THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 HUMAN NATUKE IN EUKAL INDIA
 
 HUMAN NATUEE IN 
 KUBAL INDIA 
 
 BY 
 
 E. C A It S T A 1 11 S 
 
 BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'BRITISH WORK ix INDIA' 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBUllGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCXCV 
 
 All Rights reserved
 
 DS 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 DREAMS ........ 1 
 
 HOME DREAMS . . . . . . .11 
 
 A FLEETING LIFE ...... 29 
 
 INDIA ........ 41 
 
 HODGE ........ 51 
 
 VILLAGE LIFE ....... Gl 
 
 INFLUENCES ....... 79 
 
 HEALTH ........ 99 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS . . . . . .115 
 
 HODGE'S MASTERS . . . . . .123 
 
 OFFICIALS . . . . . . . .135 
 
 OTHER CLASSES . . . . . . .163 
 
 ARISTOCRACY . . . . . . .187 
 
 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC I A DREAM OF HOME RULE . 201 
 QUARRELS ........ 233 
 
 POSSESSION : A DREAM OF LAW COURTS . . 285 
 
 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY 309
 
 HUMAN NATUBE IN EURAL INDIA, 
 
 D E E A M S. 
 
 TN the eyes of most people there is a con- 
 trast between the dreamer and the prac- 
 tical man, and dreams are looked upon as the 
 very opposite of realities. When I look back 
 on my life, however, and try to sort out its 
 dreams from its realities, I find that the 
 process is not so easy. Life is a procession 
 of facts, marshalled in order of time, which, 
 as they pass the little point in the universe 
 where I am, are the realities of the present. 
 We grope for them before they reach us, in 
 vain efforts to know them while they are yet
 
 4 DREAMS. 
 
 in the future ; and as they come, they move 
 on, and are memories of the past. What, 
 then, are the realities of life ? I who see, or 
 the swift -moving procession that is passing 
 me ? What are our dreams ? Our bodily 
 senses are limited by time, place, and all the 
 various checks placed by the Almighty on the 
 powers of man. I am in a cage, against whose 
 bars my bodily powers beat in vain. But 
 the mind can travel far passing through the 
 bars, and, by the aid of memory and imagin- 
 ation, wandering freely over and taking pos- 
 session of vast regions of the past, the future, 
 the distant, and the unknown, from which the 
 body is for ever locked out. From experience, 
 from books, and from men, I receive knowledge 
 and information of all kinds, which I assimi- 
 late and make part of myself. That part of 
 this which relates to the future and the un- 
 known present I call my dreams, and I look 
 on my dreams as greater facts than what are 
 called realities. What are these but a yester-
 
 WHAT ARE FACTS? 5 
 
 day's newspaper, to be cast aside and forgotten ? 
 But dreams remain. They do not file up and 
 disappear. A man's dreams are the man, far 
 more than is his past career. They influence 
 his actions for good or evil, and, through him. 
 the world. Our dreams give us the goals 
 towards which we strain, the standards we 
 attempt to reach. By our dreams we feel out 
 into the infinite, and to direct our dreams 
 aright is looked upon as the noblest task of 
 man. Dreams are the causes, the moving 
 powers, and what we call facts are but their 
 symptoms. 
 
 Dreams are called by many names, love, 
 religion, patriotism, honour, lust, passion, 
 avarice, ambition, and they are the great 
 facts. 
 
 Every man even the small, the dull, the 
 
 poor has his dreams. There are single men 
 
 like Newton, Columbus, Stephenson, Peter 
 
 the Hermit, or Napoleon whose dreams have 
 
 moved the world. There are times when
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 a community or a nation has been seized by 
 a dream as by an epidemic. The greatest 
 material fact for a man is death his removal 
 from the standpoint whence he views the 
 procession which files up and passes on ; and 
 yet there are dreams of many kinds, good and 
 bad, for which ordinary sane men are willing 
 to accept the risk, and sometimes even the 
 certainty, of death. 
 
 Dreams bring men into harmony, and 
 dreams also bring them into collision. They 
 make and sustain mighty works ; they gather 
 into one vast number of forces : and then, 
 again, they shatter force against force, one 
 dream destroying the work that has been 
 built up by another. Dreams command the 
 forces of the world. 
 
 In these modern days the influence of 
 dreams is greater, because wider ; more be- 
 neficent, because more powerful, but more 
 dangerous. They are dangerous for the same 
 reasons that make the rule of a despot danger-
 
 A MODERN DANGER. 7 
 
 ous. Granted that the despot means well, 
 still he must control affairs of which he knows 
 very little. His own life, his own interests 
 even, are not bound up in those affairs ; and 
 yet, by a nod, and, as it were, a word over 
 his shoulder, he may ail-unconsciously deal 
 woe and destruction to thousands ; or his ears 
 may be closed to the cries of distress by the 
 shouting of the few immediately about him. 
 Then, again, men have a way of joining them- 
 selves into clubs or societies. They hold 
 meetings, and repeat to one another their own 
 arguments ; they read the papers in which 
 those arguments are echoed, and seldom look 
 at or listen to the other side. Now when two 
 interests draw apart, each absorbed in its own 
 dream, and are not agreed, the end must be 
 strife. So we find strife on every side : in 
 industry, strikes and locks-out ; in commerce, 
 tariff wars ; in the less civilised states, actual 
 fighting ; and over the stronger states, the 
 threatening thunder-clouds of war.
 
 8 DREAMS. 
 
 The cause of this danger is the isolation 
 of dreams. They grow and grow, and, each 
 becoming too great and proud to give way 
 for the sake of harmony, will yield to no- 
 thing but force. In the relations between 
 Great Britain and India, the danger that 
 springs from isolation of dreams is greatly to 
 be feared. However it came about, Britain is 
 mistress of India, and when she speaks there 
 is no one to say her nay. The dream that 
 guides her actions is the dream of the ordin- 
 ary British voter, a good fellow enough, and 
 full of common-sense, but knowing little and 
 caring less about India and her affairs. His 
 very anxiety to do right leads him to meddle, 
 and, meddling without knowledge, he may 
 unintentionally do much harm. 
 
 Now the best way to meet this danger is to 
 bring home to Britain the dreams of India. 
 Efforts are being constantly made to do this 
 by natives of India who go to England, and 
 by natives of Britain who have been to India,
 
 BRITAIN AND INDIA. 9 
 
 I have no desire to disparage what others 
 have done. It has occurred to me, however, 
 that if I could record, not my experiences, 
 which are of little interest, but my dreams 
 the influences which have moved me to action 
 from time to time it might help my country- 
 men to understand Indian dreams a little 
 better. So far as my dreams are peculiar to 
 myself, they matter little ; but as I have been 
 born and bred a Briton neither much better 
 nor much worse than the average of my 
 countrymen, my dreams are probably much 
 the same as those of my countrymen would 
 have been in the same conditions. In this 
 way, perhaps, my twenty years' experience 
 may be of use as a telescope to bring within 
 reach of the British eye objects otherwise 
 invisible.
 
 HOME DREAMS
 
 13 
 
 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 DO not think that, until I actually start- 
 ed for India, I had any dreams about it. 
 I had read Macaulay's Essays, and heard 
 the hymn about " India's coral strand." I 
 believed all Bramins were priests, and that 
 snakes and tigers were met with every- 
 where. I understood the country was hot, 
 unhealthy, and mysterious ; but was ready 
 enough to follow where so many had already 
 gone. I went out to India with ordinary 
 British feelings prejudices, if you will and 
 with goodwill in my heart towards the na- 
 tives of the country. 
 
 Dreams come from trouble and want ; and 
 my first dreams after leaving home arose from
 
 14 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 absence. The native of Britain is more ready 
 than he of France to leave his home and go 
 abroad ; but that, in my case at least, was 
 owing to our national custom, and not to 
 indifference. My stay-at-home countryman, 
 you to whom home and country and all that 
 they mean are a presence all your life 
 through, I wonder if it is possible for you 
 to feel for your home and country all that 
 the exile feels. You are not called on to 
 give them up, or even in these days to 
 make sacrifices for them. Your life is for 
 the most part taken up with struggles about 
 the management of the noble inheritance left 
 you by our fathers, and for a share of its 
 good things. But when a young man goes 
 away from all this, when the faces he has 
 loved and known pass from his sight, and 
 all that he has known and that has been as 
 a part of his life is suddenly wrenched away, 
 and flung to a distance, he may laugh and 
 seem cheerful, but his heart is sore.
 
 LOVE OF HOME AND COUNTRY. 15 
 
 The sickness of absence from home and 
 country sometimes ends in death and forget- 
 fulness, and the affections are transferred to 
 new objects. In my case, however, as I be- 
 lieve in that of most of my countrymen, it 
 ended in a double dream love of home and 
 love of country ; and these two dreams have 
 influenced me all my life through, restraining 
 me and urging me on for the honour of home 
 and country. If religion is the power of the 
 love of God, then are love of home and 
 country His good angels. And sorely is their 
 help needed in times of sickness, of hard 
 work, of hopes deferred, of tedious waiting, 
 of bodily discomfort, of temptation, weakness, 
 and worry, which make up the greater part 
 of most lives, but above all, I think, of the 
 lives of Britons in India. There are some 
 who think that these dreams of home and 
 country to many all of home and country 
 they are destined to possess in this life- 
 should be laid aside by a man who is to do
 
 16 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 real good to India. He should, say they, fix his 
 affections on India and things Indian alone. 
 They may be right for all I know, but I 
 have never found these dreams any hindrance 
 to my goodwill for India and the Indians, 
 and I very much doubt if the best way to 
 kindle love for another country is to kill 
 that of your own. 
 
 Then another dream that arose and grew 
 as I sailed eastwards was the greatness of 
 England. The ears at home are full of the 
 din of contending factions. There is not 
 an institution or a great man but has a 
 rival whose business it is to disparage the 
 other side ; and this universal custom of 
 mud- thro wing tends to destroy one's sense 
 of reverence and appreciation of greatness. 
 But when we got to a distance, all these 
 petty noises died out ; and the mud that 
 was thrown disappeared from view, like the 
 weather - stains on a great statue. There 
 arose before my mind's eye the majestic
 
 ENGLANDS GREATNESS. 17 
 
 figure of Britannia, with her great repre- 
 sentative the Queen, and her emblem flag. 
 As we saw her ships on every sea, and 
 began to realise how she sends forth her 
 armies of pioneers, merchants and teachers, 
 to all parts of the world, we were seized 
 with this dream of her greatness. It was 
 not her wealth or her wisdom, her ships or 
 her great possessions, that I thought the 
 most of. It was her men. The dream of 
 England's greatness awoke that other dream 
 which had always been there the pride of 
 race the feeling that I was one of a strong 
 and masterful race. Whether this dream of 
 race pride is one to be encouraged or discour- 
 aged there seems to be controversy ; but it is 
 in the blood, and cannot be destroyed. If my 
 countrymen wish the sons of England to go 
 forth into the world without this pride of 
 race, then the rising generation must get a 
 very different training from those that went 
 before. There must be no more telling of 
 
 B
 
 18 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 the noble deeds of our ancestors, of their 
 bravery and heroism ; for verily we go forth 
 laden in the sight of our own country and 
 of the world with a weight of prestige which 
 is hard to carry save with the help of a proud 
 heart. 
 
