Hecord.'' Ivither its present proprie- tors are strong enough to do without the favour of the men in power or they are not aware of the threat — to withhold all Government patronage, in the s-hape of Job-work, &c., — held out to its former" proprietors in a confidential letter from the Home Secretary, on the occasion of the publication, in its columns, of a paragraph to the effect that Mushtak Hussain was more auixous to add a few ciphers to his own salary than to dg 4 S6 justice by the living representative of an old illustrious Hindu family. The "Record" while reproducing the letter, gave its readers to understand that it reserved its remarks on the case the letter dealt with for a future occasion as it 'was still suh- judiec' Mark ! The case according to the decision passed by Afzul Hussain in which old Jaya Rao with several others is in chains is sub-judice in the opinion of the Editor of the "Hyder- bad Record". This, as well as the fact that the ''Hindu," pub- lished hundreds of miles away from Hyderabad, evinces greater interest in its affairs and the welfare of the Hyderabadees than the papers in the place, furnishes a curious commentary upon the way in which the local Journalists dischai'ge their ' solemn trust.' I have one more local Journal to notice. The "Safeeri — Deklian " published a translation, a nnitilated one though it was, of my letter. And for this, I am informed, the Editor was severly rated by one of the smaller fry of the present Govern- ment at the race stand, the other day. I have to say a few words about the second case in connec- tion with the Treasury frauds. The Government has so far been influenced by public opinion that instead of committing the Nawab I mad Nawaz Jung and the Rajah Srinivasa Rao and others to the " tender mercies " of the despotic legal instincts of Afzul Hussain, it has appointed a commission to try them though, on what principle the 'self-same Afzul Hussain has been nominated President of the commission, God only knows. In this case Uilwar Nawaz Jung, the principal offender, has been granted pardon by tlie Government. But what the object or nature of ''the pardon" is, it is not possible to say. Up to now, Dilwar Nawaz Jung has not been examined on oath as " Queen's evidence". And whether the pardon secures to him immunity from punishment only, or immunity from punishment as well as the right to keep unto himself the 4,50,000 Uali Sicca rupees due from him to Government, those who were instrumental in the granting of the pardon alone could say. If the pardon has for its object the providing against Dilwar Nawaz Jung's being 27 punished as well as parting with the money, then it would mean that that man who profitted by the frauds has been bribed to incriminate others. Besides this, I have to mention another fact which goes far to show that the proceedings of the Government are not dictated by the best of motives. I mean the ommission of the then Treasurer's name or the names of his office men from the list of the accused in the second case — which has caused not a little surprise in knowing- circles here. The cheque for Rs. 47,000 was payable to Chaturbuja Dass, and yet the money was paid to Saligram. And the statement that it was done so on the strength of a verbal order from Jaya Rao, the Deputy Accountant General, does not count for much in the face of the fact that Jaya Rao denies having issued such an order. The systematic omission of the then treasurer's name from the list of the accused in this as well as the first case in connection with the frauds, is significant. You will see from the above that I have said nothing to prejudice the case now pending. A case has recently come to my knowledge, which repre- sents Mushtak Hussain's Government in no favourable lio-bt — or rather which throws a flood of light on the mysterious ways of it. One Tirumal Rao, once a clerk in the Accountant Gene- ral's Ofiice, inherited on the demise of his two elder brothers, all i\\e'n'lMuhtas and Rasoons. He had been in the enjoyment of the revenues of these Mtiktas and Rasoojis for sometime, when he was asked, I am told to do sometliiug which he refused to do, either because he was honest or because he dreaded consequ- ences. And in consequence, official persecution was initiated against him. The question of Tirmal Rao's right to inherit his brother's estate was raked up. And a precis of the case was made up by the most trusted of Mushtak Hussain's assistants in the Revenue Secretariat, so as to warrant the confiscation of the MuJctas and Uasoons. Mushtak Hussain, the minister de facto, signed the 'precis ; the Nawab Basheerud Daulah, the puppet minister, approved of the confiscation ; and Tirimal's Muhtas and Hatoons were duly confiscated, I may state here that the Simnadhs authorizing po'=!SGi3f3ion of the MuJdas etc., that Tirumal Rao held, had l)een granted to him under the anthority and seal of the late Sir Salar Juno- If; and that a long Roohhar issued by the Political and Financial Secretary's office during the time of the Second Salar Jung on which the whole case hinged was not so much as referred to in the precis al- though it Iwd been addressed to the Revenue Secretary ai.d formed the most important paper of the file of the case in the Revenue Secretariat. Tirumal Hao, though a very insignificant man, somehow managed to get a hearing from His Highness the Nizam. And at the instance of His Highness, than whom it would be difficult to find a ruler more clear headed and in- terested in tlie welfare of his subjects, ' the case was gone into by two of the most prominent officers of His Higlmess' staff. The Assistant in the Revenue Secretariat who had drawn up the precis, was Summoned before them, the proceedings which had resulted in the confiscation of the Muldas etc, were quash- ed, and the Muktas and Rasoons were restored to Tirumal Rao. It is rumoured in the city that orders were about to be passed for the suspension of the Assistant in the Revenue Secretariat when the all-powerfal Mushtak Hussain interceded and saved his protege. Now, I ask, should not the Government have enquired as to the reason for ignoring in the precis the existance of the Roohkar from the Political and Financial Secretary's Office ! And should not Mushtal.': Hussain whose signature the precis bears be held responsible for it ? Sir A smanjah has recently issued to the City Kotwal an order to the effect that he should not arrest any of his own or the Nawab Vicar-ul-Umra's retainers under any cii'cumstances— thus making an invidious distinction of his and Vicar-ul-Umri's retainers and those of Sir Kurshedjah and other noblemen. The inadvisability, if not the unreasonableness, of the order is apparent, and I refrain from making any comments upon it. I have been placed in possession of some facts giving an iagigUt iuto the meau^ employed to bring about the uon-accep- tanoe of Mnshtalc Hiissain's application for retirement on pension. I hold these over for another letter and hope in the meantime to be able to assure myself of the correctness of them. The Nawab Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur C. I- E. of Calcutta is sti'l here. He do; s not seem to be a 'persona grata to some of those in power ; but^ all the same, he is receiving a hearty reception at the hands of the noblemen and the leaders of people here. And he is sure to carry away pleasant recollections of liis visit to this city. Last night the members of the Chaddar- gliMut "Hindu Social Club," of which the Rajah Murli Manohur Bahadur is President, assembled in the club rooms to meet the Nawab. He came in at about G-15 p. m. and in his chat wiili the members, wliioh lasted for 'about two hours, proved hiinsolE a genial large-hearted oldnian who carried his 62 years lightly. He said he noticed with regret the absence of sym- pathy between those at the helm of affairs and their Hindu fellow subjects, and felt surprised that the Hindus who formed a vast majority in the State were not represented in the admi- nistration. He spoke of the Indian National Congress move- ment and said that though he sympathised with it, he had to keep aloof from it because he did not waut to lose touch with his Moslem follovrers who wore not advanced enough to ap- ]n-eciate the congress and thus lose all chance of doing good to them. Then he spoke of the necessity there was for Hindus a.nd Mahomadans to unite and "fight" constitutionally for previleges, the low state into which indigenous industries had fallen and so on and so on. He bade the members ''goodbye" at about 8-30 p. m. Hyderabad, 6th Decemher, 1S90 ^ The past week lias beeu eventful otherwise tlim politically for the execatiou of the sentence of death by hanging passed on a Madrasee lad, named Dorasawmi, for murdering a child, and the preferring of a charge of child-murder against Mr. W. D. Edwards, of the now defunct " Telegraph'' and of the " Hydera- bad Prize Union Lottery" notoriety by his wife. Dorasawmi suffered the extreme penalty of the law last Monday morning. And Mr. Edward's murdering his son, a boy of about 10 years of ao-e, turned out to be the reverse of truth — the creation, evidently, of the imagination of an anxious, sorrowing mother. He was acquitted last Thursday morning, by Mr. Bosanquet, c.s., on the strength of the evidence of Drs. Hehir and Lawrie — who had held medical examinations on the body of the deceased child — which went to show that the child had died from exhaus- tion caused by chronic dysentery. An item of social news that comes to me from a trustworthy quarter is worth telling, as giving one an idea as to what an exaggeiated sense of their own importance and influence some j)eople entertain in Hyderabad, and how much they calculate upon it. A gentleman on the staff of His Excellency Sir Asman- jah Bahadur introduced, I am told, into the company assembled at Basheer-Bagh on the occasion of the last dance therein, a young lady not generally received in what is called high class society. The society ladies could not put up with this, and they in a body went into the cloak-room and ordered out their carriages — with the result that the ' offender ' chaperoned his young lady away from the scene though much against his will. In my last letter I referred to Sir Asmanjah as " the puppet minister." Your readers might like to know why I did so. It is an open secret that Sir Asmanjah could not — at any rate, does not — dispose of any single ' paper,' although hundreds of such papers are submitted to him daily. In the first instance each paper goes to Mushtak Husain who reads it and pins to it a 31 scrap of paper containing an endorsement or opinion for the Minister to copy out thereon. This fact could be testified to by most of the heads of offices here, fur at one time or another some of these scraps with a tale to tell have found their way, through carelessness surely, into them and caused no little amusement therein. This conveys truth but not the full truth about the way the minister administers the State. Mehdi Hassan as being next in rank to Mushtak Husain is accorded the privilege of submitting papers from his ofiice direct to the Minister. And even he can get no orders passed without the knowledge of the Minister de fado. Whenever Mehdi Hussan is announced at the Minister's place, the Minister inquires if Mushtak Husain is there; and if the wise Mushtak is non est Mehdi Hussan, however important and urgent in character his papers may be, is made to await his arrival. And then both are ushered into the Minister's presence. Sir Asmanjah hears the papers read by Mehdi Hassan, keeping a close watch all the while on his factotum's face, and guided by the expression of it — this by the way, puts me in mind of Rajah Rampal Sing's description of the ways of some members of Lesrislative councils — he eiiher afiixes his signature to the papers or refuses to do so and asks fur the papers to be left with him. This is a fact — and represents a funny, though very much to-be-regretted state of alfaii-s. If the Minister is so helpless why should not, it might be asked^ Mushtak IIuou here is aware, put in his resignation expecting to be asked by His Highness to withdraw it because of the Ministers':^ influence with him. And when it transpired that His Highness was willing to accept his resigna- tion, he felt like one caught in the meshes of his own net and summoned two of his henchmen to help him oat of the diffi- culty. He and two other high officials in the State met in a solemn conclave and deliberated and deliberated nntil at last they hit upon the most effective remedy — that of raising a cry of public calamity. Then the partisans went about one by one at regular intervals making iMushtak Hussain's resignation out to be a "public calamity." And this cry of ''public calamity" saved Mushtak Husain. We have a fair, every year, held on the occasion of a festi- val in Sri Ramaswami's Temple at Jeedkal — in the Eastern Division — the part of His Highuess's Dominions said to have most benefitted by the Nawab lute&ar Jung's symuthy towards ^3 the ryots ? The fair for this year came off on Sunday, the 30th of November. Several high officials of the State went to wit- ness it. AuJ one of them, the Nawa'o Medhi Hassan Fateh Nawaz Jim.^' proposed the health oi "one whose name was inseparably connected witli the a.lvance, the prosperity and well-being of the Eastei'u Division," — that, is, the Nawab iutesar Jung- — in terms that could not be applied to any one person living He spoke of the lucky Nawab as perfection all roinul. 1 am not going to qnairel with him for this, foi" I know as well us any one el-e, that every one ha:^ hi.s own way of lookint; at things, has neither the sanit; eves tj look with or tlje same medium to look thiough. But only 1 wish to look at his '•perfection" for a little while as a servant of the Government — as the Kevenue Secretary. According to a Government order a sub tenant could be ousted out of a land, by the owner, within 12 years of his possession of it by means of a complaint to a Revenue Court. And yet those at the liead of affairs in one of the Divisions disposed of thousands of cases on the assumption that a sub-tenant in possession for o years coidd not be ousted except bj a complaint to the Civil Court — the more costly of the reventte and civil courts^ The Nawab Mushtak Husain who must have, as the Revenue Secretary, heard some of these cases in appeal; failed to take any notice of this injustice — this con- travention of Government orders. Then again, Mushtak Hussain, thotigh placed in possession of the most notorious facts about the administration of the Parbani District has not stirred so much as a. finger of hi.'^ with i-egard to the matter. Such instances Could Ije nmltiplied. So much for Mu.>htak Ilussain as the iievenue Secretary — for 'his sympathy towards the ryots.' I should like to tell you liow the Hmdu Rajas in Hi.? Highue-ss's Dominions fare at the hands of the clique in power — what a hard time of it they ha\e un'ier the present regime. You will remember that some weeks ago I referred in your columns to the litigation threatening between the Raja Sahib of Anagondi aud Bausi Kajub because the latter, the Raja Sahib's creditgr, had been allowed, by the Revenue Secretary, to take forcible possession of two villages, Koorgiil and Sangameswar, compris- ing- the private estates of the Raja Sahib. The most remarkable thing ill this connection was, as you will remember, that when the IJaja Sahib oi Anagondi appealed tu Mnshtak Husain as Revenue Secretary against the arbitrary proceedings which had culminated in Bansi IJaja's taking forcildo possession of the viilao-es, he was referred — li}' Muslitak liussan — to a civil couit. Now, I shall put licfore you a short account of the way in which the l>aja Sahib has been reduced by the powers-that-be to the position of a Raja only in name. You know that Anagondi is what has descended to the present Raja of the once powerful kingdom of A'ijayanagar. The First M3'S0re war reduced its limits considerably, and the second ^Mysore Avar reduced them further still — and in consetpience the revenue fell from 00,000 star pagodas to 8,710 star pagodas. This brings us to the time of Sri Kri.shna Deva Rajulu who, dying childless, was succeeded by his Avidow Kani Kuppamma. The Kani adopted Sri Sriranga- dava Rajulu, the present Haja in Farwardi 129 7 Fasli. Recog- nizing this adoption the Nizam's GoA"ernment, curiously enough, directed that Anagondi should pay an annual peishcush of H. S. Rs. 10,0U0. The state not having paid jyeishcush oi any kind before this, the Nizam's Government was appealed to against this new ruling — and consequently the Anagondi state Avas put under al tachnicnt and the Snbadar of tlie Southern Division was sent to Anagondi to report on the State of the place. The Snbadar after due enquiry, reported the inability of the Raja to pay any feishcusli ; and this, you would be surprised to learn, resulted in a Roohkar from the Revenue Secretary, dated the 24th Aban, 1298 Fasli, Avhich rais^ed the prushciish from 10,000 to 18,800 H. S. Rs. payable with retrospective etfect from Faslj 1297. The iiaja Sahib appealed again; and Mi". A. J. Duulop, Jnspector-Gieneral of Revenue Avas deputed by the Government to visit, Anagondi to report thereon. Mr. Dunlop, after seeing things fur himself there, rtcommended the imposition of a nominal /^riVia^tf/i t)f il. S, Rs. 1,000 per uniiuLu. XluRi recom- 3& mendation foil flit upon tlie anthoritie?? concernef!, The Raja Sahib thoreon snbinitted a mennrial to His Ilioliiiess the Nizara throiioli his Private Secretary. And liis inernovial and repeated reminders having elicited no reply, tlie Raja Sahib's counsel, Mr. S. B. R. Aiengar, Barrister-nt-uaw, called upon the Private Secretary, I am told, and at his suorc^estion has made a represen- tation of the whole case to the Resident. The Resident's deci- sion is awaited eaoerly by all Hindus. The tale that this tells of the procedure of the present administration, I have no time to comment upon in this letter. I am inf )i'med that the (,'ity High Court, has called upon Mr. Rudra to show cause why lie should not be debarred from appearing before it for his remarks about the administration of justice iu Hyderabad in connection w^th Gribble versus Gallagher. 5(^ Hyderabad, loth Vpoernhpr 1890. The local papers are full of a horrible murder committed in the city. A native Christian woman (a Mahomedan convert) ■was in the nl)?enoe of her hnsljan'i, decoyed into an ont-oF-the- way part of the city on Satui'day evenino-, last, and tliere, stripped of the valuahles about lier person, wa.s inhnmnnly tortured to death. The mano-led heap was carefully packd up in a box and sent the next day to the Hydeiabad Goods Shed to be booked to Lahore as a consij^nraent of wearing' aDpaivl. The booking office beinof closed — it beino- a Snndav — the box was taken back to the (itv, but it was brouylit to the Goods Shed on Monday, the 8th instant, and was dnlv booked ; and a receipt being granted thcicfor. ilio cons^igenee, by name Abool Hoossain, walked away withont in the least betraying himself. Hours passed and the murderous deed remained unsuspected until the stench sent forth by the dead body in an advanced state of decomposition attracted attention. Then the city Kotwal and others were sent for, and in their ])ersence the box was opened and the mutilated corpse was pulled out of a gunny bag in which it had been tied up to unfold its frightful tale. Those concerned in the murder including the man who presented the package at the Goods shed to be booked to Lahore, have — thanks to the energy o£ our citv Kotwal — since been apprehended. The chief actor of this blood — curdling tragedy is said to be a pleader related to the person who acted as crown-prosecutor in the tirst of the Treasury frauds cases. You know that roughly speaking seven-ninths of the po- pulation of His Highness the Nizam's Dominions, are Hindus. And common sense would allow to the interests and comforts of this vast majorit}' a larger share of the attention of the Ruler than that devoted to any other section of the people. But what is it that we see here ? The paucity — if not the utter absence — of Hindus in the higher grades of the services, is striking and takes every new co:ner by surprise. And as if the systematic withholding of official favour were not enough, the Hindus are nof; even permitted to eelebrato tlieir feptiValf? nnrlistnrlied. Wlirnover Da.*ra/'a falls within the ten days of I\Ioh©rrum, the Hiiidns are forbidden to ob.scrve the ceremonies of the season until IMolK^-i'uin is over. And the annoyance and discomfort this cause.-;, a ITi liu alone can understand. Happy are the Hindus of Barhaiupore who narrowly escaped being- put on a level with the Hindus f these iJominion ! They really need to be couirratulated on their rare s'ood fortune. Yon will remember that sometime ajj^o the Bombay Government deputed Mr. Silcox, R. c. s., and tlie Nizam's Government Rai Murlidhar to settle the boundary limits of their respective territories. This settle- ment necessitated the Hyderabad Government's givin*^ away a number of villages in return for others ; but it was secretly liinted to Ptai Murlidhar by some of the party in power that he should try and get from the Bombay Government the town of Barhampore, in Central India — containing the tombs of Sir Asmanja's ancestors — instead of these villages. Rai Murlidhar for some reason or other did not take the hint. And for this I am informed, it was proposed to deprive him of his office of First Talu(|dar at Aurnngabad and to appoint him to an inferior post. Rai Murlidhar heard of the intention of the Government and sent in his resignation. But— somehow — the resignation was not accepted and l^ai Murlidhar's degradation was never more thought of. Your readers can understand now wliat a fate threatened Barhampore not long ago. 1 might be permitted to put the Nawab Intesar Jung Ba- hadur — I begins pardon, I mean the Nawab Vicar-ul-Donlah Vicar-nl-mulk that he was exalted into at His Highness's birth- day Durbar on Tuesday last — a question. When the news of the Nnwab Fateh Nawaz Jung's having been called to the Bar (without his putting in the full number of terms) reached Hy- derabad many were glad and one in patticular^ viz., Mushtak Hussain, then the Nawab Intesar Jung and now the Nawab Vicar-ul-Dowlah Vicar-ul-mulk. And he gave expression to his gladness in a remarkable manner. He issued a circular that every one of those that wislied to congratulate the Nawab 38 on Ill's success by wire miorlit send him money enongli to cover the cost of a telef^rara to l^ni^lanrl. And lots of money poured in from the revenue officials in the Districts. Was Mnshtak Hnssain justified in issuino- this circular — j>rivate though it was ■ — knowing that coming from him, the Revenue Secretary, it would be regarded as a command by all his subordinates ? How might a Tahiqdhar have been dealt with for doing a similar thing ? His Highness's Birthday Durbar came off on the evening of Tuesday last. Forty one people were decorated with titles — but few of these, it might be remarked without the least fear of contrrdiction, 'waded' through meritorious services to honors. Probably, just as man does not live by hread alone, man does not attain to honors by service alone ! The titles, under the inspiration or at the request of some are so indiscrimiuately bestowed that it may well be feared that the day is not far off when respectable men will refuse to be " decorated " and regard these titles, like those in the reign of the last king of Lucknow as anything but badges of honor. I learn that Mr. Norton, of the Madras bar, has made a strong representation to the Government pointing out the neces- sity for removing Afzul Husain from the Commission appointed to try the Nawab Hassan-Bin- A bdulla and others. The repre- sentation is not likely to have any effect. I have been put in possession of some facts giving an insight into the wii-c-pulling of the "authors'' of the treasury frauds cases ; but I shall not communicate them to you until I have got them verified. Hyderabad, 20th December 1S90. Of all the letters, paragraphs and articles that have appeared recently in the local papers about the Hj'derabad Letters in the " Hindu" there is one letter that deserves notice, and it is from the pen of Mr. P.St. L. Connor, who "was Ageut, Manager and Editor of the " Hyderabad Record " since the death of the late huneuted Mr. Job b'olomon, and manager since the establish- ment of the " Eecord " press and paper." Mr. Connor has written to the papers to contradict a statement I made in my letter of the 29th ultimo about a threat having been held out to the "Record's" former proprietors to withhold all Government patronage in the shape of job-work, etc — in the interests of truth and justice fursooth. " Never was any such threat held out '' writes he " nor was even any kind of hint which the most extravagant imagination could have construed into a threat ever received." If so, Mr. Connor ought to be able to tell us how it was that most of the Government offices here stopped giving the "Record" Press any job-work just before Mr. Solomon's death — how it was that while the Government budget for 1299 F. was printed at the " Record " Press, that for 1300 F. was printed elsewhere. Is it not a fact that but for its having changed hands, the " Record " Press would still have been outside the pale of Government patronage ? 'ihe murder that I gave a short account of in my last letter is creating a good deal of sensation iu some circles here. The Chadderghat Christians seem to be almost unanimous iu think- ing that the deceased fell a prey to Moslem bigotry ; while some people ascribe the murder to jealousy ou the part of the dead woman's lovers. Be the motive for the crime what it may, the criminals need to be made examples of. The Rev. Mr. Gilder, of the Chaddarghat Methodist Episcopal Church, Avhose viu7h-nt way of defence" I could have found than stating the plain truth. 61 Hydebabat), 24th Janvary, 1:891 . As promised in a recent letter of mine I shall let you tnow how a gentleman who has the misfortune to he independent- spirited and to have the courage ci" his convictions, has been and is being persecuted here. The gentleman I refer to is no other than Mr. A. C. Rudia, Bai'rister-at-law. He set foot on this soil about two years ago — and he has been a marked man since. The success that greeted him on all sides at the ontset and the petty persecution and social "boycotting" that followed it close on its heels, tho treatment he has received from the Moglai officialdom ranging from utmost warmth to utmost frigidity, from petting to persecution : these show how very difficult it is for a self-respecting man to pull on well where factions reign sapreme, that sycophancy and time-serving alone can constitute the secret of success in a place where men in power are such as are bent upon self-aggrandisement. Mr. Rudra was received with open arms by every one here at the beginning. How he was shaken by the hand by the ofEcial "silk gloves," how Mehdi Hassan ''chaperoned" him into the favour of the officialdom, how he in his enthusiastic admiration proposed Mr. Rudra to a membership of the Nizam Club and how the Joint-Secretary of the Club seconded the proposal — all Hyderabad knows And how all this favour and friendship turned intu antagonistic factors — is equally well known. About the same time that he got into the Nizam Club, Mr. Rudra accepted the correspondentship of the '' Pioneer" — and then began his troubles. As the local representative of the "Pioneer" he was not going to act the apologist of the vagaries and the wrong-doing of the officials or their hangers on. In his tele- grams to the "Pioneer'^ which appeared in its issues of Novem- ber and December 1889, he evinced a spirit of independence and a determination to echo the people's voice at any cost which well-nigh took away the beath of his official friends and admi- rer&. Tliey saw what stuif he was made of, but thought that time would change him and convert hira into a blower of their trumpets. They thought wrong— Mr. Rudra's independence 62 did not flnsf. He persisted in his cause with the result that his ''friends" dropped off one after another. And by accepting a brief from the British officers concerned in the famous Sowar Case, he made himself "thorouf^hly" obnoxious to all in any way connected with the Government. Then came the declaration of ''war." It was held, by the powers-that-be, a crime deserving of exemplary punishment for any official to be on any good understandino- with Mr. Rudra. And it was in accordance with this unwritten order that such of the officials as responded to the invitations issued by Messrs. Rudra. Gribble and Syed All for a pic-nic at Golconda — one of the social events of last year — got what is officially known as the khanji wink and Messrs. Syed Ali and Gribble who were associated with " the offender " fared worse at the hands of the " Government." The "sinners" repented and were restored to iavour, but Mr. liudra stood recalcitrant — to suffer. Many methods have since been employed to cow him down and crush him. First in order came his "boycotting," from the Nizam's Club. The incidents connected with this are among the most remarkable in the annals of social life here. A challenge regarding his eligibility to membership of the Club made by a member on the 7th December 1889, and deemed "unfit for notice" at the time — was "entertained against Mr. Rudra on the lltli October, 1890, by the Secretary of the Club — the Nawab Fateli Nawaz Jung. A rule which ''refers to certain nationalities and not to the individual religious beliefs of those falling under the nationalities" was misinterpreted so as to operate against him. And he was turned out of the Club. This was followed by attempts to make this place too hot for him. Finding it difficult to get a hfiuse to live in, because of the hhanji wink, he took shelter under the roof of a friend. Even here he was not left in peace. A distinguished official of the State had sworn to see him out of the friend's house. And the following conversation between the official and the friend reveals what unscrupulous men we have holding sway here now and to what depths they can descend to infuse terror into those who dare to be independent. 63 Official. — '' I say, my friend the Nawab — spoke to me about Eudra last night. He said he was stopping with you. Is it true ? " Friend, — ^' Yes. The poor fellow could not get a house. So I put him up with me, uud meau to do so until lie gets a house." Official. — " You had bettor o;et rid of him as soon as you can. The cirkar is very angry with you. The Nawab told me that either you must drop Kudra or I must drop you. If you keep him long with you, it will be a sad look-out for you." Friend. — '-But how can I ask him to leave before he gets a house ? '"' Official. — '• How 1 can't say. But the Nawab told me that Rudra is a rebel [Bagi] and anybody that associates with him will be regarded as a rebel. That is tho Sirkars opiniouj and we shall do well to lespect it." As the result of this conversation, Mr. Kudra found himself within twenty-four hours of its tukiug place, occupying a house, the possession of which was soon to be claimed by u certain "would-be" tenant. While "knocking about" in this manner, Mr. Rudra was hauled over the coals for his remarks about the administration of justice in the Hyderabad Court in connection with Gribble versus Gallagher. I have seen the correspondence that has passed between the High Court and Mr. Rudra on this matter, and I fiud reason to believe that Mr. Hudra's position is unassailable and so I hope the High Court will be prudent enough to accept the explanation tendered by Mr. Paidra and be done with the ugly affair. ?ou have not heard as yet Mr. Editor — the last of the persecution. A high official of the State piiid a visit recently to the head office of the " Indian Thunderer." AVhat passed between him and the Editor-in-chief, no one knows, but there is good reason for believing that the official's ivisithasnot been altogether unsuccessful. It is reported that Mr. Rudra and his Editor differed in opinion ou a matter of , 64 considerable importance to tlie State, and tliis 'difference has resulted iu the non-appearance of Hyderabad telegrams in the columns of the paper. Here ends for the present the history of the persecution. The above is not the only instance in which a man has suft'ered for his independence in Hyderabad, Dozens of such instances have come to my knowledge — and I may have occasiop to refer to some at least of them in future letters. T was in Court last Thursday to hear the City murder case and was glad to notice that the High Court had perceived the desirability of providing representatives of the Press with seats. Very little of evidence taking was done because of the absence of several witnesses. And the case was adjourned to 12 o'clock to-da}'. Now that Mr. Hafiz Ahmed Raza Khan has brought himself to consent to admit further evidence against all the accused, I hope that evidence will be put in to proA^e that the murdered woman was known as Mumthiaz as well as Imthlaz, and the Judge will be pressed to send for Abdul Wahid's answer papers in the Pleadership examination iu order that the prosecu- tion might prove the letters found in Aboo Hasan's house to be in Wahid's handwriting. 1 have a few nuts for the apologists of the present Govern- ment to crack. Why and by whose authority was Syed Ahmed's pay stopped by the Accountant-General for a peric^d of about two months after the decision of Jaya Rao's case ? At whose intercession and according to whose orders was it paid to him ? On Avhat ground was it again stopped to be again paid in a lumpsum? And why has it been notified to a poor clerk, by name Kareetnuddeen, in the Accountant-Generars Office, that in case he does not try and get himself transferred to some other Department he will be dismissed from the service ? The Ilyderahad Record reports a curious case of miscarriage of justice iu one of the City courts. A maa stands accused of 65 havins? thrashed another to such an extent as to loosen two of his teeth, before a Mag-istrate. Tlie Magistrate goes through the evidence put bct'ore him, convicts the accused and sentences him to a certain punishment. The accused appeals. The Appellate Court sends one of the teeth which has fallen off since the decision of the Tjower Court to a IJalim for examination. The Hakim deposes to its not being a human tooth — with the result that the Court not only reverses the judgment of the lower Court but sentences the complainant to a year's imprison- ment foi' perjury. This is Htjderabad Justice. 66 IIydbkabad, 31st January, 1891. The City murder case has come to a close. Mr. Hafiz Ahmed Raza Khan delivered judgment last Thursday, acquitting Abdul Wahid, Abdul Rahman aud Ameeran on all the charges and sentencing Abool Husain to seven years' rigorous imprison- ment not for murder or abetment of murder, but for doing away with the evidence of the commission of the crime. After all that I have stated in former letters as to the mauuer in which the trial has been conducted, I need hardly tell you that the judg- ment, bearing as it does a clear impress of miscarriage of justice, has caused no surprise here. The last issue of a local paper makes mention of a rumour that has been going the round for sometime past, in connection Avith the murder case. Some one connected with the defence seems to have made up his mind to teach a lesson to people disposed to be as meddlesome as the Rev. Mr. Gilder, of the Chadarghat Methodist Episcopal Church, but for whom the murder might have gone the way of many cases of equal impor- tance — and offered a Rohilla in the City a sum of Rs. 500 with a view to induce him to assassinate the Reverend gentleman. The Rohilla proved the wrong person to be trusted with an offer of this sort. Being a recipient of many kindnesses at the hands af some l^mjab missionaries, he did not feel up to spilling the blood of a missionary — aud so he straightway carried the news to Mr. Gilder. Mr. Gilder communicated with the Residency authorities aud got a few policemen to keep guard round his house. This precaution withal, some ruffians, who are said to have closed Avith the olFer, that the Rohilla had declined so gracefully, approached the house on a night and had to beat a hasty retreat because of the alarm raised by the police on guard. So runs the rumour. And it is, I am in a position to say, not without a foundation. The dismissal of Chella Rama Row in connection with the second of the Treasury Frauds Cases is worth noticing as giving 67 one fin idea as to the arbitrary way in whicli things are done here under the present regime. The Raja Srinivas Row had^ while siibmittino- the statement of claims of the Nawab Alam Ali Khan for Rs. l,45jO0O wrote to ask the Accouutant-General if the statement was correct. And a reply was sent to this from the Accountant-General's Office. At the time that the discovery (!) was made of frauds by Mr. Manover Khan, it was found that one of the lines of this reply had been erased out and a new one substituted instead. An inquiry was set on foot as regards the "authorship" of this erasure and substitution. And one Bala- Idsheu came forward and said that he tliought that the line substituted was in Chella Earaa Rao's handwriting. This was enough to include Chella Rama Rao's name in the list of the accused in the second case. Justice Afzul Husain examined Rama Rao and finding no evidence to confirm Mr. Balakishen's *Hhought" acquitted him. The acquittal notwithstanding, Rama Rao has " deserved " dismissal from the service. What has become of the case of the Taluqdhar of Parbhani ? When political opponents are concerned, justice is busy trumping up charges, cooking up evidence and ' punishing ' offences in anticipation of conviction. At other times it '^ sleepeth." Here is a man — I mean the Tahiqdar of Parbhani — who stands charged with many crimes (committed during the last four years) by men who are in a position to bring home to him all their charges. Yet the Government looks away from him until its attention is forced towards hhn, then suspends him and troubles itself about him no more. Why ? Is it that, being a creature of the Nawab Busheerud-Dowlah's, he deserves ;to be spared all the disgrace and annoyance of a trial that innocent men, that men known to be innocent, have been subjected to ? Is it that the mighty Nawab who opposed the '' Taluqdhar's" appointment to the first Taluqdharship of Nalganda about four years ago, on unassailable grounds to be sure, has since come to think differently or finds reason to safeguard the interest of the man ? We have heard of no charges being framed against him. No commission lias been 68 appointed, no Jud^e nominated to try him. Why? Why have they not instituted even a sliaui judicial inquiry as they liave done iu several cases ? Jaya Rao is a most unforrunate man. Iu sootli tho Gods are against him. He was clapt into jail without any reason . He abode for a while in the prison house for a crime that existed only in the fertile imagination of his political enemies. He appealed — and the AppeHate Oourt acquitted him. But in spite of the acquittal he found himself detained iu prison for two days. Who is responsible for this illegal confinement, many have asked, and have been furnishod with ^in auswer by the kindness of Mr. J. D. B. Gribble. The day after Jaya Rao's acqnittal Mr. Gribble went over to the Chenchulgooda jail aud demanded of the ^Superintendent his client's release. Being informed that no order of acquittal had been I'eceived he went over to the High Court and saw an order made out for Jaya J:?ao's release — and then paid a visit to the Secretary of the Commission with a view to find out if any order had been passed for Jaya Rao's detention in jail. Finding that no such order had been passed, Mr. Gribble told the Secretary: "In that case as soon as the order of acquittal reaches the jail, Jaya l»ao can beset at liberty.'' "No," said tho Secretary, " because at the same time I shall send a new order directing his further confinement." " If yon do so" said Mr. Gribble, "without the exj)rt'ss authority of the Commission 3'ou will do so on your own resj)onsibility, and I warn you tlia^ I will advise Jaya Rao, to bring an action for illegal confinement against you." "Oh ! I shall be protected" was the answer. I find that "A tuember" of "the Hindu Social Club" is again to the front with "a defence." Verily he ^'protests too much." Though this might make wicked people look suspicious, yet his saying "a word or two" ''now that his short and concise letter has been leaned upon as a tower (what is the height of it, I wonder) of strength " by me, is creditable. But my facts are facts—though I am profoundly sorry for '^ A member's" sake 69 that they are so. While I am o^lad to be reminded "that is not a bad infei'euce to make '' (tbough I am at a loss to know wheref lom) '" that other ;people besides myself possess truth- discerning faculties," — I must ask '' A member" to let me know whether questioning the truth of one statement without rhyme or reason and insinuatinn; motive in terms such as '^ the truth is, havino- chosen a war, he wants to maintain it" — is or is not callinu: •'•' I'.iui or his aro-umeut names." I should like to know if '• A member" liolds a brief from tlie Club to defend the '^position" thereof. If so, T, as a member in common with other members, should ask him to produce his credentials for p-)sing as the aggrieved or rather '' the compromised " in behalf of tho Chib. [ hail an intei'view with Mr. Badrudiu T3'abji of the Bombay Bar, now here, sometime ago. Being taken up with other matters, I could not refer to it before this. Mr. Badrudin had little to say about Hyderabad and its affairs not being able to devote, as lie said, any attention to such ' studies.' But he was anxious to express himself freely and clearly as regards the Congress question. He said that though he did not look with faviinr upon such extravagant demands as those embodied in the "Madras scheme" vet lie was as great a sympathiser of the national movement to-day as he had been when presiding at the Madras meeting of the Congress. If he did not take part in the pmceediugs for some years, it was because the " Anjumani Islam" of Bombay, of which he was President, was against his doing so. And as he knew that he could do a lot of good to the Bombay Moslem community by being in touch with it and that the Congress could get on without him while " the Islam" could not, he kept aloof though he was at heart a great sympathiser. 