 I now began to attach a different meaning 
 to that theory of the equality of men which, 
 in common with nearly all my countrymen 
 at home, I had been taught to believe. 
 
 At home I was in a British community, 
 where natives of India, and of all foreign 
 countries, were in a very small minority. 
 Hospitality and curiosity combined to pro- 
 cure for these foreigners from the British 
 communities in which they were living more 
 attention than they would have got had 
 they been Britons. They were accepted, 
 being guests, not merely on an equal footing, 
 but even as lions. But then they took no part 
 in the management of affairs, nor did they 
 compete with the British for employment
 
 OTHER PEOPLES. 19 
 
 in Britain. When competition arises the 
 British race quickly alters its tone, whether 
 with Polish Jews in London, or with China- 
 men in America or Australia. It is possible 
 to go through the polite forms of society with 
 people of other races, and keep up the fiction, 
 and even the sincere feeling, of equality, so 
 long as you have not to do business with 
 them, or to depend on them in some matter 
 of vital importance ; but we got to see, long 
 before we reached India, that there were 
 many reasons why we could not do business 
 with, and depend on, men of other races as 
 if they were our own people. 
 
 Then, again, as w r e approached India, it 
 became more and more apparent that we 
 were going among peoples who were broken 
 up by great varieties among themselves. 
 There were several of us young men to- 
 gether on board ship, on our way to various 
 parts of India. One was going to the Pun- 
 jaub, among the Sikhs and Eajpoots ; another
 
 20 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 to the North - West Provinces, among the 
 Mussulmans and Hindoos of the plains ; an- 
 other to Bombay, among the Mahrattas ; and 
 another to Madras, among the Hindoos of 
 the South. My own lot was cast in Lower 
 Bengal. We belonged to a strong race, and 
 how could each of us drop into a comfortable 
 equality with whatever race he might happen 
 to be thrown among ? We were not made 
 of such chameleon-like materials. The Briton 
 is notoriously stubborn, holding by his own 
 customs and his own standards, and unable 
 readily to take the colour of his surroundings. 
 I know little about the others, but as for 
 me, I remained British. I could not, were 
 I willing, cast off British ways and feelings 
 or my character as a Briton among the fee- 
 bler races of India. In the lonely regions of 
 India lonely to a Briton, if swarming with 
 men of other races our dream of the great- 
 ness and strength of the British race is shared 
 by the vast majority of the people, and the
 
 BRITISH PRESTIGE. 21 
 
 white man is hailed as the representative 
 of the strength, wisdom, and just dealing 
 of England. In the strength of this prestige 
 the English man or woman can travel alone, 
 unarmed, unguarded, through most parts of 
 India, in greater safety than in the heart of 
 England. In the strength of this prestige 
 the solitary constable will interpose between 
 hostile bands of fierce rioters, and they will 
 obey him and refrain from fighting. In the 
 faith of this prestige the postal runner, carry- 
 ing her Majesty's mails, will boldly pass the 
 lair of the man-eating tiger by night, con- 
 fident that even wild beasts dare not in- 
 terrupt the passage of the Queen's letter- 
 bags. 
 
 Now this prestige, or, as I have called it, 
 this dream of greatness and of strength, which 
 animates and supports every Briton in India, 
 which gives stoutness to the heart and power 
 to the arm of every native in the service of 
 the Government, is the prestige not of Lahore
 
 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 or Delhi, Calcutta or Bombay, but of Britain. 
 We Britons in India are the garrison, the 
 outposts, the pioneers, the agents, the repre- 
 sentatives of Britain. Cut us off from Britain; 
 break, if you can, all our old feelings and 
 associations ; teach us to forget, if you can, 
 our race pride, and get us to settle down 
 as sons of the soil wherever we may be. You 
 may spoil us for Britons, but even then you 
 cannot turn us into natives. We shall but 
 lose the best qualities of our race, and 
 strengthen the bad. 
 
 There is another way that has been spoken 
 of by which we should be assimilated to the 
 people of the land. If we cannot grow like 
 them, might they not be made to grow like 
 us? To speak my mind honestly, I say, On 
 the surface yes ; through and through no. 
 The people of the land I live among are 
 the Bengalis. There are Bengalis all honour 
 to them who are in advance of their fellows, 
 but so few are our opportunities of testing
 
 IF THERE WERE A MUTINY. 23 
 
 them to the full that even these I cannot 
 trust deeply. Courteous and friendly when 
 all is well ; not very satisfactory to do busi- 
 ness with at any time ; in time of trouble and 
 adversity broken reeds. That is what they 
 seem to me. 
 
 That thought the time of trouble makes 
 it hard for a Briton to accept a native of 
 Bengal as equivalent to a Briton. Supposing 
 the troubles of the Mutiny were to return, I 
 cannot, as a native of the country could and 
 probably would do, slip off my official dress, 
 and disappear like a drop in the ocean of the 
 native population. I should have to fight 
 with my back to the wall, and so would 
 my fellow-countrymen. We British in India 
 are no more always thinking of another Mut- 
 iny than our countrymen at home are always 
 thinking of a French invasion. Yet at home 
 the thought of a French invasion is a dream 
 that affects the national policy. They won't 
 have a Channel tunnel ; they watch closely
 
 24 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 the French navy. My lot in India has for 
 the most part fallen in lonely places, remote 
 from troops ; far away even from the big 
 cities, with their large European communities 
 and ships. A very small local rising would 
 suffice to finish off the lonely European, or 
 group of three or four Europeans, who would 
 be as much cut off from help as if they were 
 on board a mutinous ship at sea. And if 
 it came to that, the difference between a 
 European and a native of Bengal would 
 come out. 
 
 Then there is the social point of view. 
 I did not understand this at home, and I 
 fancy few Europeans at home do. When 
 a native of India goes to England, he gen- 
 erally lays aside his Indian habits lives 
 in rooms built on the European pattern, eats 
 European food, and sits down to meals with 
 Christians. Some of these, when they return 
 to India, retain European ways, but many 
 of them do not ; and the vast mass of the
 
 THE SOCIAL CHASM. 25 
 
 natives of India have wholly different ways. 
 If it be granted that, for the purposes of 
 official work, the native of Bengal is equal 
 to the European, this accounts for only a 
 portion of the day six or eight hours out 
 of the twenty-four. I am an official, liable 
 to sudden transfer, and may succeed, or be 
 succeeded by, another official at very short 
 notice. If a European succeeds a European, 
 it is comparatively plain sailing. The suc- 
 cessor will probably take over the house and 
 the bulk of the furniture, and socially there 
 will be little change. But if a native suc- 
 ceeds a European, he may not care for the 
 house, preferring to live in the bazar ; so the 
 house is not taken over, the native ideas of 
 a dwelling-house varying considerably from 
 the European. Then the native would prob- 
 ably not care for the furniture, and that 
 would have either to be sold at a heavy loss, 
 or carried off, also at great cost. The de- 
 parting European has probably been a mem-
 
 26 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 ber of a mutton club ; but the native does 
 not eat mutton, so that is broken up. The 
 ladies of the native's house probably do not 
 go out, or see company, and here is another 
 loss. Where the European society consists 
 of two or three families, the substitution 
 for one of them of a native family dis- 
 organises everything. If, on the other 
 hand, a European succeeds a native, he 
 most probably finds no proper house or fur- 
 niture, and nothing as, in his eyes, it 
 should be. 
 
 There is one more obstacle to the notion 
 of equality, and that is the inconvenient 
 feelings aroused by race pride a pride be- 
 gotten not in India but in Britain. From 
 top to bottom, Britishers hate being ordered 
 about or reprimanded by foreigners ; and 
 if they find a difficulty in standing it 
 
 from 
 
 " A Eooshian, 
 
 A Frenchman, Turk, or Prooshian, 
 Or perhaps Italian,"
 
 RACE PRIDE. 27 
 
 they are not likely to stand it from a 
 
 " Bengali, 
 
 Marathi, or Nepali, 
 Or perhaps Mahomedan. " 
 
 This feeling of taking no orders from any but 
 one's own countrymen is in the heart of all 
 Britishers in India kept under in the better 
 educated, but burning more and more fiercely 
 among the less polished and more natural 
 rank and file. It is fiercest of all probably 
 among those of mixed race, who cling more 
 desperately to the European strain in their 
 blood the more remote it is. 
 
 This dream of race pride, strong and in- 
 eradicable, which has possessed me ever since 
 I landed in India, is natural, and general, 
 and must continue if we are to hold up the 
 standard of British prestige. There are agita- 
 tors and faddists who are trying to scoff it 
 away, but they will not be able ; and to beat 
 it down, but they will fail. 
 
 Of the great dream of all religion I will
 
 28 HOME DREAMS. 
 
 say little here. I was brought up in the 
 faith of my fathers, and never let it go. I 
 can only say that its influence on my life has 
 been always for good ; and my regret is that 
 the weakness of human nature did not suffer 
 me to live more nearly up to the perfect 
 standard it held up for me. 
 
 These, then, are the four great dreams that 
 I brought with me from home love of home, 
 love of country, race pride, and religion.
 
 A FLEETING LIFE
 
 31 
 
 T 
 
 A FLEETING LIFE. 
 
 HE voyage itself was the beginning of 
 a new life, and, dream -like in itself, 
 made the beginning of another dream the 
 fleeting; nature of our life in India. We meet 
 
 o 
 
 and part. We have to hold everything lightly 
 life, home, friends, property ready to let 
 all go when the time comes. At home, 
 we used to hear the same thing from the 
 pulpit, and many wise injunctions on the 
 head of it. To the young all things look 
 permanent. It is when we grow older 
 that time and all things human begin to 
 seem unstable. But life in India drives 
 home the lesson severely, and with little 
 delay.
 
 32 A FLEETING LIFE. 
 
 It was a pleasant time, that first voyage, 
 but a dream. 
 
 " Joyfully, joyfully plough we the ocean, 
 Through the bright drops of light flitting in motion ; 
 Seize, as the minutes fly, winged with pleasure, 
 Seize and make captive hours laden with treasure ! 
 
 Merrily, merrily lighting the waves up, 
 Bright flashing phosphorus grey ocean laves up ; 
 Floating on, quickly gone, such is our pleasure ; 
 Seize and make captive, then, Time's passing treasure ! 
 
 Fearfully, tearfully speak we of parting; 
 At the old memories tear-drops are starting ; 
 Maidens sing murmuring, mourning lost pleasures, 
 While Time is on the wing, hearing his treasures ! 
 
 Lo the sun, though his last radiance he's throwing, 
 Sends his light, golden bright, o'er the sea glowing ! 
 Minutes fly, speeding by ; each has its pleasure : 
 Think of these, quickly seize Time's passing treasure ! '.' 
 
 Ah ! the mood was then hope, and we had 
 youth and health, and the buoyancy they 
 give. Some fortunate ones have been able to 
 retain this mood all their life through, carry- 
 ing the " sunlight of their presence " into
 
 HOME VISITS. 
 
 many a gloomy little corner of the great 
 kaleidoscope of Anglo - Indian society. But 
 the prevailing effect of this dream when it 
 is continued too long is a feeling of unrest, 
 of discontent, and, long before it ends, of 
 weariness to end it. Think what it means, 
 you who live quietly at home. We go to 
 you now and then, those of us who can 
 afford it, and, ten years after, we see every- 
 thing the same as it was before. You are 
 most likely living in the same house, and 
 there we see the faces that we knew long 
 ago the old a little older, only the young 
 changed. There is the same old furniture, 
 the garden, the old familiar landmarks, the 
 same neighbours and tradesmen ; the same 
 pew in church, and the same old family 
 doctor. Those whose faces we once knew, 
 and whom we see no more, are lying in the 
 graveyard with their ancestors, and you tend 
 their graves with affection. How can you 
 realise our Indian life ? 
 
 c
 
 34 A FLEETING LIFE. 
 
 I am far away from my older friends, in 
 a strange place, where perhaps in the course 
 of a year or two I have become familiar 
 with my house and its neighbourhood, and 
 formed friendships with a few of my neigh- 
 bours, European and native. I am getting 
 to know my furniture and servants, and to 
 take an interest in the garden. All at once 
 a telegram comes, and I have to make out 
 a list of all I have furniture, stores, horses, 
 &c. except my clothes, a few books, and 
 some portable treasures ; sell them for what 
 they will fetch ; be off, perhaps within 
 three days of getting orders, and drop down 
 a couple of hundred miles away, among a 
 new set of people ; make new friends, and 
 gather new possessions in a new house. If 
 I am as long as three years in one place, 
 probably I see the neighbours changed 
 several times over. Even in times of sick- 
 ness, when one wants to be quiet, we cannot 
 always rest, for we are ordered off to sea
 
 FRIENDSHIPS. 35 
 
 or to the hills. India is not an easy country 
 to get well in. 
 
 We know how Britons at home look on 
 their friendship. It is a gift, not to be 
 lightly bestowed, nor to be hastily with- 
 drawn. If a stranger settles in a neighbour- 
 hood, he will perhaps take several years to 
 win the confidence of the neighbours, which, 
 once given, remains for generations. So 
 particular are they, that many worthy people 
 cannot get into their society at all. 
 
 We who have left England to live in India 
 see something of this spirit enough to 
 remind us that it still lives in our own 
 country when we visit home occasionally, 
 and on board ship among the tourists, or 
 "globe-trotters" as they are called. In 
 India we see little of it, even among the 
 tourists, for they accept frankly and genially 
 the hospitality of total strangers for weeks 
 or months at a time. If any of these 
 strangers presumes on this kindly intercourse
 
 36 A FLEETING LIFE. 
 
 to hope for its renewal at home, he is most 
 often disappointed, and does not always 
 hide his feelings. Doubtless, however, such 
 feelings are unreasonable. If an Englishman 
 does at Kome as the Romans do, that is no 
 good reason for expecting him to do the 
 same ever after, even if it leaves him owing 
 debts which he can repay in no other way. 
 If the Englishman with a home, an estate, 
 a large income, a good position in society, 
 and plenty of leisure, falls in with the only 
 way which renders life tolerable in our ever- 
 changing society of comparatively poor, home- 
 less, and hard-worked people, it is the only 
 thing he can do, unless he stays away from 
 it altogether. The fault is theirs who exert 
 themselves beyond what they can afford for 
 his entertainment. 
 
 In India we cannot take time to form 
 acquaintances. One result of this constant 
 change is to destroy the British reserve, 
 and make every one of us behave to his
 
 FREQUENT CHANGES. 37 
 
 neighbours like an old friend for the time. 
 When the time comes we part, and see and 
 hear no more of one another till the changes 
 of life bring us together again. We form 
 friendships dear and enduring which, tried 
 by the most severe tests, do not fail. But 
 they do not depend on daily intercourse and 
 bodily presence. 
 
 The very frequency of the changes made 
 among European officials supplies a remedy 
 for the hunger of the soul which they pro- 
 duce ; for if " the world is a small place," 
 still smaller is the Anglo-Indian world ; and 
 if we part, it is most often to meet again 
 at some other time and place. Every one 
 has a reputation which in time penetrates 
 to all parts of the province ; and when he 
 drops into a new neighbourhood, his neigh- 
 bours know him, and he his neighbours, 
 though they may never have met before. This 
 is one reason why Anglo-Indians who meet 
 as strangers invariably begin to talk of people,
 
 A FLEETING LIFE. 
 
 owing to which custom reputations are quick- 
 ly spread, and the process of settling down 
 becomes easier. 
 
 One relation there is which is an exception 
 to the constant changes, and that is the rela- 
 tion between husband and wife. The old 
 saying, " Where thou goest I will go," has 
 a meaning to us wanderers which it can never 
 have to my stay-at-home countrymen. In 
 his wife a man has a comrade who shares 
 his life wherever he may go, and whom he 
 can never be required by a telegram to drop 
 and leave. 
 
 But this relation also brings with it that 
 which weans us more than anything from 
 the love of this life in India, and that is 
 the parting from wife and family for the 
 sake of their health, and the proper education 
 of the children. In my own life I have had 
 some of this, but not so much as many I 
 know. I know a man himself an invalid 
 whose wife and children are at home in Eng-
 
 "STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS." 39 
 
 land. His wife because of her health, his 
 children because of their age, cannot be with 
 him. He lives on his mail letters, and goes 
 on, from week to week, from month to month, 
 from year to year, looking for the time when 
 he may retire on his pension and join them. 
 
 The plains of India are no permanent home 
 for Europeans. Even merchants and planters, 
 whose home is more settled than that of 
 officials, are unable to look on this country 
 as their home in the same way that our 
 brethren in Australia, Canada, and the Cape 
 can. For that, we all look away across the 
 sea : we are " strangers and pilgrims."
 
 INDIA
 
 43 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 BELIEVE a great many people at home 
 think of India as of a place about as big 
 as a county in England. Of course they know 
 it is not, but that is how they think of it. 
 They lump it all together into one, and when 
 a rising takes place in Assam, Bill says to 
 Tom, " Them Hafgans is at it again." I 
 remember a friend who came out to see India 
 wrote to me from Allahabad, some 450 miles 
 off, that he had been asking about me there. 
 " I knew you were somewhere in these parts," 
 he said. Various causes hide the distances 
 and masses of human life in India. There are 
 the single Government and Law everywhere, 
 the English Ian ornate and English ways in all 
 
 O O o o J
 
 44 INDIA. 
 
 the chief towns and cities ; the railways and 
 facilities for travel ; the post-office and tele- 
 graph, which convey letters and messages all 
 over India as cheaply as is done within Eng- 
 land alone. Then we are not in England 
 impressed by mere areas and distances, being 
 familiar with the much greater areas and 
 distances of America, Siberia, Africa, and 
 Australia. The map of India used in England 
 is on a small scale, showing perhaps less than 
 one in a thousand of her towns and vil- 
 lages. In short, Englishmen look on India 
 as a man looks on a cheese, not seeing the 
 mites. 
 
 As one lives on in India, the feeling arises 
 that it is easier to make acquaintance with all 
 Europe than with India as a whole. Before 
 we have lived long in the country, and while 
 our imagination has not been dulled by too 
 much contact with actual facts, we are perhaps 
 better qualified than afterwards to form broad 
 views and express them with confidence. A
 
 THE SMALL-SCALE MAP. 45 
 
 certain bold disregard of detail is almost 
 necessary if a strong effect is wanted. I feel 
 that a twenty years' training of close attention 
 to detail has to a great extent deprived me of 
 any power in that way. I shall attempt rather 
 to describe the effect on my own mind of this 
 long personal contact with India and its people, 
 than to impress lessons or information on the 
 minds of others. Not only are impressions on 
 my own mind facts which I am entitled to 
 claim some knowledge of, but by confining 
 myself to them I strengthen my position in 
 two ways. One of these is, that I come for- 
 ward as a witness, not as a judge, claiming 
 nothing more than a belief in my sincerity ; 
 the other is, that I do not profess a complete 
 knowledge of the subject, but admit that my 
 knowledge is limited and partial. My career 
 has been in Lower Bengal, one out of the 
 many provinces of India, and even within 
 that province the greater portion is personally 
 unknown to me. It is of the people I have
 
 46 INDIA. 
 
 seen and lived among that I would be under- 
 stood to speak. 
 
 I see them every day of my life. They 
 surround and haunt me. I cannot get away 
 from them. I have got used to their hovering 
 about my room peeping round the corner, 
 entering unannounced. They pour along the 
 roads, swarm in the bazars ; start up wherever 
 I may go, even in the fields and the jungles. 
 And yet I do not see them ; for in my pres- 
 ence they behave differently from what they 
 do out of it, and I have to guess to dream 
 how they act and speak when free from its 
 restraint. In my presence they are most 
 often acting a part. If I overhear a conversa- 
 tion it is most likely intended to reach my ear. 
 As an official, I am a marked man, and a busy 
 man. Where I am is generally known, as also 
 where I am likely to be, so that stage effects 
 are not difficult to produce. I am not a 
 Haroun al Raschid, to go about among the 
 people in disguise, and the approach of a white
 
 THE SURFACE. 47 
 
 face and European clothes at once puts every 
 one on his guard. 
 
 When a Frenchman wishes to study the 
 nature of the English, how does he set about 
 it ? If he means to be thorough, he will first 
 get introductions to families, and study them 
 in their homes, living with them, eating and 
 conversing with them. Or perhaps he will 
 study their newspapers, their novels and liter- 
 ature. Most Frenchmen draw on their im- 
 agination, and dream. I cannot tell how a 
 conscientious Frenchman who wished to learn 
 the English character would manage, if de- 
 barred from social intercourse, and from infor- 
 mation through literature. That, however, 
 is my position with regard to my Indian 
 neighbours. Their customs forbid social in- 
 tercourse, and their literature is, with a few 
 exceptions, not informing on the point. 
 