70 Hyderabad, 7th Fehrnary, 1891., Mr. Hafiz Ahmed Raza Khau, lias, I am informed, recom- mended the children of the murdered woman in the City murder case for munsabs to the Government. And the recommendation is likely to receive favourable consideration at the hands of the powers-that-be. I may here remark that an appeal to mercy stands a greater chance of being heard by them than an appeal to justice. 'How is this?' you m;vy ask. The former tickles their vanity, makes them look noble and magnanimous; while the latter almost always contemplates the defeat of their cherished objects. The recommendation is no doubt meant to compensate the deceased's husband for the loss of his wife^.— for the mis- carriage of justice which has left him powerless to avenge the brutal murder. For this the luan ought certainly to feel thinkful — for if poeple elsewhere are thankful for small mercies^ we in Hyderabad have to feel thankful for still smaller ones. Ekbal Ali, one of the Judges of the City High Court has resigned and will shortly proceed to take up a Sub-judgeship in the Nor th-Wes tern Provinces. Poeple have been speculating as to who will succeed him on the bench — and some have gone even the length of pointing out the desirability of appointing a Hindu to the vacancy, Mr. Hukuin Chand, for instance. But I have reasons to believe the vacancy will not be filled with a Hindu, nor will it be filled at all until " a favourite" turns up on the scene. And still they come — instances of favouritims extraordinary. A man in the Accontant-General's OfRce fails 'to object' to a payment falling short of the amount claimed by about two annas. And for this he is fined. Compare this with the action taken or rather the inaction shown in the case of a favourite who was connected with the issue of a cheque for Rs. 50 by way of pension to the daughter of a late relative of his. A person in charge of the mint for a long time, died leaving three sons and two daughters. And the " paternal " Government ordered, in con- n sideration of the deceased's services, that each of the sons should be given a mxinsah of Rs. 50 until he is 21 years old — for purposes of education. The eldest of these three brothers having since entitled himself by competitive examination to a Government scholarship, the favourite above referred to thought he could of his 'own accord trausFer one of the munsahs to one of the daughters — and accordingly issued the cheque of Rs. 50. Somehow or other the Political and Fiuancial SecretaT-y's Office came to know of this and immediately apprised the man of his mistake and thus prevented the cheque being cashed. Why was not the man brought to book for illegally issuing the cheque ? They — I mean the rulers de facto — refused to furnish the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung with copies of papers relating to the two inquiries held in connection with the so-called second Treasury Frauds Case — one by the Revenue Secretary, and the other by the Accountant-General's Office. The Nawab insisted on copies being supplied to him, and a lengthy correspondence passed between him and his ' inquirers' with the result that the Minister ruled that as both these inquiries were of a confidential nature copies of papers relating to them could not be given. What do you think of this ruling, Mr. Editor r Have you ever heard of anything so extraordinary as this ? A highly-placed individual finds himself all of a sudden charged with having committed " frauds." Two inquiries are held in connection with this. And when the accused applies for copies of papers concerning them he is told he cannot have them as the inquiries were confidential. Were these inquiries ''confidential'^ in the sense that they but revealed the utter baselessness of the charges brought against the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung, the Rajah Srinivas Rao and others ? Or were they '•' confidential " because they were meant only to find out how far the position of the accused was tenable ? The commission brought into existence to inquire into the second Treasury Frauds Case, was empowered only to report on 72 the case— and had no judicial status whatsoever. How came it then I ask that it ordered into jail many of the accused in the case ? According- to an order of the Government a general parade of His Highness the Nizam^s troops was to have beou held at Golconda yesterday. Almost all the commanding otticers with their respective regiments had assembled at the appointed place and had been in harness for several hours when a Government order reached them couutermandiug the original one. 7S Hyderabad, 14th Fehruary 1891. Those that thhik that public ojiiuion will carry any -weight ■with the party in power on the matter of the appoiotment of a Hindu in place of Mr. Ekbal AH on the High Court Bench, are very much mistaken. " The vacancy will not be filled with a Hindu, nor will it be filled at all until a favorite turns up on the scene," I said in my last letter. And we have a confirmation of it in the following terms in the Deccan Standard: " H. E. the I\Jiuister is, we are confident, fully alive to the advantages of securing a Hindu Judge for the High Court. But as far as we have been able to gather, it is possible that no one will be appointed to succeed Mr. Justice Ekbal AH, as it is thought that the High Court is already strong enough." Of what earthly use is His Excellency's being " fuHy alive to the advantages of securing a Hindu Judge " if he is fully determined upon not securing the advantages — is more than any one can understand. Perhaps in the case of a person of His Excellency's exalted position — guarded too as it js by recent creations of Mulks Doiclas and Jungs — we have to take good intentions for good deeds and be thankful. In that case the intentions need only to be advertised by the Government organ. How and when the discovery was made that "the High Court Bench is already strong enough" and what w^ould become of the discovery when a favourite turns up — I wish to be informed. " We have no naturalisation law in Hvderabad " we are told by an apologist of the present administration. In what sense then is it that sons and nephews of many of the aliens in the service who were not born here, are Hyderabadees ? I have more than once told in these columns the " tale '^ of the degradation and misery that the Kaja Sahib of Anagondi has been subjected to by those in power now. That the Raja Sahib came to be all of a sudden burdened with a peishkush of about Ks. 10,000, that he appealed against the unjust and unprecedented imposition; that a TaUicj^dhar and au Inspector- 10 74 General individually testified to the utter inability of the tamasthan to pay a much less sum than that demanded, that this, strangely enough, resulted in the peishkush being raised to Es. 18,000 H. S., that the Raja Sahib appealed against this to His Highness the Nizara repeatedly without avail — all this your readers know from my letters. In this letter I shall put before them a case which, though not as '^bad "' as that of the Raja of Anagondi, serves to show equally well what policy the present Government is guided by with respect to its dealings with the Hindus. Gurgnnta is a small principality in Bis Highness the Nizam's Dominions vielding an annual income of about Ks. 40,000; and it has been in the possession of the Hindu family that now stands dispossessed of it, for a longer period thau Hyderabad itself has been iu the hands of the Nizams. The last Raja died in January 1890, and the samasthan passed as inheri- tance to his two widows and dauerhter. These latter had been CD in the enjoyment of the revenues of the State hardly for a month, when a Taluqdhar appeared ou the scene with a baud of sepoys and policemen and took forcible possession of not only the samasthan but their private estates. The why and wherefore of this arbitrary proceeding it is hardly necessary we should speculate upon — they ai'e transparent to all. The Ranis having failed to get justice from the Minister has, 1 am iuformed, placed her case iu the hands of Mr. Nelson, Burrister-at-law, and instructed him to carry it up to His Highness the Nizam himself.] Whut action His Highness will take iu the matter — remains to be seen. An item of interesting news comes to me from a trustworthy quarter. A young Hiudu gentleman — one of the most intelligent men in His Highness's Educational Department — whose services had )-eceived a recognition in the shape of a valuable gold wat("h presented to hiin in the name of the Government by the Nawab Vicar-ul-Umrah Bahadur, went to see the Nawab off at a certnin railway station. The Nawab wished to know where the Hindu had been born ; and ou being told he was a yacca Hydrabadee he turned to tlie Nawah Mii?htalv Hussn.in Vicar-nl-Mulk who was b}' his side ami tokl liiiii with a sig'iificant look: Look, he is a Hydrabadeee." The suub conveyed by the Nawab Vicar- uh--Umra's remark cau be appreciated only by those who have any knowledgo of the Minister de factors stock-in trade — " There is no good in llydrabadees/' — and who know how aliens from the North have been pitchforked by him into some of the highest positions in the laud. A local journalist has been going about, I am credibly informed, notifying "to all whom it may concern" that the Hyderabad letters in the Hindu will in future be shut out of his columns. Failing to perceive any additional importance that their reproduction in his columns has invested my letterrs with, I cannot thank the journalist for having hitherto republished the Hyderabad letters; nor am I inclined to regret the notifica- tion. The results of the ^Matriculation examination of the University of ^ladras held in December last, received here at the close of last week, show how intelligent girls are as a rule. Out of the six or seven girls that appeared for the examination from the St. George's Grammar School, three are declared to have passed in the first class and one in the second ; while out of 100 or more boys only 23 have come onfc successful — all except two being placed in the second class. In congratulating the father of one of these three young ladies. Captain Tom Baylej of His Highness the Nizam's Artillery, the Government organ suggests: '^ Three Nizam's scholarsnips have already been established, but this generositv in the cause of education, may well be augmented by appointing an additional one exclusively for girls." While welcoming the suggestion and glad too to be told, that the ''Deccan Standard" is "satisfied that Miss Bayley's case will receive kindly consideration," I may be permitted to meution the case of a young lady who has as good claims on the Nizam's Goverment as Miss Bayley and as such des.erved " kiuily cousideration" bat failed to get it. Ths 7« younsf lady I refei' to, i?; the first lady matriculate lipre. She was born iu His Hiohness's territorry and how successfully her father, who has been connected with the Educational Depart- ment for over 17 years, has worlced in the cause of education, and how much of the spread of it is due to liiin all Hyderabad knows. Yet when the faiher applied to the Government for a scholarship to enable his daughter to study for a Medical Degree at one of the Medical Colleges iu the Presidency towns, very little of "kindly consideration" was shown. Compare this Mr. Editor with the case of a young lady from tlie North. She came here, had the " consideratian" for the asking with little or no trouble, went to Madras, read in the Medical College for about 2 years at the expense of the Nizam's Government—and then took service under the Mysore Government. Inscrutable really are the ways of officials here ! If favoritism plays as prominent a part as consideration of merit elsewhere, it like Arou's rod, swallows up all other considerations heie. A fancy fair will be held shortly in tha Chadarghat Public Gardens. It has been organized by Mrs. Tytler, a lady well- known in all circles here, with a view to provide a bed in the Ripen Hospital at Simla for European patients from the plains during the six hot months. This is not the first time that Mrs. Tytler devotes herself to a philanthrophic object like this ; she held a similar fair with the same oDJect more than a year ago on the Residency grounds. The fact of a lady at her age coming forward to contribute to the comfoi't of suffering humanity ought to induce all who can look beyond self to "support" it not merely in words but practically . 11 Hydekabad, 2ht Felruary, 1^91. I MOST begiu tbis letter with a paraorapb about tlie parade at Gok'oiiJa 1 referred to in my last but cue letter— for thereby haujis a tale. The latest accession to the file of favourites and henchmen of the party in power seems to be the Nawab Major Afsur Juno-. The Nawab is admitted on all hands to have a great deal of influence with His Highness the Nizam. Whether this influence is to be used in the interests of his newly-found masters, we shall not have to wait long, I am sure, to know. In the meanwhile it will be iuteres ing to study the masters' ways to pleasure the Nawab Major. To make him feel elevated — as well, no doubt, as to spite Colonel Nevill who, since the evil (lay he saw reason not to return a visit paid him by a lady and a gentleman moving in the highest circles here has been anything but a persona grata — orders were issued sometime ago for a general parade of the Regular Troops and Golcouda brioade at Golconda under his command. Two or three days before the day fixed for the parade Colonel Nevill who had been on a tour of inspection happened to come into the head-quarters, and learning of the orders wrote to the Government apprising it of his arrival and pointing out to it that being a superior officer he should have the chief connnand at the parade. This official communication elicited from the Private Secretary to H. E. the Minister a confidential letter, directing Colonel Nevill to keep at home on the parade day, to fall in the Minister's staff, to finish his tourinsr, or to fro to Hanumkonda with two other officers and choose a site for jail. The Colouers feelings could easily be imagined. He reported the matter to the Resident, but failing to <^et him to interfere he had the whole case laid, I am informed, before His Highness with the result that His Highness — as usual with him whenever a case of injustice is brought to his notice — issued an order countermanding the orders for a parade and administered the Minister a " wigging'^ richly deserved. As far as Colonel Nevill is concerned, this is not the first time that he suffers an indignity at the hands of the politicals. The well-know Kxdsamhi case wliich proved the ruin of the "Telegraph" revealed a despeiate attempt to bring him to disgrace. The Nawab Mushtak Hiisi?ain Vicar-nl-mulk is after all, not the mighty man I took him to he. He is not above the fate of meaner mortals — for he, too has his disappointments. The other day he wished to become a member of the Hyderabad Club — and soon found out that wishiuo- was not havinof even with hiui in every case. His name was put up for election. Some of the highest European oiRciuls in the State went about canvassing votes for him. And all liis friends, admirers and proteges especially of the Golconda Brigade mustered strong on the election day. Yet as the Fates would have ib the ballot box was found to contain nine black balls. A wonder of wonders. That the most powerful official should thus he declared unworthy of a membership of the Club, that the most successful political should thus be black-balled 1 The very eveninor that the result was known the Nawab had a relapse, I hear, into a serious illness. If the black balling had anything to do with the illness, the cynicism he wears is really a mask and he must have a soft spot hidden away somewhere. And one of the European officials would seem %o have gone into hysterics over the affair and suggested among other things the breaking up of the Club. Two of the local papers are evidently vicing with eacn other to attain the excellence (I) of the prints immortalished by Dickens in his Pickwick papers. One cannot be mentioned by thera but one must be abused in the vilest terms or praised in the most ludicrously flattering language In noticing the effasious .of the local representative of the " Indian Daily News," one of these nnenviably brilliant writers remarks that Indian Daily News' own correspondent "unlike the Hindu correspondent, seems to be a lover of truth and free from malice." The injustice and spite of the remark are so apprent to every impartial newspaper reader in Hyderabad, that I need not quote chapter aud verse to refute it or work myself into a rage and call het 79 writer names ns the " Deccan Standard" Las done. But in the interests of fair journalism I would ask the writer or rather challenge him to point out to me one instance in which 1 have shown myself untruthful or malicious. The judgment passed by Mr. Ahmed Raza Khan in the City Murder case was, according to the procedure in vogue, sent up to a divisionul heneh of the High Court composed ol the Nawab Tmad Jung, and Mr. Ali Uaza Khan, 31. a., for confirma- tiuu. And thev have enhanced ihu sentence with reference to Abool Husaiu in the first instance to imprisonnumt for life. The Fancy Bazaar organized by Mrs. Tytler came off in the Chadarghat Public Gardens on Thursday last. In spite of the charms that presided over the several stalls, I am told the bazaar has been fiuancicilly a failure. The Hydrabadee bigwigs were conspicuous by their absence — ihey evidently love wasting their mouev over nautches, sycophants and tale-bearers better than spending any portion of it towards accompli-^hing the very noble object with which the bazaar was ht^ld. Among the very kind ladies that helped Mrs. Tytler in forming the bazaar, those that did the best business, as far as 1 could see, were the two Misses GrifHn who waylaid people most grac efully and button- holed them in spite of themselves at a rupee a head. I hear these vounsi ladies realized something like lis. 100. If others had been equally successful in the way of disposing of their " saleables " the bazaar would not have turned out a failure financially to be sure. The Hindus of Secunderabad would seem to have taken a leaf from the book of their brethren here. The ''Albert Reading l^oom^' people convened one or two meetings to discuss the advisability of having a Hindu Judge in place of Mr. Ekbal Ali retired, and have finally resolved to memorialize the Government praying that it may take advantage of the vacancy created on the High Court Bench and appoint a competent Hindu Judge to interpret law in the light of the customs and manners of a vast ;.