 Such information as I have had has been 
 gained chiefly from litigation and from talks. 
 I have had before me during my twenty years
 
 48 INDIA. 
 
 of Indian life scores of thousands of law cases 
 civil and criminal, and these have given me 
 many a peep into the social and family life of 
 the country, otherwise veiled from me. True, 
 when there is a lawsuit, that means that some- 
 thing has gone wrong, and the constant study 
 of lawsuits is apt to give one a morbid view of 
 the ordinary life of the native. True also, at 
 such a time there is much lying and fraud, and 
 concealment of the real facts. But, after 
 making full allowance for these, a law case is 
 a valuable opportunity, since it makes neces- 
 sary the close study of a single set of facts 
 and a single group of people, in circumstances 
 where the law allows little or no reserve. It 
 is the nearest we Europeans can get to the 
 inner life of the native. Again, the native of 
 India has little imagination, and even his lies 
 are instructive, showing what he is accus- 
 tomed to see and think about. Get him 
 to talk, and he consciously or unconsciously 
 gives information about himself, which, as
 
 A NEARER VIEW. 49 
 
 we gain experience, we are able to test 
 and sift. 
 
 Then I have spent, besides the longer time 
 when I lived at my headquarters, some 1500 
 days in touring about among the villages, 
 during which time I have traversed some 
 15,000 miles, going with my tents from vil- 
 lage to village, mostly over ground unknown 
 to the tourist, unheard of by Europeans 
 in the greater Indian towns. On these 
 rounds I have seen and conversed with men 
 of all degrees, rich and poor, great and small, 
 learned and ignorant, and of all religions, 
 castes, and occupations. I have talked with 
 them on their own affairs, and heard their 
 wants stated in their own words. I have 
 discussed with them the various troubles that 
 they suffered from, and the possible reme- 
 dies, and endeavoured, with what success I 
 myself can hardly judge, to see things from 
 their point of view, which is often very differ- 
 ent from the official one. I have had reason
 
 50 INDIA. 
 
 to believe that, different as is my race and 
 remote my home, I possessed the confidence, 
 and, I would fain think, also the affection of 
 many among them. I dare not say I know 
 them, but I can honestly say that all this time 
 I have tried hard to understand them. I have 
 had dreams on dreams about them, and some 
 of these I propose to put down here.
 
 53 
 
 HODGE. 
 
 "Y native neighbours are divided roughly 
 into three classes agriculturists ; those 
 who live on them, giving service in return ; 
 and those who live on them without giving 
 service in return. It is our custom to talk 
 more of the non-agricultural classes than of 
 the agricultural, and to be severe on those 
 
 o 
 
 who, in our opinion, oppress and fleece the 
 latter. I cannot help thinking that the 
 community must be taken as a whole. Here 
 are the oppressors and there the victims, 
 who are a hundred to one of the oppressors. 
 If they let those whom we are accustomed 
 to regard as their oppressors take money or 
 property or service from them, it may be
 
 54 HODGE. 
 
 under sheer compulsion ; but it may also be 
 because they are getting in return some 
 service which we do not appreciate but which 
 they think adequate. India, again, is bound 
 by custom, and, as every one knows, customs 
 established in certain circumstances may have 
 been good at the time, though the circum- 
 stances have since changed. 
 
 I wish to concentrate interest for the pres- 
 ent, not on the parasites, but on the creature 
 which supports them ; and therefore, putting 
 away the castes and races which figure most 
 in the eye of the public and of England, 
 the Bramin or priest ; the Jcayest or writer ; 
 the bunniah or trader : putting away also 
 all dwellers in towns, and even the great 
 communities of the boatmen, carters, weavers, 
 potters, oilmen, and others, I turn the eye of 
 imagination on the vast agricultural class, 
 which, were the country blest with universal 
 suffrage, would swamp over and over again 
 all the rest put together. How does neigh-
 
 HODGE IS VARIOUS. 55 
 
 hour Hodge live ? What does he think of ? 
 What are his hopes, fears, ambitions ? How 
 (most important of all) does he quarrel, and 
 what about ? 
 
 As my mind ranges over the regions I 
 have known, Eastern Bengal ; the suburbs 
 of Calcutta; the undulating plains of Mid- 
 napore ; the alluvial river-banks and irrigated 
 soil of Arrah, and the hills and valleys of 
 the Sonthal country, the first thought that 
 arises is, that Hodge in Bengal is various. 
 I have seen only a few of the many Districts 
 of Bengal, and in those Districts a few only 
 of the many millions who inhabit them ; and 
 yet I have come across many varieties of 
 Hodge. How many more, then, must there 
 be as yet unseen ? The main varieties of 
 Hodge are the fighting man, the drudge, 
 and the pioneer. The fighting men are to 
 be found chiefly on the banks of the great 
 rivers, the Ganges, the Bramaputra, and 
 the Megna, where, after each year's floods,
 
 56 HODGE. 
 
 thousands of acres of fertile land are found 
 to have been formed or swept away, according 
 to the caprice of the stream. The Eajpoots, 
 or warrior Hindoos, and the Firazis, or Puri- 
 tan Mahomedans, men who do not feast or 
 dance or smile, are on the watch to rush in, 
 and be the first to occupy the new land, hold- 
 ing it against all comers by the strong arm. 
 The drudges are found in those vast expanses 
 of plain that have been for generations under 
 close cultivation. They live where their 
 fathers lived, and cultivate the same fields, 
 forming, as they increase in numbers, " con- 
 gested districts," where the soil groans be- 
 neath the population it has to support. These 
 are the great mass of agriculturists, both 
 Hindoo and Mussulman. The pioneers are 
 found in the less thickly settled country, 
 where there is yet jungle to clear and waste 
 land to reclaim on the borders of Eastern 
 Bengal, in the Terai, in the delta of the 
 Ganges, and in the less dense but less fertile
 
 WARRIOR, DRUDGE, AND PIONEER. 57 
 
 forests of South -Western Bengal. While not 
 refusing to fight with men, they rather wage 
 war with wild beasts and with nature. 
 
 I have spoken of the pugnacious varieties 
 of Hodge, such as the Eajpoots and Ahirs 
 of Behar ; the gloomy and stern Mussulman 
 Puritans of the lower Ganges ; the sturdy 
 Chandals of Fureedpore ; the wild Bhuyas, 
 Kols, and Sonthals of the south-west, and 
 of the cowardly varieties, of whom are the 
 mass of the Hindoo cultivators of the plain. 
 When we talk of fighting men, however, it 
 must be with reserve ; for of all these varieties 
 not one is looked upon as fit to furnish 
 good material for the native army, which is 
 recruited from outside Bengal. Courage and 
 cowardice are taken as relative, not absolute 
 terms, and serve to measure one Hodge in 
 the province against another. Hodge does 
 not travel, and is gregarious. Like draws 
 to like, associates and quarrels with like. 
 There are 150,000 villages in the province
 
 58 HODGE. 
 
 I live in, mostly occupied by varieties of 
 Hodge ; and each of these villages is made 
 up of one or more separate parts, each part 
 being occupied as a rule by a single variety 
 of Hodge. It is the people of the same 
 quarter who come in contact with one an- 
 other. We do not ordinarily find Rajpoot 
 fighting with Mussulman, or Mussulman with 
 Chandal, because they seldom come in con- 
 tact their interests do not clash. It is most 
 often Rajpoot who quarrels with Rajpoot, 
 and Chandal with Chandal. Cowardice 
 matched with cowardice is not afraid to 
 fight, and thus it comes to pass that desperate 
 quarrels go on, not only in the villages in- 
 habited by the plucky varieties of Hodge, 
 but also in those inhabited by the cowardly 
 varieties. 
 
 Hodge has a very narrow horizon, generally 
 bounded by the village and the market-town. 
 He thinks, not of the wide world, but of his 
 own little world the village. I remember
 
 LOOSE PONIES. 59 
 
 once, when we were out driving, the ponies 
 were being changed, and by some accident 
 both got loose. They scampered off in great 
 spirits, and seemed in for a spree. The 
 whole country was open to them to roam 
 over. But no ! nothing would serve them 
 but to fly at one another, and they went 
 on kicking and biting until they were parted 
 and cauoiit. So it is with the villager in 
 
 o O 
 
 Bengal. His interest in outside matters is 
 almost nothing, and why ? Because his 
 mind is held firm by village interests. His 
 dreams are within the village, and sel- 
 dom wander elsewhere ; and his rage, when 
 kindled, burns, not against the distant 
 stranger, but against his kinsmen and 
 neighbours.
 
 VILLAGE LIFE
 
 63 
 
 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 HPHE highest class of the village community 
 are the peasant proprietors, who prac- 
 tically own the land they occupy, paying 
 rent to the landlord, and being under cer- 
 tain restrictions as to use and alienation. 
 Next to them are what we would call the 
 farmers, who rent land from the permanent 
 owners. And last, the labourers, who work 
 for wages in cash, or, more often, in kind. 
 The houses of the village are gathered in 
 groups, according to the number of quarters, 
 and round the hamlet lie the fields. The 
 fields of a villager are not all in a ring- 
 fence, but are mixed up with the fields of 
 others. The only marks of division are the
 
 64 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 little ridges which are made round the rice- 
 fields to retain water in the rainy season. 
 There are seldom any fences. Hodge builds 
 and repairs his own house ; provides his own 
 manure, seed, tools, and cattle ; and sells his 
 own produce. 
 
 What sort of a life do they live in this 
 miniature world ? It is a matter whose in- 
 terest is not to be measured by the material 
 wealth involved, because there is room in 
 this small world for tragedy. The commun- 
 ity in which Cain killed Abel was neither 
 wealthy nor large. The main interest of 
 Hodge, as of all mankind, is how to make 
 a living, and in an agricultural community 
 the things men talk and think about are 
 land, the weather, crops, cattle, and markets. 
 Hodge is, we will say, one of the peasant 
 proprietors of the village. He cultivates a 
 few acres of land, out of which he has to 
 make enough to live on, and to meet his 
 expenses. He is too proud, as a rule, to
 
 LABOURING FOR HIRE DESPISED. 65 
 
 work for hire. In Eastern Bengal especially, 
 this is so much the case, that labour for the 
 roads and for public works has generally to 
 be imported from the west. I remember 
 once when there was a flood in the river, 
 which was 8 feet above the level of the 
 country, only kept back from devastating 
 it by a rotten embankment. The embank- 
 ment was all but topped, and was showing 
 signs of a flaw, and we were at our wits' 
 end for labour to stop the breach. Just 
 below the place where a breach threatened 
 was a village, which must certainly be swept 
 away first if the embankment broke, lives 
 being endangered and property destroyed. 
 But not a soul in the village w r ould stir. 
 They said this was coolies' work, and the 
 business of the Government, and they would 
 do no work except on their own fields. 
 They felt about it just as a London clerk 
 would feel if called on to work as a black- 
 smith. 
 