<" 60 majority of His Highness's subjects. The resolution thouS. I'S. when lie threw up his judgeship; now he gets 2000 lis. a month. As long as he was in the High Court, his patrons could not increase his pay without making him super- sede Ali Raza Khan and others and thus making enemies of thorn. But now that he is free, they could create a law com- mission and put him at the head of it on 2000 "Its. a month — and plead State necessity. How political these men really are ! lUit then tliey might profitably remember that that which at one moment succeeds, ends not only in failure but in ruin at another. Sometime ago a corr(!spondent drew public attention in the columns of a local paper to the way in which a distinguished Navvab amuses himself on festive occasions. The 'way' will amuse your readers immensely and at the same time give them an idea of the stamp of the men who are entrusted with the destinies of ten millions of people here. The Nawab referred to who has evidently a talent for the dramatique — the character of it I leave it to you to determine — acts a part on occasions of parties to his friend at his residence. He dresses himself like a woman — if the mau-woman is an edyfying sight how much more so must the Nawab-woman be ! — and sits on a wooden platform beform a pot of toddy and sells toddy at a gold mohur — and not two pies as stated by the correspondent in the local paper — a measure to friends and admirers. In this character the nobleman is perfection itself. The Nawab Iraad Nawaz Jung has filed his explanation in counectiou with the so-called Second Treasury Frauds case. K His last application to the Government for another week's delay in putting- in liis explanation, drew down on him the wrath of the mighly Vicariil mulk, who in acquiescing in the request wrote to say that if by a certain date the explanation be not forthcoming he would be asked to give over charge. I hope to he able to go through the explanation shortly, and to say something about it in my next letter. An order published in a recent issue of the '' Jareeda " noti- fies that in accordance with the decision of the learned Judges of the Hioh Court, Mr. Rndra has been disbarred for his oifensive remarks on Justice in the Moglai Courts in connection with Gribble versus Gallagher. It is noteworthy that the order should appear about the same time that Mr. Hudra by his cross-exami- nation of Mr. Gallagher put the public in possession of many important State secrets, not the least of them being that which charges the officials with briljiug unscrupulous newspapermen for being lauded up. A strange concidence to be sure ! I shall show how the underlings of the powers that be use the power they are trusted with. On the 5th of Rabinss- anee B. 88 F.^ a Deputy Inam Commissioner issued an order to his office clerks to tlie effect that '•' most of them " would have to undergo an examination in their respective work, and that for the purpose they should present themselves at his office on the following Saturday at 10 a. m. The day came and the Dupty ^' singled " out only four of the clerks — and these men obnoxious to him — for examination. These naturally enough, respectfully protested against the injustice. And for this " impertinence " — as it appears from an application signed by these four — the officer suspended them and remarked they were rebels {bagi) and so they should be turned out by force by the police. The upshot of the whole affair was that a number of charges, baseless so far as any written evidence went, was preferred against one of the clerks and he was dismissed. The injured man appealed to the Subadar, and the latter has adminis- tered the Deputy Commissioner a richly-deserved wigging and sent him back all tlie papers connected with the case in order that he may conduct the proceedings in a regular manner, and the clerk may have an opportunity uf filing an explanation for his conduct. Hydbkabad, 21st March 1891. This monuDf^'s "Deccan Times" has a very sensible leader commenting upon the order recently passed by His Excellency the Minister revoking the licence granted to Mr. A. C. Rudra, Barrister-at-law, to practise in the Courts of His Highness the Nizam for'' offensive remarks " made by him regarding the Judges of the High Court in connection with Gallagher versus Giibble. " The case of Mr. Rudra " is very clearly set forth, and the great injustice or rather the unheard-of severity of the order is dealt with in no spiteful or captions spirit. The remarks which have cost Mr. Eudra his sunnudh allude to the Govern- ment of Hyderabad being a personal one, to Judges being more or less all partizans of the Government, and to justice being a toss-up in Hyderabad. That the Hyderabad Government is a personal one, even the most unscrupulous of ofhcial proteges and apologists cannot and dare not deny ; and the partizanship, i. e. the thoroughly subservient character of the Judges, is put be- yond a possibility of doubt by the fact that the High Court did not take any notice of the so-called offensive remarks until called upon more than once by the Government to do so. Who can gainsay then that justice is a toss-up here ? A statement of these facts made when un-called for would certaialy constitute an un-pardouable offence. But in the circumstances in which it was made by Mr. Rudra, it was privileged. His client, 3Ir. Gribble, stood charged with unprofessional and dishouoi*able conduct ; and to have refrained from meutioninrj well-known facts calculated to disprove the charge would have been derelic- tion of duty. That the Judges should have failed to tako all this into account and "unanimously resolved" to strike Mr. Rudra's name off the rolls of the advocates of the Hioh Court is passing strange — if it does not point to partizanship. 1 have not done with Mr. Ekbal Ali vet. Some more lifrht has been thrown upon his so-called recall from the North- Western Provinces — and I shall not like to hide it under a bushel. If ■what 1 hear is true-^-aud there is no earthly reason for doubting 89 it — -His Excellency Sii- Asmanja Baliadur lias been most in- famously victimised by the wire-pullers, his philosophers and fi-iend.s, in the interests of Ekbal AH. Soon after likbal Ali's departuie, his friends went to liis Excellency, I am informed, and asked him to write to Ekbal Ali a letter bearing- testimony to the many valuable services he had rendered to the State — a letter which might be of use to him in the North-West. The Minister paid little attention to the request in the first instance but on its being made to hitn often lie asked his Private Secretary to wire to Ekbal Ali expressing liis great satisfaction with the work done by him while here. The telegram being drafted by one of Mr, All's faithful friends and allies took the form of an expression of deep regret on the part of His Excellency at Mr. All's determination to sever his conuectien with the service of tills State. And no sooner this message reached Ekbal Ali than he very graciously wired back to say that if His Excellency was so sorry he did not want to get away from the Hyderabad service — and immediately started for Hyderabad, I have seen the explanation recently filed by the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung iu connection with the second Treasury Frauds case. It is an elaborate and plainly- worded document; and the calm, dignified tone of it and the contempt it evinces for all the mean minds that concocted the case against liim — points the Nawab out to be a man with w^ioin the party in power cannot trifle witU impunity. At the outset it was declared from the house-tops by Messrs Muuover Khan and Co., that frauds had been committed to tlie ex- tent of 7 lakhs and a halt of H. S. Rupees. The fiofure subsequently went down to four lakhs; and it has since vanished, for the Government itself has admitted that no overpayment was made to Dilawar Nawaz Jung. ' If the fraud has proved to be a mare's nest, why are the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung and the Rajah Sriniwas Rao still bothered with departmental enquiries and harassed and threatened in all manner of ways ?' It may be asked. The why is a mystery — and it can be unravelled only by 90 those that enjoy the confidence of the powers-that-be. But I may mention that Mr. Munover Khan soon after his " discovery" of the frauds on the Treasury, wrote to the Political and Finan- cial Secretary in letter, dated the 28t.h Azoor 1299 F. to the eifect ; '• I submit these particuLars to the Government so that I may be remunerated for this unexpected victory" — victory over political opponents to l)e sure ! That portion of the Xawab Hassan Bin Abdulla's explanation which deals with the letter from Mnnover Khan to the Political and Financial Secretary above referred to is noteworthy. The Nawab justly complains of the unheard-of proceedings initiated against him by one who was a tSheristadhar in the Treasury when he was Accountant-Geueral — /, c, Munover Khan. Referring to the motives brought home to Munover Khan by the letter No. 461, the Nawab says, ' with such motives he literally flooded the offices with Roohkars in every one of which the sum supposed to have been overpaid to Dilawar Nawaz Jung was magnified' {vide Mimover Khan's Roobkar"s Nos. 46, 47, 640, 1297). Then he points out how Munover Khan without even the vestige of any evidence charged him with offences of a grave character, how if men are allowed to heap indignities on officials in this fashion Government service will soon come to be looked upon as being a source of great danger and dishonor, and adds that whatever the result of the inquiry may be Munover Khan has had his " remuneration" since he has been allowed to sit in the chair before which only a few months previously he had to stand. How long the lucky man will grace the chair, remains to be seen. Thanks to the zealous faith and proselyting influence of a high official, Hyderabad has recently had an interesting addition to the number of its Moslem inhabitants. A Shastri on the other side of sixty, all of a sudden, lost belief in Hindu- ism, in the verses he had flung at the head of Mohamedaus and Christians for several decades and embraced the faith " of the faithful" and became Gulam Mohamed some time ago. Happy Hyderabad ! It is fast approaching its millenium. The days 9i" are nof, far off when political men can say with their hands on their heai-ts ; " We serve not only ourselves but our God."' Sadulla, the husband ot the murdered woman in the City Murder Case, filed a suit before Mr. Bosanquet, J. P., sometime ago against Mr. Gallaghar, Kditor of the " Deccau Standard" for publishing' a paragraph easting aspersions on his wife's character. Mr. Gallaghar has since made a sort of a polo oy through his columns; and as his remarks regarding the deceased woman do not seem to have been dictated by malice and as he is prepared to make all honoi'able amends it is hoped that Sadulla will withdraw his plaint. 92 Htderabad, 4th April 1891. The " Hyderabinl locord " gave his readers to understaud a few days ago that the Niziun's Goverument had, at the request of several officials, handed over to their solicitors all the issues of the "flindu" contaiiiiiio; Hyderabad letter and that 29 passages therein had been taken exception to. 'What the "Re- cord's " sources of inform itiou were, I cannot say. But I hope, in the interests of the ]»eopie which I hav^ at heart, that the information is reliable, that the Government will let tlie officials who consider themselves grossly libelled by me in my weekly letters take me up for libel. I am as anxi')us as an}'' bona fide Hyderabadee that the truth should be known about the by-no- means creditable ways cf those in power, and that the British Resident should justify his 'existence' here by efforts to save the land from utter ruination. A most important judgment was passed by Mr. 0. V. Bosanquet, on the oOdi of March last. It was in Gallagher versus Gribble and Shapurjee which has attracted considerable atten- tion, and has done the people an invaluable service by showing how a portion at least of public funds is spent by the men in power. The judgment quite sustains Dr. Bosanquet's reputa- tion for honesty, straight-forwardness, and keen-sigh todness, and speaks in no faltering tone of the doings of the unscrupulous officialdom — of doings of which anv man with a modicum of regard for himself ought to be thoroughly ashamed. Referring to the passage in a certain issue of the " Deccan Times " that Mr. Gallagher took objection to as charging him with dishonesty indirectly, Mr. Bosanquet saj^s : " It has therefoi'e to be considered whether, in view of certain transactions of the complainant, which have been made known t > the public by the medium of the Law Courts and the newspapers, such an imjiutation can be said to have lowered his chai'acter. The first of these transactions relates to the lis. 2, 400 alluded to above which, according to the complainant's own 9S statemenf-., was paid to him pei'sonallj bf thf^ Nizira's Govern- ment. This money, the complainant by his counsel Mr. Batten- burgh, has once adinittel, in open Court, to have been paid to him as bribe. In the present case however he has attemped to prove that he received it for work done. Interrogated as to the nature of the work, he stated that it was translation, but was only able to give one instance of such work, namely the trans- lation for pubhcation in his paper of the speech made by the present Minister on assuming office It is clear therefore that there must have been some other reason for this payment to which, it may be noted, the complainant told the Court that he had only a moral claim. The reason does not seem far to seek. For, looking to the concealment in the way the money was paid, the Manager of the " Deccan Times" being made the ostensible proprietor, and subscription for copies of the paper (never supplied) the ostensible reason, and looking to the tone of Mr. (Gallagher's letter to the Secretary to Government, dated the 11th June 1888, there can be little doubt that the payment was, as Mr. Battenburg said, nothing but a bribe to secure to the Government the support of the outwardly impartial Editor of the " Deccan Times." Again Mr, Gallagher has admitted that he also receives a monthly payment from the Nizam's Govern- ment. He h\s indeed attempted to make out that the Government employed him in the capacity of legal adviser, hut, having regard to his claims to be considered a member of the leofal profession, such a supposition must, I think, he dismissed as impossible. The true explanation is rather that it is only a continuation of the policy inaugurated by the payment of the Rs.2,400." Then the Judge notices the two letters written by Mr. Gal- lagher to Mr. Shapurjee while in charge of the '"' Deccan Times" about Abdul Hak's offer of ten thousand Rupees and his (Mr. G's) willingmess to '^play the candid friend"^ *^when he would find sufficient cause for oflfence" asrainst Hak — for comments on which in the •' Hindu." I was threatened, you will reinomber 94 by Mr. Gallagher with proseciiMon not in tho Marlraf? Conrti? but in tlie Hyderabad Courts" — and winds up thus. " So clear is the meaning' of these lettei's, and so absolutely must they have proved to the public tbe utter absence of pro- bity in the complainant, that I am unable to find that the impu- tation of dishonest}^, conveyed in tlie second passage complained of, can have lowered his character in this respect either directly or indirectly. I therefore discharge the accused nnder Section 253." Now I should like to know if it is not the duty of the genu- ine nobility of Hyderabad to press his Excellency Sir Asmauja Bahadur for an explanatioii of the discreditable conduct of his henchmen, to '' proceed against" him before His Highness the Nizam for allowing his men to spend the money got out of the hard-worked r^jat in the manner so well described by Mr. Bosanquet in his able judgment ? Is not the Hritish Resident. I ask, bound to take notice of the facts vouched for by one of the Judges of the Residency Courts, and stay the alien hands busy spoliating the reis and the rayet alike ? I am glad to inform you that very laudable efforts are being made to bring those concerned in the City Murder Case to justice. Sadulla, you will remember, filed a suit some time ao-o ao-ainst Mr. Gallagher, Editor of ths " Deccan Standard" for publishing a paragi\aph defaming his wife. On Mr. G.'s tender- ing him an apology for inserting the paragraph, he withdrew the charge against him and through his counsel Mr. Nelson sought permission of Mr. Bosanquet to bring a charge of murder against Abdul Wahid and others who had been discharged by Mr. Ahmed Raza Khan. Mr. Bosanquet heard the Counsel's argu- ment for re-opening the case and wished to know if he had 'jurisdiction' in the matter. And consequently Mr. Nelson appeared before the Judge on the 31st ultimo and made an able speech with a view to prove that being British-born subject Abdul Wahid and his servants were amenable to British law3 only and that according to the Criminal Procedure Code and 96 Foreign Jurisdiction Act he liad power to try "the Criminals" though they had been tried and discharged by a Moglai Court. The speech seems to have had the desired efl'ectj for Mr Bosau- quet has applied to the Resident fi r permission to try tlie case. "Whatever might be said against the Nawab-Yicar-ul-Mulk, this mucli must be admitted that he is a very hard-working and energetic official. In spite of the illness that took him to Bom- bay, he did not let slip the opportunity that preseuted itself of interviewing Sir Mortimer Durand who is spoken of as Sir Dennis Fiizpatrick's sticcessor here. What the nature of the interview was, it is not possible to say. But 1 hear that accord- in <>• to a telegram from Bumbay the interview was '' satisfactory.'' Moulvie Ekbal Ali is again a judge of the High Court. What has become then of the decision come to by the Chief Justice and his colleagues soon after Mr. All's departure to the North- Western Provinces that the Court could get on very well without one more Judge ? One of the many that have got their grievances here, is Mrs. Tytler, well-known here and elsewhere for her phil- anthropy. She sent, I am told, some paintings and articles worth about 4,000 H. S. Rs. to His Highness the Nizam for his inspection some time ago. His Highness inspected them and kindly ordered that they should be kept in the palace and Mrs. Tytler paid for them. But the order received little attention from those about him. Mrs, Tytler waited for a good long time for the money due ; and finding it to have been in vain she called at the Sarjikass office some days ago and was told that a certain person about the person of His Highness would nut let " them" pay her. What the person has to du with the money due to Airs. Tytler by His Highness — (jod only knows. Tired of waiting here for her dues, Mrs. Tytler left for Bombay this morning and it is I believe her intention, to lay her case before the Foreign Uffice iu Calcutta. 96 Hyderabad, llth April 1891. It would be difficult to find in the whole of India a family more illustrious than the Salar Jung family or one which has suffered so much as the Salar Jung family has at the Lands of men who know not or rather will not know "Joseph." The fates as well the powers-that-be seem to have decided against it. The two sons of the great satesmau who had for over a quarter of a century occupied a unique position in the Indian political world, died while hopes were yet being formed of them, within a few months of each other — and the name itself of the family might have been buried with them but for a babe that lives in dejira- datiou and discomfort to tell of former greatness and raise in tlie few Salar Jungites that are left faint hopes of future prosperity. The calamity is not calamitous enough in the eyes of some — and they must needs see that the friends of the family are powerless to do any good. The Nawab Imad Nawaz Juug Bahadur Hussan Bin Abdulla who has followed the fortunes of the family for well-nigh twenty-five years, and whose faithfulness to it and zeal in its behalf are facts that every one here can vouch for, can no longer lift so much as a finger of his to ward off any evil desicned or intended against it. Under a very great pres- sure from the ruling authorities^ the Nawab has had to resi<'U his membership of the Salar Jung's estates management Com- mittee. The want of foresight which allowed Busherud Dow- lah's administration to have anything to do with the Salar Juno- estates management Committee — is being made more and more clear day b}' day to be sure, I get such few opportunities of singing the praises of those in power that when I get them I never like to let them slip through. Sometime ago a strong rumour was current in the city that a high official had taken a bribe of Rs. 60^000 from the Begums of the Salar Jung family. Being addressed on the subject by the official, the Begums have written to contradict the rumour. '1 his is an immesely gratifying fact — and I wish to place it on record. 97 Wonders never cease in Hj-dorabad. About two months and a half after the passing of Judg-nient by Mr. Ahmed Raza Khan in the City murder case, and a mouth and 25 days after the decision of a Divisional Bench of the Higli Court on it, His Excellency Sir Asmanjah Bahadur has issued a resolution about it. The resolution is a lengthy one, and it pitches into Ahmed Raza Khan and the police and protests too much in the same breath — and betraySj fortunate!}' or unfortunately, its forced tone. It winds up with the following orders : — (1.) The order of the Divisional Bench sentencing Abdool Husaiu to imprisonment for life, is confirmed. (2.) His Excellency desires to record his grave displeasure at the procedure adopted both by tlie city and suburban police and by Hafiz Syed Ahmed Raza Khan Sahib, which prevented all the facts of the case being brought to light and led to circum- stances much to be regretted. (3.) With regard to Abdul Rahman, H. E. the Minister in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 13 of the High Court Rules, directs that the Full Bench of the Hioh Court should consider the points above raised and direct the Govern- ment Pleader to re-open ti'e case against him. (4.) The Kotwal should be directed to do his utmost to collect such further information as will complete the links in the chain of evidence. The High Court should then be moved to re-open the case against Abdul Wahid, admit the farther evidence that may be forthcoming and decide on the merits of the case so as to give a clear decision as to his inno- cence or guilt. In the meanwhile Abdul Wahid should be re- arrested unless he can furnish bail to the extent of l?s. 10,000. There is no doubt that this resolution is due to the wide- felt sympathy — secured for Sadnlla by the circumstances amidst which and the manner in which ''Mumtiaz" met her death — which found expression recently in a laudable attempt to get the case retried by a British Magistrate. X3 9$ It is always painful to have to write an obituary — and much more so when it relates to one who has done some service in his time. Yet it is desirable that it ouoht to be "writ" — for it often poiuts a moral. Tlie ^'Hyderabad Eecord" after struggling for life for a little over five years, breathed its last on Friday last. Its was a chequered existence — and its reverses, successes and the unhappy circumstances which led to its sudden demise are full of valuable counsel to all those who are already engaged in journalistic work or who may be engaged in it, hereafter here. Under the late Mr. Job Solomon it was a power in the land — how before it was many months old it came to be stopped by British officials, how persistently and courageously Mr. Solomon fought against tremendous odds and secured the right to publish the paper again, how the "iiecoi'd", until the moment of his death, was a tenor to corrupt officials, how they winced under its attacks and kept their hands off partiality or injustice to a certain extent at least in sheer fright of its criticism, all llyder- iibad knows. Mr. Solomon died, and with him died the inde- pendence and courage of the "Record." Under a good guide it might have had a long and very useful career. The management of the "Deccan Times'' has again changed hands. Mr. Gribble's connection with the paper as Managing Proprietor ceased this morning. Under Mr. Gribble the "Deccan Times" improved considerably in matter as well as manner, and its tone was uniformly courteous, and generally impartial and independent — though not much to the benefit, it must be confessed, of Hyderabadees. But what it may be under his successor or successors the future alone can reveal to us. ! 59 Hyderabad, 19th April, 1S91. The resolutioD recently issued by H. E. the Miuistor about the City Murder Case, teaches many lessons. It shows what a persistent ao-itation in the cause of truth and justice could do even in Hyderabad as " well as how " much the weak-kneed officials are to be pitied who lend themselves to the perpetration of a wrong or perversion of justice. Mr. Syed Ahmed Raza Khan who interpreted law as he pleased and refused to admit important evidence in a remarkably authoritative manner, who was determined not to be taught his duty either by pleaders or newspaperwallahs and who was both lauded up and defended for his judgment by the '' mouth piece of the Government" — what a Bad plight he is in now I Sir Asmanja Bahadur says that 'if his judgment had been confirmed, it could, with truth, have been affirmed that justice itself had been slain;' and the Govern- ment organ, with a consistency (I) unheard-of in the anualq of Indian journalism, finds it impossible to see how, with any credit to himself or usefulness to the State, Mr. Justice Hafiz Ahmed Raza Khan can continue to dispense justice from the High Court bench any longer. Mr. Raza Khan might well exclaim Et tu Brute — but then the man who trusts to politicals and liirelinf,^s for support and deflects from the path of rio-ht and duty has little reason to blame any one but himself. 100 Hydfeabad, 25f 7i April, 1891. " Those that have eyes to see with and brains to understand, are fully convinced that the policy of the present administration, which is based on tlie wise and far-seeing principles of jusHce, economy and impartiality is bound to prevail in the end." So writes a correspondent from Hyderabad to one of your Calcutta contemporaries. And I hope jou will allow me to say a few words about the " principle? of justice, economy and impartia- lity" that, the above-quoted writer thinks, underlie Sir Asman- ja's administration. If by principles I understand consistent rules of conduct, I find little evidence of Justice, economy and impartiality guiding the present administratinn. Wherever convenient, whenever the interests of tho'^e in power did not suffer or there was little chance of their beino- thwarted in their plans for self-a^grftudisement, justice wa? done, I admit, eco- nomy was enfoiced and impartiality shown. But when opponents were concerned, where wore "justice, economy and impartiality" ? The records of the recent doings of the present Government do not point to one single instance in which an official or an individual obnoxious to the powers-that-be had justice for the askiua;. Was it justice that prevailed with Sir Asmanja's " tried and trusted adviser, Vicar-ul-Mulk." when lie got the peislicush on the principality of Anagondi raised from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 18,000 in the face of the testimony of two of the Government deputes to the effect that the samastan was not in a condition to pay any peishcxtsJi ? Was it justice which in- duced the unhappy state of things in Gurgunta ? Was it justice that enabled an overpaid creditor to take forcible pessession (>f a Raja's villages and direct the Rjija to go to a Civil Court to establish his right to the villages and get them restored to him ? Was it impartiality that demanded a bail of 2 lakhs of Rupees from the city Sowcar charged with forgery, and a bail of Rs. 10,000 from Abdul Wahi 1 charged with murdor^that tried Jaya Rao and others by a Magistrate and appointsd a commission to inquire into the charges against the Nawab Hussan Bin AbduUa and the Raja Srinivas Rao, that enabled the Nawab 101 and the Raja to be at large while others concerned in the case with them \vere luider-tiial prisoners ? And is it ecouomy, I wish to know, that recalls a Judge who is of no use, retains a Private Secretary who does no work, a Director of Puhlic Instruction who lias little time to attend to his duties, that creates Assistant Secretaryships, Inspectorships and Commis- sions for the benefit of favourites as well as to keep some officials at amis' length, that allows a large portion of budget allotments for thw Public Works Department to be spent year after year on repairs, that maintains schools without boys, and teachers with- out pupil:^, that rouses itself by fits and starts to prosecute Abdul link, au'l spends thousands over some lucky men to perfect the case against him, that pays journalists to laud the officials up anil spies to gather information about political adversaries ? Such questions can be multiplied ad infinitum ami I would advise all who would sing the praises of the Moglai officials to make a list of all the questions that can be put to the Government under the head of ' justice,' ' economy,' ' impartiality' and peruse it whenever they feel inclined to rush into print to abuse honest men and ascribe motives to impartial writers. A letter on Hyderabad affairs in another Calcutta paper has attracted a great deal of attention here. There are a few inaccuracies liere and there in this letter. But these excepted, it portrays popular feeling and opinion on many important matters^ it leads one to the conclusion that most of the departments in the State are most frightfully mismanaged, and that this is a fact few can deny. I met one of the highest officials, of the State— one of the pillars of the present Gevernment— at a railway station recently. Sliding into a talk about Hyderabad affairs, the official asked me what the public thought of the character of the work done by a certain department of the State, I told him what they thought— and took advantage of the opportunity to point ont to him as plainly as I could what a waste of mo'iey there was in the public works, judicial, educa- tional and other departments, and how far from efficient wag the little work turned out by these. He listened to mo 102 patiently — and all that he conld say was that it was a thousand pities that such a state of things shouli be allowed to continue. The resolution issued, under date the 8th April 1891, by the Government of His Highness the Nizam in the Home Department (Court of Wards) about the administration of the Sir Salar Juno- estate for 1299 fasli — shows how even His Hiohness's order can sometimes be disregarded by his servants with impunity. Soon after the demise of the Nawab Muueer- ul-mulk, second son of the late Sir Salar Jung 1., His Hghness, in consideration of the invaluable services rendered by the first Salar, i-esolved to take a personal interest in the man- agement of the estates of the family, appointed a committee composed of the Rajah Sheo Raj Bahadur, the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung Bahadur, and Captain Beau clerk, to manage the estates and issued a number of instructions for its guidance. The instructions pointed out clearly how the estates should be administered, how the members of the family should be treated, that the object of the Committee should be to curtail expendi- ture and liquidate debts, and that Captain Beauclerk should be the guardian and care-taker of the late Sir Salar Jung TI's infant son. And how these instructions have been carried out it is rather painful to inquire. Nothing was done during the year by way of liquidating long standing debts. Though, the Committee was strongly of opinion that it was absolutely necessary to raise a fresh loan of Rs. 5,75,000 for the purpose of the meeting the ordinary salaries of establishments up to the end of the year,^ yet the first thing the Committee did after its appointment was to increase the cost of the establishments by about 1,500 a month, or Rs. 18,000 a year. The appointments were made without any budget estimate being prepared and in defiance of the Government orders on the subject of the employ- ment of Europeans in public or private service; and when the budjet estimate was made according to His Highness's order it was found to be full of errors and worse than useless. And as for the 'minor,' as I told you iu my last letter but one, little atten- tion was paid to his comforts and bringing up. Now the 103 question arises 'uLether Captain Beanclerk who, as Secretary to the Commitee, drawing- a monthly salary of Rs. 1,200 from the revenues of the estases, is more responsible than these associated with him lor the manafjement of the estates, ou"-ht to continue to hold the position he has held for over a year with much proiit to liimself but little nsefuluess to the family. ,iud I press this question most respectfully on the consideration of His Highuess the Nizam. A charge of theft of jewellery of the value of Rs, 7,50,000 brought by a Hyderabadee Nawab, against three of his relatives, before Mr. Hamilton, the second Presidency Magistrate in Bombay — forms the subject of talk here iu many circles. The theft is said to have beeu committed 7 years ago ; and it remain- ed little less than a mystery until Friday, the 17th Instant, on account of the phenomenal inactivity or iiicompetency of the City Police. On this date a pair of gold and silver armluts called hajoohandli together with a pair of gold ornameu ts called tlieva offered to the complainant for sale by one Muunav Khan led to a number of revelations. The complainant immediately gave information to the Residency Police and had one Kassim arrested. Then with the aid of Kassim he 'traced' the theft to the accused living iu Bombay. This is the story of the case and the trial of it will be watched with interest here. HYDERABAD; 30th McOJ 1891. His Higlmess the Nizam has not returned from the Districts as yet. No doubt he is pleased with eyerything that he sees, or rather is made to see there aud entertains a high opinion of the administrative capacities of tliose who are busy 'pleasuring' him in all manner of ways, liut he little knows — and none but those on the spot can say — what misery and woe underlie the pleasant aspect that everything is made to put on by the magic of power. Not to speak of the oppression that grinds the people from year's end to year's end, the miseries brought upon them by the presence of Royalty are many and heart-rending. Fancy the only tank in a village being guarded by sepoys for the bene- fit of His Highness and his entourage and the villagers being compelled to go long distances to fetch water for their own use or die of thirst, Fancy [busy husbandman being taken away by force out of homes to slave in the royal camp almost for notliiug or their being dispossessed of their cattle or their scanty provision in the name of the Nizam. And you have an idea as to what a royal visit means to the hungry ryot. His highness the Nizam'si last excursion into the districts — about 2 years ago — resulted in the depopulation of 3 villages about Hanumkonda. And how many villages have suffered and are suffering now in a similar manner it is not possible to say just now. I do not wish to be misun- derstood. My object in writing thus is not to raise a disloyal hue and cry against His Highness' going into any part of his wide Dominions, but to condemn the ways in which officials seek to secure his comfort*. The " Deccan Times" has recently had two very sensible articles — one ©n the City Robbery Case, now pending before a Bombay Magistrate, ond the other on the subject of pensions to the Nizam's officials. The resolution issued by the Home Secre- tary for the appointment of a commission to inquire into the Robbery Case — a case which but for a chance might never have seen the light of day and which is not likely to be transferred to the Nizam's Goverumeut, seeing that the complaiuaut has little 105 faith in the justice ef the Moglai Courts and insists on the case being tried by the British ]\Iagistrate — is an interesting produc- tion, interesting as giving one an idea of the manipulation and tergiversation that some of His Highness' ofhcials are adepts at. It blames all but the right persons for the ' offenders' not beiug ' spotted' through the instrumentality of the Kizam's servants, exculpates all the responsible men in a very ingenious manner and winds up with an order — c| uite unnecessary — for the appointment of a comission. The robbery, committed as it was in Salar Jung IPs time, is put down to the credit of the days af the late Feishkar-— the Raja Naraindar Peishkar Baha- dur — and to the Peishkar is allotted the failure to take immediate steps to enquire into the matter. The derliction of duty the then Judicial Secretary, the Nawab Fateh Nawaz Jung, was guilty of in not bringing the robbery to the notice of Sir Asman Jah on his assumption of office as Prime Minister, is passed over, and Sir Asman Jah's ignorance of the affair is made to explain his not doino- anvtnino- to have the robbery traced to the culprits. All this is in unmistakable terms pointed out bythe"Deccau Times." As regards pensions, the Nizam's Government's deci- sion to abolish pensions to Military officers in its service fur- nishes the occasion for the " Deccan Times" article thereon. How the decision will affect the services, how it will induce men to be in harness in spite of the disabilities and impedi- ments of age, how this will lead to young and sound men being out of all useful work, and how it will tend to make the work turned out inefficient; all this is clarly explaiaed by the article. And it is to be hoped that the responsible men of the Govern- ment will read it ' to some purpose.' 14 106 Hydeeabid, 6th June 1891. The Hyderabad Law Commission and its doings have been attracting much attention here; and one name has figured most prominently in the cohimns of the local papers in connection with these ; and that is Mahomed Ali. Whence he came^ how he came^ and where he has gone to — these questions have been repeatedly asked by the public ever since it was known that he had been offered the Secretaryship of the Commission by the Nizam's Government; and they are pertinent questions to be sure. Mahomed Ali has not always been known to the world as Mahomed Ali. Years ago when his reputation was not under a cloud and he had no reason to be afraid of hearing the name his parents had given him at his birth, he was a pleader practising in the Courts of Allyghur and was known as Zafar Yab Khan. In an unfortunate moment Mr. Zafar Yab Khan sinned against the laAvs of the land, and the guardians of the laws found it necessary to issue a warrant for his apprehen sion. With a view to elude this warrant Mr. Yab Khan ca me to Hyderabad^ put off his name and put on Mahomed Ali, and sought the favour of several high officials who were his friends, and did not seek it in vain. The officials held out the right hand of fellowship to their fallen brother, pushed him on as "the Dekkhan Jurist" — and it would be difficult indeed to number and label the pretexts under which they made inroads into the Government treasury to enrich him. Thus befriended AJahomed Ali alias Zafar Yab Khan had a happy time of it for several years here until a few weeks since when by the kindness of a friend he came to know that he had been 'traced' and that an Inspector of Police had left Allyghur to apprehend him and had to make up his mind immediately to bid good-bye to the scene of his activities here. Such in brief is the history of Mahomed Ali, who is very closely related to satellite of the party in powder — and one needs to be more than humanly credulous to believe that his official patrons knew not before this the nature of the unfortunate '^mistake" which had made Allyghur too hot for him and sent him a candi- date for favours at their hands. 