 E
 
 66 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 Hodge is various in the skill which he 
 brings to bear on his land. Everything runs 
 in castes in India, and there are castes of 
 famous cultivators, the Koiris, for example, 
 who have a name for the cultivation of vege- 
 tables ; and the Barois, who devote themselves 
 to pan, that vine whose leaf is valued by all 
 Hindoos as a stimulant. Others, again, the 
 great majority, content themselves with the 
 standard crops rice, maize, pulses, jute, and 
 the like, with a patch of potatoes or sugar-cane 
 thrown in. Others again, of whom the Son- 
 thals are most prominent, are mighty pioneers, 
 carrying out great engineering works to turn 
 a ravine into fertile rice-fields, but have no 
 enterprise and little industry as cultivators, 
 weeding little, sowing late, and cultivating no 
 crops to speak of save the standard ones of 
 rice and maize. 
 
 When Hodge cannot cultivate his land 
 himself, he sublets part of it, taking rent in 
 cash or kind ; or hires labourers to cultivate
 
 VILLAGE POLITICS. 67 
 
 it, whose wages are usually paid in kind. 
 This is how the lesser fry of the village 
 the small men who have not enough of land, 
 or none at all are provided for. Those who 
 have capital get land to farm where they can, 
 trusting, on a vacancy, to rise into the higher 
 ranks of the village society. There are rises 
 and falls in life. A large family with many 
 strong men and much land is suddenly re- 
 duced by cholera or fever, and there are not 
 left in it hands enough to till the family 
 fields. Or a man grows poor through trouble 
 or misconduct. Again, a man has a large 
 family of sons who grow up into strong 
 workers, wanting more land. These waxings 
 and wanings, the changes they bring, their 
 anticipation, their happening, and the study 
 of how to profit by them, are one great field 
 of village politics. Every head of a household 
 has to think of the time when his children 
 will grow up, and will need room ; so there 
 is no such thing as content. Each one presses
 
 68 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 to enlarge his holding. In England, Hodge's 
 children, if they can get nothing to do at 
 home, can enlist, or go to sea, or emigrate, 
 or go to the towns. Labour that is willing 
 can generally gain a living. For utter failure 
 there is charity or the poorhouse. But Hodge 
 in Bengal can look for no such relief. The 
 army, the sea, the colony, or the town is not 
 for him. He has no charity or poorhouse to 
 look to. By the land he must live ; for the 
 land he hungers, and to the land he is fast 
 moored. What little emigration to new lands 
 is still possible gives scant relief to the con- 
 gested millions of peasantry. Hodge in the 
 mass works out his destiny where he is. 
 
 Hodge is head of a household, yet his may 
 be only one of several households in the home- 
 stead ; for the custom is that, when the sons 
 grow up and marry and have children, all the 
 families remain united in one, eating together, 
 cultivating their joint fields, having their 
 property in common. Very pretty, this
 
 FAMILY ANXIETIES. 69 
 
 harmony, while it lasts ; but it does not 
 always last. The close contact and divided 
 duties frequently give rise to jealousies and 
 quarrels ; and quarrels between those who 
 are in contact every day and all day, and 
 who cannot set out of sight of one another, 
 
 O O * 
 
 are apt to become very bitter indeed. Hodge 
 has to watch anxiously and act warily to 
 avoid the risk of such a misfortune. 
 
 Independent of such complications, Hodge 
 has his domestic anxieties. If Hodge has 
 grown-up sons who are married, they bring 
 their wives to live in the house. The gov- 
 erness of the household is the mother, who 
 keeps the younger wives to their tasks of 
 cooking, fetching water, scrubbing dishes, 
 husking rice, sweeping out the house, wash- 
 ing clothes, gathering sticks, and the many 
 miscellaneous duties that have to be done. 
 The women do not, as a rule, work in the 
 fields, go to market, fodder the cattle, spin 
 or weave. Very old men and very young
 
 70 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 boys and girls herd the cattle. If there is 
 a widow or a child- wife, the heavy part of 
 the household drudgery is laid on her. In 
 a household there are numberless occasions 
 for quarrelling between the members, be- 
 cause the passions of jealousy, ambition, 
 rivalry, and envy in their narrow minds 
 are just as easily roused by trifles as they 
 are in more cultivated minds by things of 
 more importance. With neighbours it is 
 the same. The life of Hodge is an open- 
 air life. He has, indeed, room for the shelter 
 of man and beast, but most of the household 
 life is spent in the open air of the courtyard. 
 Neighbours can hear all that is said in neigh- 
 bours' houses ; children will quarrel, animals 
 will stray, and misunderstandings arise from 
 many causes. 
 
 There are also the more delicate social 
 troubles which exist wherever men live. 
 There are no unmarried women, but many 
 unhappy, young, and foolish wives, and
 
 SOCIAL TROUBLES. 71 
 
 many widows. Village scandals, true or 
 false, are constantly flying about, and much 
 of Hodge's attention is needed for guarding 
 the fair fame of his house. There is also 
 the " black sheep " the brother, or cousin, 
 or son who has become idle, vicious, or 
 criminal. In this land, where the ties and 
 the importance of blood are so much thought 
 of, the honest and deserving members of a 
 family suffer more in reputation for the sin 
 of its erring ones than in countries where 
 the individual is more isolated. Moreover, 
 the men and women of a family who have 
 gone wrong do not so often disappear - 
 though sometimes they do from the family 
 horizon, as in England. They remain in 
 the neighbourhood, a thorn in the side of 
 the family, and especially of Hodge, its 
 head. 
 
 Hodge and his neighbours have many points 
 of contact in the fields, even where there is 
 no dispute about land going on. He has
 
 72 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 practical matter to watch. There are his 
 boundaries. Fields are usually separated 
 by ridges of earth ; and if the fields on op- 
 posite sides of a ridge belong to different 
 men, a keen watch has to be kept lest the 
 boundary line, the middle of the ridge, should 
 be shifted over by the neighbour shaving 
 a slice off his own side. Then there is right 
 of way. In most villages there are no 
 proper roads, and Hodge reaches his field 
 by threading his way along the boundary 
 ridges of his neighbours. When men do 
 this, it matters little ; but when cattle pass, 
 crops are damaged, and many are the debates 
 and minute the etiquette by which quarrels 
 on this subject are settled or prevented. 
 
 Then cattle and goats will stray. In a 
 land where there are no fences, scanty pas- 
 ture, and many cattle and goats (usually 
 not less than one to an acre), very great 
 care in the herding is necessary to prevent 
 damage to standing crops. But the cattle
 
 STEAYING CATTLE. 73 
 
 are for the most part in charge of little 
 children and very old men. Children will 
 play, and old men will doze. It sounds 
 pretty to read of the lass who 
 
 "Left a' her flock to stray 
 Amang the bonny bloomin' heather ; " 
 
 but when flocks and herds stray among stand- 
 ing crops, the case is different. The owner 
 of the field or one of his family discovers 
 the trespass, and there is a hullabaloo, with 
 much vigorous language, unless the owner 
 is one of those powerful men whose cattle 
 may graze where they like, none gainsaying. 
 Many are the debates among the village 
 elders owing to the straying of cattle, and 
 much diplomacy is needed to avoid ill-feeling 
 or defiance ; for war means retaliation, and 
 Hodge is business man enough to know that 
 it would be a poor consolation for his own 
 trampled and wasted crops to see those of 
 his neighbour suffering as much. 
 
 Another knotty problem for Hodge is how
 
 74 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 to get wood. He needs fuel, unless he 
 has given up hope of wood, and taken to 
 dried cow -clung cakes instead. He needs 
 also posts and rafters for his house, and 
 ploughs. In England there is always the 
 market, and no resource but the market. 
 English Hodge has his house provided for 
 him, and does not bother about posts or 
 rafters. He gets the use of a plough to 
 work with ; and where he does not use coal 
 for fuel, brushwood is easily got. But in 
 India there is no market, and in most villages 
 there are few trees. Hodge must get wood, 
 and get it where he can. Little care is 
 taken of forests, and the land is being 
 denuded, so that in some places there is 
 not enough of wood to supply the ordinary 
 needs of the people. This not only causes 
 great anxiety, but demoralises many men 
 otherwise respectable, who have come to look 
 on wood-theft as many men in England do 
 on poaching, and used to do on smuggling,
 
 FODDER. 75 
 
 with a sneaking feeling that it is not a 
 regular crime. 
 
 Then the cattle. The fodder difficulty is 
 always present. In Bengal no hay is made. 
 There are no turnips or root crops for cattle, 
 and silos have not yet taken hold. From 
 October to June very little rain falls. With 
 the spread of cultivation, the forest and waste 
 land has been much reduced, and nearly all 
 land that will bear herbage is under crop. 
 In Bengal, meat not being an ordinary article 
 of food, pasture is not laid down. The cattle, 
 when the crop is on the ground, are often 
 penned up at home. When and where there 
 is no crop they are taken out in herds, with 
 the goats, to pick up the best living they can 
 from the scanty herbage. They do moder- 
 ately well, with the help of a shower or two, 
 up to February, and then the country begins 
 to dry up in earnest. Sometimes there falls 
 a shower, bringing up a green flush, but more 
 often there is little or nothing to eat that one
 
 76 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 can see ; and when the rain comes in May or 
 June, and ploughing begins, the cattle are 
 mere bags of skin and bone, weak and unfit 
 for work. It is difficult to see how this is to 
 be avoided, with a human population of over 
 500 to the square mile, and cattle, sheep, and 
 goats more numerous than the human pop- 
 ulation. Such land as will bear crop (and 
 land that will not bear crop is not much good 
 for grass) is all being brought under cultiva- 
 tion. Hodge in the mass is opposed to the 
 destruction of the village pasture, but the 
 individual Hodge, who always wishes to ex- 
 tend his holding, is often tempted to nibble 
 at the pasture, and sometimes to swallow up 
 a lump of it. Once destroyed, it is seldom 
 restored. 
 
 Then there is the cattle disease, which, ow- 
 ing to religious prejudices, cannot be checked 
 as in England by the slaughter of infected 
 animals. Neither do men understand it, nor
 
 WATER. 77 
 
 will they incur trouble or expense to check it. 
 I have seen a cow-keeper with sixty cows who 
 had rinderpest among them, and was urged at 
 least to separate the sick from the sound, but 
 would not, because "it was too much trouble 
 to feed them in two lots " ! Hodge must have 
 cattle ready for the ploughing season when it 
 comes round, and the problem how to do this 
 gives him much grave thought. 
 
 Then there are the great questions of irri- 
 gation and drainage, which may lie dormant 
 year after year, but become raging in a season 
 of drought or flood. In an ordinary year, the 
 water store for irrigation is enough for all, 
 the supply being abundant, and less of it 
 being needed. But when the rain fails, and 
 the crops are dying, it becomes a matter of 
 life and death for each man in the village to 
 get hold of as many of the last few precious 
 drops as he can for his thirsty fields, when all 
 would not suffice. Then, if they can stave off
 
 78 VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 actual violence, the old men of the village 
 argue and bargain and arrange so that there 
 may be as much as possible for the crops, and 
 it may be fairly divided, while a sufficient 
 water-supply is reserved for the drinking of 
 men and cattle, and to keep the fish alive.
 