107 The Diccan Times has in its issue of the 4th instant a very sensational leader under the heading "The Salar Jnng family." The passage your contemporary quotes from a lettter addressed by Lady Salar Jung II in Saban 1308 to the mother of Sir Salar g'ung I and to the special Committee, appointed (to use the Deccan Times' words) "by His Highness to inquire into the disgraceful and pitiable state of things resulting from the appointment" of the Nawab Basheerud Bowlawa as medium of communication between His Highness and the committe of man- agement of the Salar Juug estates — more than confirms all that I have hitherto stated about the way in which the family affairs are managed. The quotation runs thus: — "I was compelled to send my uncle Syed Abu Torab Sahib to Sidi Ambar Khausama to tell him that the Sahib Zada (meaning the infant son) wanted clothes very badly, and to ask him either to get new clothes for the child or to let me have some of the shertoanees of Salar Jung II that I might convert them into a few suits for the Saibh Zada: The Khansama paid not the slightest heed to my wishes. Not a single pair of shoes or socks has even been supplied for the use of my child. And whenever a demand for the supply of arrowroot and sugar was made the Khansama refused to comply with my request, and sent word to say that the Com- mittee had not sanctioned such items of expenditure. If such is the way in which provision is made for the clothing and the nourishment of the infant son, you can imagine the amount of attention that is being paid to other matters connected with the palace. Everybody in the palace knows all about these things and the Minister and the Home Secretary have been informed of them." These words of Lady Salar Jung II pescribe more vividly than any words of mine can the miserable pass that the affairs of the Salar Jung family have come to, and point out with a force and an eloquence that cannot be lost on any one who has not grown altogether deaf to the whispers of his consci- ence the necessity for interference on the part of His Highness the Nizam who graciously undertook the guardianship of the 108 infant representative of the family on the death of the Naw^ab Mauierul mullv Bahadur. The rutnour charoiuq; one of the hiy;h officials in His Hioh- ness' service with receiviuo- a bribe of from 50 to 60 thovisand rupees from the Begums of the Salar Juno- fauiily which I re- ferred to iu one of my letters some time ago — has been revived. The "Deccan Times" iu its issue of the 2nd instant writes of this in the strain of one assured of tlie truth of it — and says that it refrains from passing any comments upon it as the matter is suh-judice. A more serious charge than this has never been made agaiust one of the highest officials in tlie State — and it is incumbent upon the oflicial concerned to disprove tlie charge in an open manner no less than upon -those that have brought it forward to prove it. The stability, if not the usi^fulness of an administration, depen^ls much upon the reputation, for purity that it has. And when the purity cones to be questioned and charges of corruption are brought against individual mem- bers of if} openly and no attempt is made to disprove those charges it needs no lynx-eye to see that it is in a fair way to extinction. 109 Hyderabad^ 20th Jura?, 1891. Siuce writing to you last, two events have occurred hero — each important in its own way. The birth of a son and heir to the Nawab Sii' Asman J ah Bahadur has cousideraljly altered the prospects conjured up by the fertile imagination of near relatives who have long cast longing looks on the large estates he owns. And the death of Mr. Sherieful Hassam, one of Judges of the City High Court, at Hudgi, has re-opened the question of the appointment of a Hindu to the High Court Bench. It seems to me extremely unlikely that this matter will receive due consideration at the hands of the authorities, that it stands a better chance of a happy solution now than it did when Mr. Ekbal All went away with the " determination" of never rejoining His Highuess's service. Then, the powers-that- oe did not, deny that it was anything but bare justice that the vast majority of the Hindus in these Dominions should be represented in the High Court, or that a capable representative could be found in the service. Yet not only were they unwilling to do justice to the Hindus, but they set up the plea that a sixth Judge WIS one too many for the High Court and ordered that the vacancy should not be filled up but to get back Ekbal Ali as the sixth Judge soon afterwards — and they do not seem to have given themselves time to think how foolish they looked when they stultified themselves in this fashion. AVhat is there, I ask, to prevent them from acting similarly now — from abolishing the office for the time being on the score of its being a superfluity and reviving it when a favourite — and I am sure he will not be long in coming — turns up ? Were I sure that they would act differently, that they would listen to reason and justice I should mention the names of Mr. Raghunath Pershad, b. a., Rai Murli- dhar, Rai Hukumchand, m. a., as being those eligible for the office and ask the Government to appoint one of these thereto. The circular issued by the Home Secretary to the Native papers in Hyderabad, which you copied from the Deccan Times some days back, defines very clearly the character of the no despotism that guides the destmies of over ten millions of His Highness's subjects. To expect any Editor to discharge the duty he owes to himself no less than to the public after binding himself not to publisli anything that may "threaten an injury to a Government servant '' or " tend to prejudice the mind of the people against His Highness the Nizam's Govern- ment or any of its officers" is to expect him to accomplish what is impossible; and to think that any man with a modicum of self-respect will subscribe to such a ridiculous " agreement" is to count too much upon the hectoring or teri'orising policy the Home Secretary has hitherto pursued. If this circular has been called for — I mean if the officials cannot afford to stand a moment without the " thick coating'' that merceuai*y writers can invest them with for a consideration, if their doings are such as cannot bear the light of day — what becomes of the tall talk that all that the people in power do is fair, that there are data for each document issued, and good reasons for each step taken. The Nawab Medhi Hassan evidently mistook his vocation and the master he would have to serve when he entered the service of His Highness the Nizam — a prince who has " so much" to do with an enlightened people like the English and a liberal Government like theirs. What an acquisition he might have been as a censor of the Press under the Czar of all the Russia. But then I forget that in Russia people do not rise by flattery and wield power without intelligence. Here is a case of zooluni, or rather snobbishness resulting in zoolum, that recently came to my knowledge. A Police Ameen was some time ago sent by a superior officer from one Taluq to another to inspect some office work. Being a perfect stranger to the place the Ameen had to put up while there in a shed. One day while seated in this shed, which served the purpose of a dining-room, a bed room and an office room, looking over some papers, he " received" from a gentleman holding the rank of a Major what might be termed a surprise visit. Either because his back was tuxmed towards him and he could not see him or because he had never been introduced to him who, for Ill ought he knew, might have been the Governor General of India or a European servant of a Sahib or a Nawab — the Ameen did not go down on his knees to the Major. And what do you think, Mr. Editor, the poor fellow has deserved for this ? The Major could not brook this insolence and reported it to superior authorities with the result that the Auieen has been suspended for tJiree months. Can snobbishness and authoritative stolidity- go further ? Under instructions from the great Home Secretary con- tained in his letter No. 183, dated tlie 25th Shaval, the City Cotwal has issued an urgent circular (No. 4956) to the Editors o£ some of the vernacular papers characterising their failure to send their papers to the Home Secretary in spite of his being a subscriber thereto and calling upon them to send their papers regularly or to " show cause" for unwillingness to do so. This circular is noteworthy as being issued by the City Cotwal under instructions from the Home Secretary. What has the Cotwal to do with newspapers ? And why, should he, of all, be made the medium of communication between Editors of Newspapers and the Home Secretary ? These are questions that need to be answered by the authorities or those who have the " honor of being in their confidence. I wrote to you some time ago how a prominent nobleman in the city amused himself at times — how he in the guise of a woman sold toddy at a gold mohur a lothi to his friends and admirers on festive occasions. I have since learnt that there is another amusement in which he indulges as much as in this. He is fond, I am informed, of a game called Chcmsar which is played by means of three dice and eight wooden pieces repre- senting an equal number of men and women. There is nothing extraordinary or amusing in this I admit — but then his way of playing the game is so original. He hates having to deal with inanimate men and women — and so he moves about on his Chausar board eight women picked from the dancing girl class and eight men from among his companions-— all in flesh and 112 blood. I can mention the names of the companions who move on the Chausar board with as much ease and grace as in public places — but I must not wound susceptibilities unnecessarily. Betrothals in the highest circles of the Hyderabad nobility are very much talked of — and the tulk finds expression in a paragraph in a recent issue of the Mahboob-al-kuloof, a local Urdu paper. And these promise to be very interesting as in the first place the '^ parties'' are of very tender ages the most im- portant of them being not over 2 years of age, and in the second place the means employed to bring about them are not common place. An influential man seems to have been engaged to act the part of the ordinary female miisliata (go-between) to nego- tiate terms between the families concerned — and he is to be paid a big fee a portion of wliich^ 1 am told, has already changed hands. I wrote to you in my last about the rumour charging a high official with haying received bribes to the extent of about lis. 65,000 from the Begums of the Salar Jung family. This affair since assumed serious proportions — and a Commission has been appointed to inquire into the charge. 113 Hyderabad, 27th June, 1891.. The Home Secretary's Gagging C'ireiilnr lias borne fruit already. The Sliauhat-nl- Islam, an Urdu paper published ^vithin the Moglai limits, has been suppressed for refusing to sign tho agreement sent round and comuienting thereon in strong, but by no means undeserved terms. This action on the jiart of the Musldak-MeJuU IIussuil Government, their organ attempts to justify in its issue of yesterday's date. And this is its "justifi- catiou." To "our" notions the circuhu' miglit be "bad law" — that does not matter — but the punishment inflicted on the Editor who refused to obey it is quite 'legal' for in the absence of any Press Act the sovereign authority which grants a license to start a paper can revoke it if it likes^ and the refusal to obey au order must needs be punished. I wonder how the punishment is "lef^al/^ Did the circular — I mean "the bad Inw"— declare that refusal to sign the agreement which seeks to enslave the Press or rather public opinion, on the part of any Editor, would be followed by the suppression of his paper? is every means resorted to by an administration to provide against any ugly exposure, "legal"? The present Government has iii season and out of season claimed to be the best Government Hyderabad has had, has ever professed to be actuated by nothing but considera- tions for the well-being of the people and has always declared itself to be ready to turn itself ''inside out' if neeessory to pi^ovG its honesty of pnr[)0se. How the measure promulgated by the circular which no previous Government found it necessary to adopt-, and the punishment inflicted on the independent man who refused to be "muzzled" thereby — are consistent with this claim, this profession and this d<>clarati(m, I wish to kuoAV, IE it is true that every line that appears in the local papers or in the iiiofussil ones on Hyderabad affairs is tianslated into Urdu by an establishment kept up for the purpose for the benefit of His Excellency the Minister, I wish he Avould see an explanation for this glaring inconsistency furnished to the public. I hitherto gave the Nawab Alehdi Hussan credit for keeu- sighteduess, but 1 see now that I was mistiiken. He seems to 15 114 be qnite at a loss to understand the circumstances amidst which he is placed, to read the signs of the times in which he finds himself possessed of enormous j)ower. Does he know that Hyderabad has not been at a stand-still fer a quarter of a century, that days when any wickedjiess and injustice could be perpetra- ted safe from the eyes of the people or authority belong to ancient history, now that public opinion — it does not matter by whom guided — is gaining in volume and strength day by day, that agitation for justice which was an unknown factor formerly has given his Government endless trouble ? If he does, it is impossible to comprehend how he could commit the blunder of issuing a circular with a view to gag the Moglai Press, and aggravate it by suppressing the paper. the Editor of which had the honesty and moral courage to protest against it. Again the claims of the vast majority of the Hindus of these Dominions to be represented on the City High Court Bench, have been disregarded. A Mahomedaii, Mr. Yaseenkhan of the Berar Commission, has been, subject to the sanction of the Supreme Government, appointed to the vacancy caused by the death of Mr, Sharief-ul-Hussan. In noticing this, the Deccan Standard complacently remarks that there "can be no feeling of favouritism" after the nomination of a stranger to the post. Considering tlie exceeding hurry in which the appointment has been made it is hard to see how tlu re "can be no feeling of favouriti^^m" abroad — to believe the appointment to be anything else than a joh. Though the men in power take pretty good that none but the favored few are admitted to their confidence, yet their secrets get out — some how — nov.- and then, mostly in the shape of rumours, and reveal to us how they seek to strengthen them- selves. And this is really fortunate. Some time ago the Safiri Dekhan, an Urdu daily published wuthin the Kesidency limits, wrote a leader severely commenting on the action of the Govern- ment in the city ^'murder case. This annoyed the Minister" so jnucb; a rumour says, that he wrote to the Resident requesting 115 him to suppresf? the Sajin. What effect this letter had upon the Resident, the rumoar does not say ; but it is not likely that he would go out of his way to oblige even the Minister, for he must know how one of his predecessors suppressed an English Journal published within the Residency limits and how he was pitched into for this by the Supreme Government. AViiether there is any truth in this rumour or not, this much is certain, that the articles above referred to caused much knasbing of teeth in the official circles. Soon after the publication of it Moulvi Sad-ud-deen, the proprietor of the Safiri DeTi/ian, was sum- moned before a high official aud tsked to tender an. apology for the statements made in the leader and publish a contradiction thereto. The Moulvi refused to do anything of the sort and wished that the high official would put in writing what he wanted him (the Moulvi) to do. Perhaps the upshot of this was the communication which rumour speaks of as having been addressed to the Kesident by the Minister. Another and a still higher official also played a part. From the heights of Olympus — 1 mean Mahableshwar — the "Jehova, Jove or Lord" of Hy- derabad thundered against the poor Moulvi-Sad-ud-deen. He wrote to him to say that he had forfeited his favour by publish- ing the article on the City Murder case, that after seeing it in his paper he could not but withdraw his patronage from him. Even if he were a private gentleman and not an official, the mighty official continued, he would have felt called ui^on to take the step he took — and wound np by saying "Yeh umda our pakizah zaban Abki Abkan mobarik rahai'' that is "May such elegant and choice language (as that used in the leader) ever stand you iu good stead. ^' I may state en passant that 1 have had the leader iu question translated to me, and I find the language though strong quite called for by the occasion. 116 GuLEUEQA, 5th July, 1891. It is said that in a mulfitnde of councillors there is wisdom. It is ratlier difficult to believe this, seeino; that such an intelli;'ent body of men as the Government of India find it easier to do a wrong thing than to do a rinht one, do^s at ti iies exactly what it ought not to do — at all events what it is inadvisable to do. What we have heard of " Political Agents" does not reveal them to be the largest minded of rulers or the most forbearing of men, Mr. Chatterjee's journalistic experiences at Mhow, and the exposure of Sir Lepel Griffin in the columns of the '• Amirta Bazaar Patrika" have shown what autocrats these are in their respective 'spheres' and how desirable it is that their power should be curtailed and they should be restrained from presum- ing too much. Yet the Government of India would make them custodians of public oj)inio i ' in places administered by the Governor-General^ but not forming part (if British India' — would invest them with the powc'r to withhold or withdraw permission to edit^ print or publish a newspaper just as they like it, an I to ' expel forcibly' any one who edits, prints or publishes a newspaper without their permission ! Verily the fates favour the wront; men. o I called upon a British authority in one of the ' places administered by the Governor-General, but not forming part of British India' recently in connection with the permission applied for previously to start a newspaper therein; and it might interest your readers to know what transpired at the interview. Being ushered into the authority's presence, I was asked what I wanted. 1 explained to him the object of my visit ; and he said : " I don't think you will get the permission." " Vt hv?'' I asked. " can von assign i-easons for thinking so ?" " Yes" said he. " We don't want to have a paper of the sort here." 117 " Is it so ? " I asked. " Yes— it is so" said be, " We don't want snch a paper, and that is the reason why j^ou will not get permission to start it. la not the reason clear enonf^li ? " And I liad to admit that " the reason was clear enono-h " and hid him good morning and got out. "What a wowerful instru- ment for smothering the public voice, the recent order of the Government of India will furnish politicals such as this with, it is easy to understand. Next Tuesday full tWo years will have elapsed since the dentil of Sir Salar Jung II. And this puts me in mind of all that the Salnr Jung family has suffered since the death of the XaAvab Munier-ul-mulk Bahadur and the pitiable condition it is in now. Of what avail was it that the highest personage in these Dominions constituted himself the guardian of the infant son of Sir Salar Jung II ? Of what avail was it that he appoin- ted a committee to manage the estates of the family and laid down rules for the g-nidance thereof? Sir Asman Jah, a noble- man not particularly well disposed towards the family, became the medium of communication between His Highness the Nizam and the ronimittee of management of the estates. An oflftcial not overlnirdened with a sense of gra'itude to the family for favours done by it in the past, turned up to be the master of the situation. And the lesult has proved to be disastrous to the interests of the family. Its right to the Meeralum Tank, one of its coveted possessions came to be questioned on the flimsiest oTOunds. A creature of the Government's, came to be appointei! at the head of the committee of management. The oiilv man on the Committee who could work on behalf of the family was ' worried' till he resigned his membership. Lady Salar Jung II was reduced to a nonentity within the palace i walls — and her infant son, the ' rightful' owner of all the estates was left to take care of himself. Jealousy began to work mischief amongst the lady memhors of the family— •aui 118 split them into two parties. One of the parties headed by the ekler dantrhter of Sir Salar Jung I — if a rumour that has been current here for several months and led to the appointment of the bribery commission is to be believed — subscribed about Rs.40,000 and called upon lady Salar Jung, to contribute Rs. 15,000 towards the sum to be paid to a high official, with a view to secure some privileges; and Lady Salar Jung II not having the cash delivered over jeweilery to the value of the amount asked of her. Thus is it that the Salar Jung family has come to its present pass, — in spite of the Nizam — and it remains to be seen what steps will bo taken by His Highness to set matters right. We have it on the authority of the Government organ that Mr. Mahotned Yaseenkhan appointed to the High Court Judg- ship created vacant by the death of Mr. Sherieful Hassain, is a brother of Mr. Mahomed Amjad Ali, Taluqdar of customs, Hyderabad. The Nawab Yicar-ul-Mulk Bahadur passes this station on his way to Hyderabad this afternoon. Whatever may be the character of the welcome he expects from those who belong to his party — and one at least of them has been very much wishing his speedy return — he cannot be unaware of the fact that his return to resume duties will be unwelcome news to many in Hyderabad. And what this is due, the clever Nawab knows— at any rate ought to know — as well as any one else in these Dominions. He has been looked upon as an alien who monopo- lizing all real power in the land, has studiously ignored or dis- regarded the claims of the sons of the soil, and benefitted himself and his creatures in every possible way. Now that he is in sound health again, if he does not adopt a new line of conduct and act so as to remove this wide-spread impression regarding himself and thus strengthen his position in the service it will be his own fault. 119 GULBUEGA, JullJ, 13. ■^'< The Nawab Vicarul-mulk Bahadur broke his journey here for a few hours, on tSuuday, the 6th intant. He was accompa- nied by the Hon'ble Syed Ameer Husaiii of Calcatta — who is now in Hyderabad as the very hospitable ^Jawab Bashier-ud- Dowlah's guest eujoying a round of festivities — and was received by most of the big officials in the phice. 1 was also on the plat- form. The mighty Nawab looked poorly in health far from being in a condition to attend to his many onerons duties. You need not be told that, though in name he is only the Revenue Secretary, he has control over all the departments in the State — and I wondered that he should have changed the cool heights of Mahableshwar or the invigorating climate of Bombay for the unhealthy atmosphere of Hyderabad. But then, I had not tasted the sweets of power like him and could not understand that power might be dearer to a person than health itself. To speak of the state of things in Hyderabad: some of his officials, his right-hand men, stand charged with serious offences; and the Nawab has need to be more than usually cautious and show himself to be impartial, if he values his position under the Government. It is too late in the day to say " if the critics were in my position they could not have acted differently from me — having accepted service in the State I must not mind the praises or the abuses of people" and expect people to put up with every kind of injustice and insult. The British Lion is watching — and he avenges wrongs sooner or later. Some have been curious to know who the British authority is that could think of disposing of an application fur permission to start a newspaper witli a curt " we don't want a paper of the sort, so you Avill not get the permission to start it." The authority is Mr, Crawford, the first Assistant Kesident. 1 wrote to him on a certain day asking him for an appointment to see him in connection with the permission applied for to start a newsprper. The appointment was duly made — and what trans- pired at the interview 1 had with him on the appointed day, at 120 the appointed honr, I have already told your readers. Well returning from the interview, I put down on paper the particu- lars of the interview and sent it to Mr Crawford with a letter to the effect ; " I have noted down on another paper the particulars of the interview I had with you this morning. Please look through and let me know if I have omitted anything that you may like to be mentioned and oblige. If by Friday next 1 do not receive a reply I shall consider myself at liberty to send to the papers my account of the interview as being strictly faith- ful."' And this elicited, mirahilc dictu, an official document from the Extra Assistant Resident's Office informing me, in i-eph/ to my letter regarding the permission, that the application for permission would be placed before the Resident for orders. I could not for the life of me understand what the document meant, for 1 had never written to Mr. Crawford about the permission, the only letter written to him being the one asking for appointment in connection with it to which I had received a reply making an appointment. All this about the British authority's proceedings sounds so funny that, I am sure, your readers will enjoy the reading of it. 1 told you in ray last that the right of the Salar Jung family to the Meer Alum Tank, one of its coveted pos sessions,, had been questioned by the present Minister on the flimsiest of grounds. The 'grounds' are worth noticing. The tank was constructed long ago by the Nawab Meer Alum, whose name it bears, — not by public subscriptions but at his own cost. And if it came to be used by the public, it was thus. The Nawab Meer Alum, out of loyalty to his sovereign and consideration for bis friends, allowed water to be drawn from the tank for the use of the Nizam aud certain noblemen in the city. And later on when the people applied to him for permission to draw water from it for irrigating the fields underlying it, he was public-spirited and generous enough to grant the permission. In consideration of the good derived by the people from the tank, the Government of His Highness the Nizam ordered that its repair, whenever 121 it should need it, should, be executed and paid tor out of the puldic funds — andj if I am c.nTt'ct.ly infuniied, llio ui'lIci' is up to date being acted up to. These tacts had evideutly no si*2;ui- ticauce iu the eyes of Sir Asmaujali. As soon as he became the medium of cummuuication between His IJighness and the ccm- luittee of )uaiia the close of her shorb life she remained a vivid expression thereof. Her letters written to her brother, studying in England, while only ,13 or 14 years of age, and one on the Hindu society published over her signature by the " London Spectator" sometime after that reveal her to be, if not a genius, at least one who, had her lot been cast in England, could have influenced the minds of ' her oeneratiou' consider- ably. And if her marriage with an Englishman was possible at a time when Hindu conservatism was much more powerful than now, it was because of the rare moral courage she showed as much as of the liberal-miudedness wich enabled her father Dr. Atmaram Pandurang, to withstand the onslaughts of custom and bigotry. But unfortunately this marriage proved unhappy, and left Mrs. Littledale very little of the will to do any useful work. She came to Hyderabad when the Zenana School was started in connection with the Hyderabad branch of the National Indian Association, — and if with the Nawab Imadul- Mulk Bahadur, the Director of Public Instruction, originated the idea of this unique institution, to her wholly belongs the credit of working it out. Her way of making lessons interesting as well as her manner attracted pupils; and she was loved by her " girls" as she used to call the pupils of her school, as much as she was respected and admired for her " cleverness" by all that knew her. She was compelled by continued ill-health to resign her appointment and leave for Bombay and therefrom to England; but we little thought when she left us that in a few I 124 inontlis she would be no more. She wrote the ^renter part of the concorclance published by liei" liusband several years ago of the two plays he had discovered t(j be Sliakespeaie's aud not Beauiiiont aud Flotchur's as ireueiallv believed. Aud she was a frequeut contributor to the loeal papers vvliile here; ber lia[)py translatious from (Jeruiau poets — I uriy tell you .she kuew Germau, aud Italiau besides Ku<4lisb— aud letters ou various subjects over the sig-nature of '' Lotus Flower'^ were ever looked forward to by her readers. The one thing she used to be euthusiastic about ju.-t before slie bade us good-bye was travel- liug together with Pandiui Itauiahai iu disguise to disLaat places visitiug scenes ol historical iuiporlauce all over India and writiu"' a book thereon. What good .results niiiiht have been accomplished thus we cuuld nut say. But she who conceived the plan sleeps ou a distant slua'e far off frcui home and country amidst the roar of waters that never slee[>. Ma,y she rest iu peace ! If it is true that geuerallv l*hinlishuieu leave behind at home their liberalism and sense of justice when they start for India to serve the Indian Government, it is equally true that they unlearn most of what they have learnt, the efiiciency with which th -y h tve worked elsewhere or cease to care to be useful and be worthy of their ' hire' when they enter the siu'vice of this unfortunate state. Many Englishmen have come and gone, have been iu service .-lud have retired from it ou liberal pensions; but such of thom as have done justice to their duties, or dis- charged them as well as t'lev could or would under the iiritish Government — have been very few indeed. But to come to the point I have in view: His Highness the Nizam's Public Works Department is the most advantageously-placed Department in the .State. It is all under English management. Yet it is worse than most of the other departments of the State in respect of the quality and (piantity of work it turns out. Wo are not lacking iu highly-paid officers and assistants, nor are the budget allotments made by tbe Government wirh a niggvrdly hand. But how all tho "talent" in the departiueut is engaged, 125 and what become?; of the laro-e budo-et grants, iiobodv seems to know oi- care to know. Woi-k, that can be and is done, and done safcisfactorilv, by a supervisor and four or five overseers in the Bi-it.ish Tiovinces — :s here in the hands of a divisional Engineer on about Us. 900, a District Engineer on about Hs. 500 and an Irritrational Eno-ineer on -iOO, with an endless number of subordinates anJ assistants. But how this small amount of work is carried out bj- this large staff it is interesting to note. Except in some Divisional and District head-quarters, of roads worthy of the name there are none in the districts. Many o£ them are in such a wrecked coadition that it is a wonder that man walks on. tii^m and beasts draw loaded carts over them, I am not indulging ill exaggeration — I have stated simply facts, facts that I challenge anybod}' in the department to gainsay. And yet the District Plngineer is hard at work all during the year, the Divi- sional Engineer, who all through the year is occupied with re- cidviu^ i-eports from the District ofHce and sorting them to the Head Office, superintends once a year, and the Superintending Engineer tlie Secretary to the Government in the department, makes an annual tour. How each of these officers is satisfied with the work he has inspected, it is impossible to understand. If there be too little work to keep engaged all the hands in the department, and 1 know at least one Divisional Engineer who has tlip frankness to confess that he gets pay for no work done — why not r .duce their number ? And if there be enough of work for all what is there that prevents the Head of the department from seeing that this woik is satisfactorily done, that the money devoted thereto is not wasted ? I shall have more to say about this department in future letters. Of late nuich has been written in the Madras papers about police zoolum in the Mofussils of your Presidency. But the state of things which attracted so much attention there cannot be as bad as that here. Of police zoolum as it prevails in the Districts of these Domiuioiis, those that have the "misfortune" to live in the Mofussil there cannot have an idea. It a man is Wise or values his time he will not gD to "the custodiaus of 126 peace" with a complaint. But if ho is "tired*' of peace and wisbes to make life itself a "burden/' he may publisb bis losses and cry for justice. One has only to report a case of tbeft or violence to turn the kuigbts of tbo baton a<^ainsb bini. Tboy constitute themselves bis accusers and annoy liim aud oppress him to sucb an extent as to niake him retire a 'wiser and sadder' man. To iltnstrate what T bave said above, I may mention two incidents of recent occurrence here. A thief broke into a house one night, and when be bad possessed himself of the gold bangles of a voung bov an alarm was raised: be ("ot on the roof of the bouse, jumped therefrom in hot baste aad escaped as best as be could. Bvt uo i-eport of this was made to the police — and that in spite of the big blood marks discovered in front of the house the next morning and the foot-prints ^Yhicll clearly pointed to ilm thief having wounded himself and been dragged away by his acccmplices — for tear o^zoolum. The secoud instance is furnished by a number of shop-keepers who, being robbed of about Rs. 20,000 in a fair, preferred to hold their peace about it to breathing a word of it to the police. The following amusing scene was enacted in an office here sometime ago. An East-Indian Surveyor sent to the office accouutant, wlio, by the bye, is a Ufitive, a draft with the words written thereon — " Accountant, copy this and send it to me for signature.'' The accountant who bad evidently taken the proper measure of the surveyor's impertinence, scored thi'ough the words with red ink, wrote underneath to say — " Surveyor, you had better copy ic yourself" — and sent it back to the person con- cerned. The Surveyor could not brook the insult offered by the native, and so lie reported the matter to the accuntant's superior, who was also his superior, with the result that the accountant was sent for and addressed : " How could you offend Mr. like that ? He belongs to the executive and may rise to be a District hJngineer." On this the accountant cooly replieJ : I might also rise to be Accountant-General." The moral of this scarcely needs pointing out. 127 GULBURGA, Jv.lij 27th. Tho Government oroan wives its readers to understand that "tbe Deccan Times " lias notified to its staff that tbe paper will stop publication on the 31.st instant.*' This is very bad news. Thongh not persistent and consistent in its advocacy of popular interests, the " Deccan Times" has been in a way a check on the rashness or inclination to do wrong of individual officials or cliques in the State. That this check is about to be removed, will no doubt cause jubilation in the midst of those who are in the least degree sensitive of public criticism. They will no longer have a local critic ; the people will have to seek the aid of dis- tant journals to publish their tfrievances, and the journalists not being on the spot can be ])eckled for their ignorance for giving publicity to the misrepresentations of interested parties ; and the time that must elapse between the commission of an offence and its exposure by them can be expected to weaken their advo- cacy. "What a satisfaction this must be to wrong-doers — and to the " Deccan Standard" who can say, at least localli/, " I am Sir Oracle, and when I open my lips let no dogs bark ?" What the official mouth-piece choose to call the •' ostensible reason'' — " The unwillingness or inability of the proprietor to carry on the paper under the new order" of the Government of India — must surely, be regarded as the real reason for the '' Times" notifica- to its staff. For how can one with any feeling of safety work a paper claiming to be independent under the new, uncalled-for and arbitrary rules ? I In connection with His Highness the Nizam's Public Works Department, the following questions put by " X" in a local paper may interest your readers : — '* How is it that the Engineers in H. H. the Nizam's service I cannot ride and they require palkis, toug;is and carts to go on inspecting works ? How is it that the Engineers in H. H. the Nizam's V. W. D. seldom attend to their executive work and never go out for mouths and years together ? 