 INFLUENCES
 
 81 
 
 INFLUENCES. 
 
 i I ODGE has his neighbours and kinsmen, 
 ^^ with whom he has relations more or 
 less intimate. His kinsmen are ranged in 
 two circles an inner circle of relations, and 
 an outer of the caste. Seldom does Hodge 
 know, or in a social sense care for, any 
 one outside his caste. The Mussulman in 
 theory knows no caste, but with him also 
 exclusive dealing is the rule, artificial castes, 
 or what they call messes (those who will eat 
 together), being with him the limit of social 
 intercourse. Each caste has its own customs 
 even in such an important and general matter 
 as marriage. When it is realised that Hodge 
 in India always belongs to some caste or 
 
 F
 
 82 INFLUENCES. 
 
 mess, interested in the affairs of no other 
 caste or mess ; that there are hundreds of 
 such societies, and each of these is broken 
 up into hundreds of local branches neigh- 
 bourhood being isolated from neighbourhood ; 
 and that castes and messes are not like the 
 old Scottish clans, each contained in its own 
 glen, but scattered and mixed up with one 
 another. the great difference in conditions 
 between the life of Hodge in England and 
 that of Hodge in Bengal will become clearer. 
 In Bengal a Mussulman worshipping one 
 God, who is a Spirit, lives in the same village 
 with a Hindoo, who keeps an idol in his 
 house. The women go to fetch water from 
 the same tank ; the children play together 
 in the village street ; the men shoulder their 
 ploughs, and march out side by side to the 
 same fields, and there perhaps work within 
 a few yards of one another season after 
 season ; watch together their ripe crops by 
 night ; go to market together ; pay rent to
 
 EACE DIVISIONS. 83 
 
 the same landlord ; and sit together in the 
 same punchayet (village council) to deter- 
 mine a dispute among neighbours. But 
 they may not eat together, or intermarry, 
 and their lines of social life are as far 
 apart as if they were cows and sheep re- 
 spectively. 
 
 A man who does not follow his caste is not 
 respectable, either in the eyes of his neigh- 
 bours or in his own eyes. The faith of one 
 who has given up his caste is like an up- 
 rooted plant which, unless it finds fresh and 
 congenial soil sometimes even then withers 
 up and dies. Hodge in social matters is 
 strongly under two influences that of the 
 women and that of the caste. 
 
 In all societies women form half the popu- 
 lation, and the children, who are, cutting a 
 different way, also half, are under their in- 
 fluence. Hodge is a marrying man. To be 
 respectable and succeed in life, he must marry 
 and have children. I remember attending
 
 84 INFLUENCES. 
 
 a meeting of advanced natives on the subject 
 of the emancipation of women, where one 
 youthful speaker waxed very eloquent on the 
 wrongs and sufferings of the women, mewed 
 up in zenanas ; kept like slaves ; and not 
 allowed to have any freedom or any opinions. 
 He was pleading for the opening of the 
 zenana. After he had sat down, an old man 
 got up and said : " My young friend has 
 spoken loud words here, saying that our 
 women are slaves, who have no freedom. 
 I would like to see him go and repeat all 
 this at home. The fact is, we are all hen- 
 pecked." And the roar of applause that 
 followed this frank avowal showed that the 
 speaker had hit the nail on the head. An 
 old friend of mine, a native, who had suc- 
 cessfully, as chairman, managed what was 
 long known as a model municipality, once 
 told me : " When I want to get anything 
 done, I go to the women and try to get them 
 round. It is no use attempting anything
 
 WOMEN. 85 
 
 if they are against it." Who has not heard 
 of zenana influence ? 
 
 The influence of woman over Hodge is 
 made of several strands. The first and 
 strongest, as all the world over, is love. 
 Hodge is a domestic man, and loves his 
 wife and children. There are exceptions, of 
 course, when husband and wife cannot pull 
 together ; but in the main, the family gets 
 on quietly and harmoniously. The quarrels 
 and failures, being conspicuous and attract- 
 ing notice, bulk largely in the public eye, 
 but are few in comparison with the whole 
 mass of married life. In married life, Hindoo 
 Hodge compares favourably with Mussulman 
 Hodge, whose loose divorce laws and meaner 
 estimate of women lessen his respect for 
 his wife. 
 
 The next strand is his dependence on his 
 wife. She cooks for him, and manages 
 indoors all his affairs. Here Mussulman 
 Hodge feels the influence too, and an alarm-
 
 86 INFLUENCES. 
 
 ing one it is in some circumstances. When, 
 in Eastern Bengal, marriage registration for 
 Mussulmans was being introduced, it was at 
 first unpopular, and the reason assigned was 
 the fear lest, if the knot should be too 
 tightly tied, many wives might poison their 
 husbands. 
 
 Again, the wife keeps the secret hoard 
 that in most households is reserved for ex- 
 tremities, and all the household treasures. 
 Who so deeply interested in the welfare of 
 the home as the wife, its unseen heart ? 
 It is pathetic in my eyes, when there has 
 been a burglary, and the wife is called as a 
 witness to identify the property recovered. 
 Here is a quilt, which she follows round and 
 round the edge till she comes to a tear which 
 she had sewn up. There is a brass pot with 
 the familiar dent on the lip. A woman was 
 giving evidence once, and the judge cast 
 doubts on her identification, because there 
 were no special marks. " I use these things
 
 THE WIFE'S POWER. 87 
 
 every day, and handle them. Blindfold me 
 and I will pick them out ! " They blind- 
 folded her, and she did pick out all her 
 things from among the others on the table. 
 Well, the husband knows his wife's concen- 
 trated attention and devotion to the interests 
 of the home, and greatly is he influenced by 
 her advice in all his transactions. He may 
 often look only to his present ease or pleas- 
 ure ; but she looks to the interest of her 
 children, as all true mothers do. 
 
 Probably the wife's influence over Hodge 
 is the stronger because he sees so little of 
 other women. They do not go to market, 
 or work in the fields. If Hodge goes to 
 a party at a friend's house, the women may 
 have cooked the food, but do not appear. 
 The food is served by men, and men only 
 sit down. The women associate together, 
 going to the tank for water, and in their 
 merry-makings. Even in the same house- 
 hold there arc strong; restraints on inter-
 
 88 INFLUENCES. 
 
 course, the younger brother's wife not daring 
 to speak to her husband's elder brother. 
 The effect of all this is no doubt to 
 strengthen greatly the influence of the two 
 women with whom a man is on terms of 
 perfectly free intercourse, the mother and 
 the wife. 
 
 The influence of the women is generally 
 conservative. They hold strongly by old reli- 
 gious beliefs, old traditions, and old customs, 
 and have a horror of what is new. This, 
 I have little doubt, intensifies the resistance 
 offered by Hodge to innovations, -what we 
 call reforms, even if they are meant for 
 his benefit. He deeply, and, I must con- 
 fess, too often with justice, distrusts them, 
 as they do not always lead to the results 
 hoped for. There is much that is to him 
 unknown, beyond the reach of his imagina- 
 tion even, and he is so much accustomed to 
 seeing that those who make such proposals 
 have axes of their own to grind, that he
 
 SOCIETY. 89 
 
 takes refuge in the customs of his fathers 
 as the one tried guide who will not be found 
 wanting. 
 
 As for his children, Hodge spoils them. 
 They are under no discipline, and do as 
 they like, which is all the worse for them 
 when they are grown up. 
 
 The next influence that affects Hodge 
 strongly is that of society. Hodge leans 
 heavily on the narrow circle of relatives and 
 caste-fellows in which he moves. It becomes 
 his conscience. 
 
 In England, outside his social circle, Hodge 
 is subject to the influence of "the squire, the 
 parson of the parish, and the attorney " ; the 
 minister and the schoolmaster ; the newspaper ; 
 the union or friendly society ; the public- 
 house the poor man's club the franchise, 
 the proceedings of the law courts, and all 
 local governing authorities ; the sea, the rail- 
 way, the road, the post-office ; cities and city 
 life ; the wanderings and tales of those of
 
 90 INFLUENCES. 
 
 his neighbours and friends who are soldiers, 
 sailors, emigrants, or in employment at a 
 distance. All these neutralise to a greater 
 or less extent the influence of the little 
 clique of his own folks to which Hodge be- 
 longs. Imagine them all removed, and you 
 have Hodge in Bengal a small peasant pro- 
 prietor, unhappy if alone, and dependent, 
 outside his family, on caste for society. 
 Religion I will come to later. 
 
 Many people praise the caste system ; and 
 undoubtedly, as practically the only force in 
 rural India that binds men together, it is 
 valuable and useful. Its weak point, how- 
 ever, is that it does not provide a stable and 
 lofty standard of conduct. The standard is 
 a fluctuating one, depending on the dispo- 
 sition of the members for the time being. 
 If that is for evil, caste works evil and not 
 good. To illustrate the limitations of caste 
 (or among the Mussulmans, the mess), I will 
 note three incidents which I came across in
 
 LIMITATIONS OF CASTE. 91 
 
 the course of my duty (I do not say that 
 India is the only country where such things 
 can be found). 
 
 One of the best of the Bramins in Seram- 
 pore, which abounds in Bramins, was talking 
 with a missionary, and lamenting the prev- 
 alence of beef - eating and liquor - drinking 
 among their young men. " Why," said the 
 missionary, " do you not put your caste 
 rules in motion and stop it ? " He replied 
 that each family was as bad as the others. 
 If a man denounced the offence in another 
 family, the other family would retaliate on 
 his, and both families would then be put to 
 the expense of purging their uncleanness. 
 So they preferred to wink at it all round. 
 
 In a certain low caste of Hindoos, in which 
 remarriage of widows and deserted wives is 
 allowed, a strong party arose in favour of 
 allowing a woman to leave her husband and 
 marry another when she chose, practically 
 abolishing marriage. The older and better
 
 92 INFLUENCES. 
 
 members lamented this, but said there were 
 so many against them, what could they do ? 
 In a Mussulman village, whose inhabitants 
 nearly all made a living as pedlars, there 
 was faction. The leader of one faction was 
 given to the use of ganja, an intoxicating 
 drug. So the leaders of the other faction 
 decided to lay a trap for him. They called 
 a meeting of the village together, and said : 
 " Let us all become very holy. Let us all 
 sign a covenant that we will keep the Koran 
 and use no intoxicating drugs." They hoped 
 that the ganja- eater would refuse to sign, 
 and lose influence in the village. But he 
 met them on their own ground, and said : 
 "I am ready to sign, but let us in our 
 covenant include the whole Koran and not 
 a part only. Let us enter a clause that we 
 will take no interest on money." " But that 
 is what we live by ; how can we do that ? " 
 said the others. " I can't help that. It is 
 forbidden by the Koran as well as the use
 
 BOYCOTTING. 93 
 
 of intoxicating drugs," said he. So there 
 was a good deal of discussion and bargain- 
 ing, and as a result a covenant was drawn 
 up which contained no mention of intoxi- 
 cating drugs or of interest on money, and 
 which all were able cheerfully to sign. 
 
 These and numerous other instances that 
 I have seen convince me that society, how- 
 ever strong its influence, offers to Hodge no 
 steady guidance. It cannot be better than 
 what it is elsewhere the average of its 
 members. 
 
 Hodge's social duties are mainly those con- 
 nected with births, marriages, and deaths. 
 The caste has certain servants, the barber, 
 washerman, &c. If the caste is displeased 
 with Hodge, he is, as we should now say, 
 boycotted. His invitations are not accepted, 
 nor does he get any. Men may not give him 
 or take from him food or water ; he cannot 
 get wives for his sons or husbands for his 
 daughters, nor can he get the services of
 
 94 INFLUENCES. 
 
 the caste servants. In short, he and his 
 are "left severely alone" until he has made 
 his peace, usually by turning away the 
 offender from his family, or by the payment 
 of a fine and giving a feast. Hodge, as I 
 have said, is gregarious, and the isolation is 
 an intolerable burden to him, which he is 
 fain to get rid of at any cost. This he does, 
 if the caste is unanimous, by submission ; if 
 it is not, factions may be formed. 
 
 Like all societies, the caste has its leaders ; 
 and the leader of a society formed of ignorant 
 men, as this is, will probably become a " boss." 
 By " boss " I mean one having at his command 
 a body of men whose duty it is to obey him 
 without question. It is the " boss " who 
 generally pronounces whether a man is to 
 be outcasted or not. Sometimes there are 
 rivals for the office of "boss," and one of 
 these will wish to put a man out while the 
 other tries to keep him in. Then factions 
 are formed. Hodge, if not himself a " boss,"
 
 EELIGION. 95 
 
 is bound by the influence of his caste or 
 faction "boss," and his great study is to 
 avoid being denounced. In Bengal the com- 
 mandment, "Thou shalt not be denounced 
 to the caste," corresponds with that in Eng- 
 land, "Thou shalt not be found out." 
 
 As regards religion, I have never been able 
 to make up my mind entirely. A religion 
 cannot be safely judged by the conduct of 
 its professors, for then a Hindoo, for instance, 
 would have a very false notion of our religion. 
 I do not therefore feel qualified to gauge the 
 exact nature of the influence on Hodge which 
 is exerted by his religion. Comparing his 
 feelings with our own two great command- 
 ments, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God," and " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself," my notion is that Hodge fears 
 rather than loves his God or gods ; that he 
 does for his neighbours nothing more than 
 social duty requires him (and that is, outside 
 the caste, nothing); but that, reading "rela-
 
 96 INFLUENCES. 
 
 tives" for "neighbours," he does more for 
 them than we do. He is not taught to give, 
 unless it be for feeding Bramins or preserving 
 cows. His religion seems to be looked on by 
 him as a mechanical one, of works rather 
 than of the spirit, in which a man may gain 
 merit or bring on himself punishment by acts 
 of which he was not conscious. 
 
 The Bramin priest is a social servant, 
 who is necessary at such ceremonies as the 
 naming of a child, or marriage, or religious 
 services, rather than a teacher. The mulla 
 is much the same. There are holy men 
 who go about holding what may be likened 
 to revival meetings, and arousing relig- 
 ious excitements ; but there is nothing cor- 
 responding to our parish clergy, who urge 
 and teach religious truth week by week. 
 Hodge in Bengal has no doubt his share 
 of natural religion ; but in the main his re- 
 ligion is the caste or mess in which his lot 
 lies, and its opinion is his standard. As the
 
 WEIGHT OF PUBLIC OPINION. 9 7 
 
 caste or mess rarely concerns itself with mat- 
 ters outside its own circle, its opinion is gen- 
 erally narrow, concentrated, and, on all high 
 or distant problems, blank. Where, however, 
 any one can succeed in interesting all or many 
 of these small societies in any matter, such 
 as was done in the case of the kine-killing 
 agitation, no power can be imagined more 
 formidable in India. The number of men 
 affected is enormous, and it is difficult to 
 gauge the depth of their enthusiasm or the 
 lengths to which it will lead them.
 
 HEALTH
 
 101 
 
 HEALTH. 
 
 Hodge, as to all men, a very important 
 question is that of health, and this 
 comes under two main heads sanitation 
 and medical treatment. 
 
 As regards sanitation, that is usually left 
 to nature. There are whole districts which 
 are pest-ridden, the haunt of malaria, chol- 
 era, and other plagues. The unfortunate 
 people who cannot get away from these, 
 live on in listless submission to their fate. 
 Hodge, as a rule, thinks very little of en- 
 deavouring by the art of man to lessen the 
 terrors of a sickly climate. The village site 
 having been chosen in as suitable a place 
 as can be found, high and dry, with a
 
 102 HEALTH. 
 
 fairly well - cleared country round, and a 
 water-supply within reach, sanitary arrange- 
 ments are not further extended. The village 
 roads get worn down into deep hollows, full 
 of ruts, and reeking with mud and filth. 
 The premises of the various dwellings are 
 also well stocked with rubbish and dirt of 
 all sorts. In Bengal especially, ventilation 
 is prevented by the thickets of trees and 
 bamboos. 
 
 The water, that most important of all 
 necessaries, is got, where there is no river 
 or running stream, from wells or from tanks 
 - open artificial excavations filled with rain 
 and surface water. It was formerly an act 
 of virtue for a rich Hindoo to dig a tank ; 
 but, unfortunately, the same virtue does not 
 seem to belong to repairing the old as to 
 digging the new. What with the silting up 
 of the old tanks with vegetable refuse ; their 
 pollution for agricultural purposes, as for 
 steeping jute or hemp ; their deliberate
 
 RECKLESSNESS ABOUT WATER. 103 
 
 destruction in order to get a rood or two 
 of rice laid for cultivation ; and their deple- 
 tion in dry years for irrigating the fields, 
 Hodge's water - supply is often very bad. 
 What he has he makes bad use of, for he 
 will bathe his cattle, bathe himself, and wash 
 his dirty clothes in the reservoir itself, and 
 then drink the nastiness afterwards. He will 
 also throw the remains of the dead, espec- 
 ially of those who have died of infectious 
 diseases or epidemics, like cholera, into or 
 beside water, and even bury them in the 
 bed of a stream or the side of a tank. 
 Sometimes, when there is a proper water- 
 supply, the women are too lazy to go and 
 fetch it. I remember going into a village 
 where there had been cholera, and trying 
 to find out the cause. In the first house 
 I was told there was a very fine drinking- 
 water tank some quarter of a mile distant, 
 and that the drinking-water came from there. 
 But when I asked where they got their water
 
 104 HEALTH. 
 
 to cook with, they showed me the rice-field 
 at the back of the house, which was reeking 
 with putrefaction and rapidly drying up. 
 It was the same in the next house, except 
 that there the supply for cooking came from 
 a shallow pond of rotten water at the bot- 
 tom of a deep pit, and covered with green 
 slime. Where the water was taken, there 
 the dishes were washed, and the very clothes 
 of those who had died of the cholera. 
 
 Hodge's utter recklessness on the subject of 
 defiling water probably arises from the fact that 
 he holds a wrong theory about it. Water is the 
 great purifier, and he believes that it purifies 
 everything, and is of so great virtue that it 
 cannot itself be defiled. Hence he sees no 
 necessity for keeping the purifier itself pure. 
 We have a proverb that virtue is its own 
 reward. Hodge seems to think that virtue is 
 its own protector, or at least that the mission 
 of protecting it has not been imposed on him. 
 There are men of such high caste that they
 
 WATER ITS OWN PUEIFIER. 105 
 
 can do what they like, being in the same way 
 considered incapable of impurity. If the 
 cattle disease breaks out among the cows he 
 worships, he leaves their protection to the 
 gods ; if impurities get into the water, that is 
 the affair of the water. When a place is un- 
 healthy, he will blame the air and the water, 
 but do little or nothing to mend their defects. 
 Hodge's general belief is that his duty is to 
 do his caste work, and nothing else. He is 
 as particular as a trade-unionist about that. 
 He accepts from nature, or from the Govern- 
 ment and the philanthropic rich man, who 
 are nature's instruments, all such gifts as good 
 air, light, and water, and even such artificial 
 things as roads and bridges. He never thinks 
 of cleaning or levelling a road for himself, but 
 will contentedly wade through the same miry 
 puddle, or break his cart-wheel, generation 
 after generation, over the same old boulder; 
 or will sit patiently by the stream in flood 
 until it subsides and he can ford it. It is
 
 10G HEALTH. 
 
 all custom. He is used to his troubles, and, 
 having a very small imagination, never thinks 
 how it would be if they were removed. 
 When the smooth road, the railway, or the 
 bridge has been made, it is used freely by 
 Hodge, and in a year or two you catch him 
 grumbling over the roughness or obstacle 
 him who till so lately never dreamt of getting 
 anything so good as he has. Custom again ! 
 The new becomes the old, and a fresh point 
 of departure. 
 
 It is the same with drainage. Hodge lives 
 contentedly and unthinkingly by a marsh that 
 is flooding his village with malaria, until 
 some one thinks of draining it. His first 
 feeling when such a work is proposed will 
 probably be one of indignation at the removal 
 of an old landmark, and the loss of his supply 
 of prawns. Even when the health of the 
 village improves, he will probably put that 
 down to a freak of nature ; and the only 
 benefit he will acknowledge from the im-
 
 CUSTOM AND PROGRESS. 107 
 
 provement is the addition to the amount of 
 cultivable land. I doubt if in this respect 
 Hodge in Bengal is so very different from 
 Hodge in England, where sanitation is a 
 modern science, and there is a proverb that 
 " clart and cosiness " go together. 
 
 The open-air life, and the small size of the 
 villages, save Hodge in Bengal from many of 
 the worst sanitary evils that have to be com- 
 bated in the towns of Britain. As for the 
 towns of Bengal, they have been put through 
 a course of education by the British Govern- 
 ment, which has removed many of the worst 
 of the old evils, most frequently in the teeth 
 of strong opposition, for all the world over 
 a man clings to nothing so closely as to his 
 nuisances. 
 
 We come now to the second head viz., 
 medical treatment. Hodge's diseases come 
 on him, as a rule, in two forms one in the 
 shape of general climatic diseases, such as 
 malarious fever ; and the other in the shape
 
 108 HEALTH. 
 
 of epidemics, such as cholera or smallpox. I 
 am going to discuss, not the causes of these 
 afflictions, which are many and the subject of 
 much controversy, but how Hodge looks on 
 them and meets them. 
 