128 How is it that some Eiioiiieer.s in H. H. the Nizam's service ill-treat their subordinates b}' sitting in the office with them ;ind teasing them like school boys ? How is it that some District Euoiueers in thn Nizam's service deal with money transactions unknown to the Accouutauts ? Who are the respousibJe parties for any error iu the accounts, &C.J and can an Engineer deal with such transactions during the holidays and the absence of accounts I" I paid a visit to all the schools in the station yesterday — and I am clad that I did so. I was able to see what one sino-le individual has done in about three years, and form an idea as to what even one man could do backed- up by perseverance and energy in the face of prejudice and ignorance. About three years and a half ago there was only one school iu the place with a population of about60,000; and this school Lad in its rolls IbO boys receiviug instruction iu three departments of -A Pmglish classes, 3 Urdu classes, and 2 Maharati classes respectively. How this (|ueer system worked it is needless to enquire. It is enough to know that Mr. T. greenivasa Charria, Headmaster of the High School, on b(u*n<'- appointed at the head of this school of three distinct departments with 2, 4 and 3 teachers respectively, saw the defects, if not the evil, of the systeu) and with the permission of the Director of Public Instruction submitted an elaborate scheme suggesting the establish- ment of one Ehglish school and several vernacular primary and secondary schools in the different centres of population of this scattered town as its feeders. The scheme though very sensible, came somehow to be condemned by the authorities concerned iu the first instance. About a year afterwards, that is about three- years ago, it was again submitted; and this time good counsels prevailed and sanction was granted. And to the working of this system is due what I saw yerterday, an English High School about 130 strong, and Primary and Secondary Vernacular Schools all over the town coutaiuing over 750 boys, where there 129 were only 180 boys receiving an apolog}'' for education three years and ten months before. This is not all tlie educational work that Mr. Sreenivasu Charriar has done. He has also established 7 girls' schools, with nearly 800 girls on the rolls. For all this, Mr. Acharyar lias been paid roiuarkably well by his department — -and it is thus. The ropoit on public instruction issued a few months a.go not onh- dix's nut mention his name witli the names of those who have done their duty satisfaetoriiv, but ignores In's remarknldy good work in female education in these words: '- No female schools have as yet been opened in the southern (Gulburi^a) . . . Division," while recordinar the yearly grant of lis. 1,12^ accorded by the Government therefor. Verily ''kissing" goes b}' favour; 17 130 HydekabaDj 3i'd August, 1891. A oomraunicatioii whicb appears in the last issue of the " Deccau Standard " under the heading of " A word about politics/' is worth noticing. In it the writer, who is, we are told by the editor, "a European and away in the Districts and not in the Nizam's service or employ" reads a very important lesson to his brethren in iiis Highness the Nizam's Dominions, which, it is to be hoped, will not be lost on them. Now, a European considers himself to be a superior being in this State as in other Native States in India. He serves a Native Prince for a big salary, he lives within the jurisdiction of his Government on account of the advantages that he cannot dream of obtaining at the hands of a Emopean Government, but to the laws of the Prince he is not amenable. He is a servant and subject; and yet his master and sovereign cannot sit in judgment over him. This is a singular anomaly, but it exists in the Native States because of the supreme power of the British Government, and is allowed to exist by the backbonelessness, if I may use the term, of the native rulers. And to this the writer of the article above referred to directs his -attention. '' If Europeans do not like the Nizam's .laws" says he, ''they are not compelled to submit to them. They may stay where more benign law holds sway." Quite so. To claim ecpial ])rivilege3 or i-ather to enjoy equal advantages with the suljjects of Native Princes and yet refuse to be bound by the laws that bind them is as reasonable as it is just on the part of the Supreme Government to support and sanction it. And the reasonableness, as well as the justice, passeth all understanding. The writer then proceeds to point out the necessity for the Nizam's Government to recognise ordained Missionaries as Registrars of marriages. Recorders of deaths, births, &c — for, to use his own words, "Sve also doubt if Missionaries holding licenses from the British Government to perform marriage ceremonies between British subjects, Euro- pean or native, have any light whatever thereunder to go into the districts, and, as is now being done, perform the operation upon purely Nizam's subjects under purely British licenses"— 131 and tlie def?irability of passing an Act similar to the British Relig'ioiis I^ropertj Act by which Missionary Societiei can hold property in these Dominions. He winds up with the following lines which I make no apology for quoting: — " We think some adjustments should be made which would definitely recognize the loyalty of the European, whoever he be; and that he should on his part, in perfect good faith, recognize the justice of the Government, as wo do with alacrity all its openings for 0!ii])Ioyment and emolument. As long as Euro- peans continue to repudiate the application of the Nizam's laws to themselves, this want of confidence will be construed into au affront, (we think justl}') by the Nizam's Government. We are inclined to think the frankest recognition of the Nizam's learal Institutions and laws on the part of all Europeans in the Domi- nions, will be reciprocated by the extension of all the advantages the Government can extend to anybody, to all Europeans also severally and collectively. We are suffering from the "Jap re-action" at the present time. It remains for Europeans to cordially shew their faith and friendship, and find in the Nizam of Hyderabad, the ''faith- ful Ally" of all civilized nations. A case, reminding one of the "tamous" Sowar case, has been f>r some weeks past befoi'e Major-General Campbell, Judge of the Suburban Court here. It cropped up, according to the complainants, thus: On the 20th of May last Lieutenants Sexton and Brewster, who had gone into the districts for Shikareeying were encamped at Palikonda in the Indore District. At near dusk, two Arabs in the service of the Nawab Torwar Jung Ashrafud-Dowla Bahadur — one of whom is au aged man proved to be of very good character and to have acted as Tahsildar for near 30 years — went to the officers, seated a few yards from their tents, and asked them if they wanted bulls (for the purpose of carrying their luggage evidently). The Lieutenants said ' Yse ' and asked them to fetch the bulls immediately, on which the 132 Arabs in an insolent tone told them that they had not paid for some articles got from the villa«^ers. This exasperated the officers, but the}- did not give outward expression to it in any way, and like the s^ood and reasonable men that they were they explained away the unfounded charij^e, when one of the Aiabs drew a sword and the other produced a pistol and assaulted them and would have caused them more grievous bodily injury than they did sustain, but for their strength and the help rendered by their servants, one of them had the remarkable courage to flee away at the siglit of the svvord. So runs the complainants version — a version which one cannot help accepting with a big grain of salt considering that some men, Arabs though they be, do not draw swords and level pistols at one without the least provocation. Out of these '•incidents" arose the case, the Arab assault case, in which judgment has recently' been delivered. General Campbell found the accused guilty of causing grievous hurt to Lieutenants Sexton and Brewster and sentenced them each to five years' ligorous imprisonment on Saturday last. The ceremony of betrothal or the nimjanl as iti is called here, between the eldest sister of the Nizam and the Nawab Imaura Jung Bahadtir, the elder son of the Nawab Sir Kurshedjah Bahadur, began the day befm-e yesterday and comes to a close this evening. On the 1st instant, Sir Kurshedjah Bahadur ac- companied by the Nawabs Zaffer Jung and Vicar-ul Umra went on foot with all his retinue to the Chau Mahala Palace and pre- sented the Nizam the usual nazur of about 120 gold mohurs, if I am rightly informed, and it was accepted — the acceptance sig- nifying His Highness's willingness to give his sister in iiiarriage to the person for whom her hand had been solicited. Yesterday the bridegroom's party paid a visit to the Palace ; this evening the bride's party return the visit; and this closes the ceremony. The marriage itself is expected to come off in November, and that it will be characterised by great pomp and magnificence, goes without saying. 133 The mavriao-e of one of His Higliness's daughters with the Nawab Zii,fer Jmig Bahadiii-, tho younger son of Sir Karshedjah Bahadur, is also talked of. His Excelleucy the Minister has accorded his sanction to niisi tiff the Aurunoabad Hio-h School to the status of a second f^raile Colle<«e. The widom of this step is not apparent. When the only College in His Higaness's Dominions and that in the capital, gets hut lialf rations' with several well-managed High Schools about the place to feed it, it is not difficult to conceive what sort of an existence the College in Aurungabad will have without even a single High School in the District — of coui'se excepting its own High School Department — to do so. But the Hyderabad Educational Department is divine — and it can create something- oven out of nothing. Sometime ago I saw a circular sent round by the iNawab Imad-ul-Uowlah Bahadur, our Direc- tor of Public Instruction, to the effect that six scholarships had been founded by the Government and that they would be offered annually to the first six matriculates, from a Government or an aided school, in these Dominions. And I was wishing to con- gratulate those tliat had hud a hand in this— one could easily see what an impetus this would give to the spread of higher education here — when I heard of the sanction above referred to. Tlu' step is a most ill-advised one, and if it tends to any- thing at all it will be to hamper the hands of the heads of the only 1^'ii'st grade College here, namely, the Nizam College. 134 Hydrrabad, llth Avgnst, 1891. Yon will remember the case of the Rajasahib of the ancient Hamasthan of Anagondi, of which I gave a short account in these columns several weeks ago. It would seem impossible to reach the Nizam's cars on the mattei*. The Hajusahib wired, oa the 2ud and 3rd June last, to His Highuess, then encamped at Warangnl, stating liow he had been reduced to bis present pitiable condition bj the powers-that-bo and ' imploring His Highness to come to his relief.' No notice has as yet been taken of these telegrams; and as it is incredible thnt His High- ness has all of a sudden lost interest in the welfare of his Rajas and subject<5, the question naturally arises whetlier he saw or rather was allowed to see them at all. We have, before this heard of papers meant for His Highness disappearing on their way to their destination in a most mysterious fashion. Is it that even the two telegrams have gone the way of these ? The telegrams run thus: — " Your Highness's Government has ordered the withdrawal of my judical powers. My repeated representations both to Government and to your Highness have remained unnoticed. My samast/ian has been attached for arrears of peislimsh newly levied against long established cust-m; and now the greatest insult is offered to me by withdrawing my powers. The Govern- ment do not allow a single pie from the revenue of the samasthan towards the maintenance of my personal comforts and dignity. I and my people have only your Highness to protect onr honour and life. I beg your Highness to personally investigate mj case and grant me the justice that I have sought for in vain from your officers. All indignities offered to me, a prince of your Highness's realm, are so many affronts to your Highness's own person. Again I implore yonr Highness to come to ray relief." '* In continuation of my telegram of yesterday, I beg to place the following particulars before your Highness : In 1297 135 Fasli the question of the succession to the Anagondi gadi came before your Highness's Government. Although some of the officials of your Highness's vxoverninent were opposed to the measure, your Highness was graciously pleased e hfe in India and tlnit in l*hi<;:huid in his happy way, he addressed the yourig men around him some- what in tliese woriLs : Yuungmen in Hyderabad are not availing ihemselves siiffieieutly uf the edmational advHutiiges held out to them. What is to become of Hyderabad if the noblemen, and gentlemen of the place do not insist upon their sons obtaining a good, sound education ? It" you young- men do not educate yourselves so as to make your State if entrusted to you, keep pace with the advance made by other State.s, you must not complain if the chief ofiices are given away to men from the North-West." Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick's words to the Hydrabadees call for a few remarks. The Resident seems to be labouring under the impression that every possible inducement is offered to youths to make them educate themselves to a high standard. In spite of his residence here for some years he seems to be in blissful io-norance of the fact that little has been done by Avay of appre- ciating the work of those who have already gone in for higher education. Mr. Hodson reported ; " iMr Cornelius took his B. A. Degree in Science, and 2 out of 3 candidates passed the B. A. at their first trial." How, 1 ask, hns Mr. Cornelius's degree been appreciated ? How hnve the services of the first graduate of the Nizam College, the only Hydrabadee graduate we have had in the last 5 or 6 years, one of the only three graduates this State has produced— been utilized ? In no way. His chances of getting into His Highness's service seem to be as few as those of Hydrabadees who have not gone beyond their alphabets in their education. And what hkelihood is there, so long as tho present circumstances continue, that the 2 out of the o candidates who have passed the B. A. in the first Branch will fare better 14G when tliey become full-blown graduates ? The Resident's allusion to the men from the North-West is not quite intelligible, if he referred to the grumble heard all over the Dominion agaiust the monopolising of all important offices by the Hindus- tanees, if he meant that all the Hindustanees in service are educationally superior men to the Hyderabadees clamouring for positions, I must say that he blundered unwittingly or that he but echoed the opinious of interested parties constantly dinned into his ears. For, with the exception of the Belgiamis and one or two others, the Hindustanees are ignorant of English and cannot claim to be educationally superior to their co-religiouista here. Since writing last about the ' Diamond case' I have heard that His Highness is determined to get back the Avhole of his 23 lalihs, and that he has engaged the services of Mr. Jardine, of tho Bombay Bar, for the purpose. ''AT 147 Hyderarad, 29th August 1891. The deliberations of the Salar Juuo- Debt Commission have come to a closs at last. '1 he object of its existence has been accom- plished; Mv. Gya Persad, m. a., at one time our Deputy Account- ant-General has been sent out of service. And the Commission breathes its last in triumph. I am told that the Departmental inquiry into the famous second Treasury Fraud case will terminate soon; and that it is not likely that the result of it will he any more favourable to the Nawab Imad Nawaz Jung and Raja Srinivasa Rao than the report of the Commission above alluded to has been to M r. Gya Persad. There is an impression abi'oad that the men in power are anxious to do away with as many as possible of those inimical in any way to their interests in the service, before the present Resident leaves, as thoy are afraid that Mr. Plowden may not be as non-iuterfering as Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick. I shall not stop to ask what reason there is for this. Sir Dennis o- oes away in October; and we shall not have to wait lono- to know the reasonableness or otherwise of the impression. Two of the local papers have followed the " Deccan Times '' into oblivion — the " Saferi Deccan " published within the Resi- dency limits and the Mahboob-nl-Icaloof in the Moglai jurisdiction It is remarkable that in spite of his warm advocacy of our Home Secretary's oaggjng circular, Kaloofs career on earth has closed in about ten months. 148 Shankerpalte, 4th September, According to a recent ovtler of the Government^ the Nawab Vicar-ul- Mulk Bahadur, better-known as rnlesar Jnno- will hereafter carry on tlie duties of Personal Assistant lo His Excel- lency tlie Minister in addiiioji to those of lievenue Secretary. Tilkbal AM vacates his place on the Hii^-h Court Bench and acts as Joint Hevenne Secretary "nntil further orders." The criniinal suit aith the Russians. And His Highness, with the confidence he has in us, will sui-ely believe us." " Whoever thought that His Highness had anything to do wit the Russians ? And bow could this prosecution establish he had nothing to do r* 167 "Abid, who is a trusted servant of His Higbness's, went to Persia, jou kuow. And it might have been thouo-ht by the Government of India, that he wont there to confer with the llussians in behalf of His Hic^hness, and the 40 hiklis, the price of the Diamond, was only an instahnent of tbe sum promised them." This conversation tells the absurd story that is to vindicate the action of men in autliority and keep them secure from harm. And it needs no comment at my hands. I am told that His Excellency Sir Asmanjah wrote to Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick, on the eve of his departure, begging him to recommend Vicarul-mulk and Imadnl-mnlk to the Government of India so that their titles might be recognised by it, and that Sir Dennis replied that it was "too late" for him to think of doing anything for them. A high Residency official writing on this matter, to the Nizam's Minister is said to have remarked — and in the remarks one hears the cutting tone of the blunt, independent First Assistant — that the fact of Mehdi Ali's title being recognized by the British Government was no reason why the titles of the Assistant to the Minister and the Dirertor of Public Instruction should also be recognized. Quite so. The Hyderabad Haces which attract here sporting charac- ters from all parts of India once a year, commenced on Tuesday the 17th instant, and come to a close on Tuesday, the 2.tth. I shall not trouble you with the event of the race days that have already come and gone for they will have appeared in the "telegram" colu- mns of the Presidency English papers some days before this com- munication is in print and, besides, I am not sure that the majo- rity of your readers who are Indians have developed their love for 'spores' to such an extent as to feel interested in them. But I must refer to the exhibition of feeling, because of a remark in one of my letters, by one of the nobleman whom I had before my mind's eye when I wrote the paragraph about the Nizam's birth-day — on the second of the race days, Thursday last, at the 168 lace stand. Meeting' me the nobleman deigned t<5 ask what was the hint — he meant 'hit' no doubt — in my remark about 's^me Hindu nobleman more timid than straight-forward " And on ra}- exph\ining to him, as politely as [ could, what was meant, he showed by his manner and words that he was very much annoyed and would "cut" me hereafter. This did not prevent me from enjoying myself on the day, nor does it c:iuse me a regret now. But i wi^h to tell the nobleman what I had no time to tell ou Thursday, that if he thouo;ht that because I showed up the men in power, I was a partisan, and could not notice any- thing objectionable in, or done by those whose cause I feel called upon to advocate, he was very much mistaken, T liave ever looked at men and measures from the point of view of the people; and if any one thinks that simply because I happea to agree with him, I am for him and must flatter him, he errs. I cannot say anything more. The passage that your London correspondent quotes from the narrative relating the experiences of an English traveller in the columns of the San Francisco Chronicle, in his last letter, has surprised us and amused us here not a title. It is one tissue of inventions from beginning to end. The description of the Nizam's person and the splendour and costliness of his dress and surroundings is all a la Madame Potter — and you know tha,t she drew the long bow as much when she spoke of the Nizam as when she talked about how her "pathetic recital" had brought tears to the eyes of iguorant "priucessess." A Nizam in a "rohe of snow white silk" with buttons of "immense pearls set in dia- monds," glistening Avith '"'huadreds of jewels" with ''ropes of pearls" about his neck and arms &c, — belongs to a period in the history of Hyderabad long gone by. And to speak of such "a presence" is surely to take one back to semi-savage times in Hyderabad or '"the fabulous times of the Arabian Night," and not to speak of one who moves and has his being in the Hyderabad of to-day. I do not think it can be said that "he lives for plea- sure alone." Though his giving up so much time to the "Iron man" 160 at tlie Chadargbat Public G.ardens last Friday evcniuir , on tLe occa_ sion of ]Mis.s Jeanette Van Tassel's b.illo )ii ascent, inig lit lead one totbink tbattbero is iimcli nf the E[)iciireau in hinij it is said to be novertbeloss tfue that he lia< his share of tlie administralive burden to bear. An I to talk of ''the decree" vi I he conntry forbi