 He looks on disease, not as a warning of 
 nature to put right something that is wrong, 
 but as a punishment from God. He submits 
 to it patiently tamely, we should say ac- 
 cepting it as fate ; and his main indigenous 
 remedy is processions, prayers, and sacrifices, 
 by which he hopes to propitiate the wrath 
 of God. 
 
 When a sudden change of climate occurs 
 from a river, for instance, deserting its old 
 bed enormous destruction of life may take 
 place. The most conspicuous instance I have 
 heard of was the destruction of Gour. This 
 city was the capital of Bengal, and stood on 
 the banks of the river Ganges. The Ganges 
 changed its course, and a terrible pestilence 
 destroyed all the inhabitants who could not
 
 EPIDEMICS. 109 
 
 get away. Since that time Gour lias been 
 an uninhabited mass of ruins, buried in dense 
 jungle. In modern times there was the Burd- 
 wan fever, said to have been caused by the 
 blocking out by an embankment of the flood- 
 waters which used to wash large areas. This 
 swept over large and populous villages, leav- 
 ing behind it a succession of jungle -grown 
 heaps of ruins. 
 
 When an epidemic breaks out there is a 
 panic for the time, and after it is over, careless 
 indifference. Frantic grasping at any remedy 
 when the evil is imminent, but no precau- 
 tions taken when they can be taken with 
 effect. There are, for the country districts, 
 no colleges or trained physicians, no drug- 
 shops or druggists. 
 
 In cases of ordinary disease, when Hodge 
 resorts to a physician at all, there is generally 
 some one in the neighbourhood a man or an 
 old woman with a hereditary reputation that 
 way, and a knowledge of herbs and simple
 
 110 HEALTH. 
 
 remedies, whom he calls in. Among these 
 there are some, especially in the towns, who 
 have considerable skill, and know things that 
 our doctors are ignorant of; but the greater 
 proportion are neither highly gifted nor well 
 trained. The mysteries of physic they may 
 know something of, but of surgery they 
 know nothing. It is natural, therefore, that 
 Hodge should not expect the physician or 
 such drugs as he can command to do much 
 good. Suffering is in abundance among those 
 dense masses of humanity, where death is 
 ever reaping a rich harvest. It has just to 
 be borne. 
 
 Great confidence is felt in the white man 
 and his medicine. In the medicine, apart 
 from the man, the faith is little. This is pro- 
 bably owing to adulteration, and to keeping 
 things that ought to be thrown away. But 
 the faith in the man is touching sometimes. 
 An old woman came to one of our hospitals 
 and asked a friend of mine, " Can't you give
 
 MEDICAL AID. Ill 
 
 me something for my eyes ? My children are 
 turning me out because I can't see." It was 
 old age that was making her blind. "You 
 will never see better," he said. " Oh, but you 
 must have some medicine to make me see ! " 
 she moaned ; " think again ! My children are 
 turning me out ! " I remember an incident 
 which shows how cheaply a reputation as a 
 medicine-man may be gained. I was travel- 
 ling through a village, and a man turned out 
 with a very bad leg, which he asked me to 
 prescribe for. I declined to prescribe, but 
 offered to pay for a cart to take him to the 
 hospital about fifteen miles off. He never 
 went ; but for some time after people were 
 bringing me patients to heal, on the strength 
 of the wonderful cure I had made of this 
 man's leg ! 
 
 Government hospitals are getting more 
 patients, but were and are still unpopular 
 with Hodge. The reasons for this are, for 
 one, that there is a nasty echo in the rooms,
 
 112 HEALTH. 
 
 which are larger than the little huts Hodge 
 is used to, and no lights at night. It is a 
 dreary thing for a sick man to wear through 
 the long night in the dark alone, or with 
 a coughing neighbour and an echo. 
 
 Then, the medicine is not always good, 
 and in towns at least the dispensary is pick- 
 eted by the messengers of quacks, who inter- 
 cept patients and warn them that it is no 
 good going there. Then Hodge is impatient 
 for effects. He expects to swallow the medi- 
 cine and be well straight away, so that he 
 will not always carry out a course of treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Quacks are a growing nuisance. They 
 are distinct from native practitioners, for 
 they call themselves " Doctors," against which, 
 unfortunately, there is no law, and profess 
 to practise English medicine though without 
 qualification. Their way of making money 
 is low fees and long medicine bills. I knew 
 one village of about 2000 inhabitants in
 
 QUACKS AND WITCHES. 113 
 
 which were sixteen quacks. Their existence 
 is a reproach and a hindrance to English 
 medicine, and prevents Hodge having that 
 confidence in the science which he generally 
 has in the man. 
 
 I do not know how far the belief in witch- 
 craft extends. Many of those who call them- 
 selves Hindoos and Mussulmans have it, while 
 in the minds of nearly all aboriginal people, 
 such as the Sonthals and Kols, it is a car- 
 dinal article of faith. When a woman is 
 reputed to be a witch, she is held responsible 
 for all the sickness of the neighbourhood, 
 whether of men or of cattle. If she is not 
 put an end to or tortured herself, her hus- 
 band is fined as a punishment, and husbands 
 have been known to kill their own wives 
 merely to escape from the constant bleeding 
 of their purse by fines. 
 
 Thus Hodge has his various remedies for 
 plague and sickness. 
 
 H
 
 11.7 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS. 
 
 A LL the world over, the budget is the 
 chief matter of anxiety how to make 
 it balance. From the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer to the meanest head of a house- 
 hold, the same problem has to be solved, 
 and if the scale be small, the balancing is 
 quite as difficult. 
 
 Hodge has to trust for his ways and means 
 to the produce of his fields. A few of the 
 richer men do a little trade, or money-lend- 
 ing, or ply a cart ; a few of the poorer go 
 out as labourers. Hodge in the mass, how- 
 ever, lives on his fields. His income, vary- 
 ing with the area and quality of the land, 
 is difficult to reduce to a money value,
 
 118 WAYS AND MEANS. 
 
 because so little of it is ever turned into 
 money. I fancy, however, that any one who 
 has, after paying rent and cost of cultiva- 
 tion, anything over 5 a-year to spend, is 
 looked on as a fairly warm man, and there 
 are some who have to keep their families on 
 as little as 3 a-year, or even less. 
 
 Without going into statistics, I am trying 
 to enter into Hodge's mind, and read there 
 the anxious thoughts with which he studies 
 his great little problem of fitting all his 
 expenses into this small frame. Talk about 
 cheese-paring ! He has plenty of experience 
 in that. There is the rent, and the necessary 
 expense of cultivation cattle for ploughing, 
 seed, implements, and labour, if there is not 
 enough in the house. Then there is his 
 
 O 
 
 food, and that of his family. Any of his 
 field produce used as food must come out 
 of income ; and there are things he must 
 buy, such as salt, oil, tobacco, and spices. 
 Then there are clothes, for the women do
 
 A SURPLUS. 119 
 
 not, as a rule, spin or weave ; and fuel, if he 
 cannot get it for nothing. The house has 
 to be kept in repair, with rafters, posts, and 
 thatch, which have to be frequently renewed. 
 There are the various social expenses, the 
 fees to the barber and other village servants ; 
 the costs of little festivals, at naming of the 
 child, weddings, and funerals ; ornaments 
 and dowry at weddings ; fees to the priest 
 and physician ; the rent ; presents to the 
 landlord's servants, interest on debt caste 
 fines. There are few conjurers who can do 
 more with a hat than commonplace, everyday, 
 stupid Hodge has to do with that 5 a-year. 
 
 What does he do when he has a surplus ? 
 That, unfortunately, is not a usual occurrence, 
 even where the personal expenditure leaves 
 a balance on the right side. When he has 
 money to spare, he sometimes invests it in 
 cattle, dishes, or clothes ; sometimes in get- 
 ting more land ; sometimes in making a bid 
 for influence in the village, by litigation or
 
 120 WAYS AND MEANS. 
 
 otherwise ; sometimes he lends it out at in- 
 terest on mortgage of land or taking articles 
 in pawn ; sometimes he spends it in reduc- 
 ing; his debts : sometimes he hides it. to form 
 
 o * 
 
 a secret hoard. The secret hoard is the re- 
 serve fund of the family, usually in charge of 
 the women, and such hoards are frequently 
 discovered, probably lost through the sudden 
 death by cholera or other calamity of all in 
 the secret. Occasionally there are signs of 
 a banking system, where a money-lender 
 takes money on deposit, paying interest, and 
 uses it in his business. Sometimes the surplus 
 is used to stock a small shop, or to set up 
 a cart and bullocks. Hodge in the mass is not 
 fond of litigation, but there are parts of the 
 country where that seems to be a favourite 
 way of getting rid of surplus wealth. 
 
 If there is a deficit, how is it met ? Hodge 
 has no savings bank, or friendly society, or 
 bank, in the English sense, to fall back upon. 
 He has four ways of meeting deficit by re-
 
 A DEFICIT. 121 
 
 ducing (save the mark !) expenditure ; by fail- 
 ing to meet obligations ; by exhausting hoards 
 and selling property ; and by borrowing. Some 
 few enterprising members of the class go and 
 work in the service of others, doing occasion- 
 ally what those who cannot live by their land 
 must do regularly ; but partly from pride, and 
 partly from want of work near home and shy- 
 ness about going far afield, Hodge does not 
 often indent on this resource. Indeed it is 
 not a practical one except it be habitual, be- 
 cause the time is not propitious for seeking to 
 earn money by labour when employers are be- 
 coming candidates for work, and most causes 
 of shortness affect a whole neighbourhood at 
 once. Hodge runs up bills at the shop, gets 
 into arrears with his landlord's rent, and with 
 the interest of his debt ; pawns, sells, mort- 
 gages, and borrows as far as he can, and sits 
 tight waiting for better times. If better times 
 do not come, Hodge and his family either starve 
 to death or sink into the ranks of the landless.
 
 125 
 
 HODGE'S MASTERS. 
 
 HHHESE arc three in number viz., the land- 
 lord, the money-lender, and the village 
 ruffian. I am now looking at them from the 
 outside from Hodge's point of view. The 
 caste "boss" has already been discussed. 
 
 The landlord may be large or small, but he 
 seldom lays out money on his estate. His 
 budget, so far as the land goes, is one of re- 
 ceipts only. This is the general rule, to which 
 there are, of course, exceptions. 
 
 The vast majority of landlords are small, 
 though there are landlords who have large 
 estates. From Hodge's point of view, the 
 main question about the landlord is, whether 
 he is contented or hard up ; and the next,
 
 126 HODGE'S MASTERS. 
 
 whether he keeps a firm hand on his servants 
 and middlemen or not. Unfortunately for 
 Hodge, nearly every landlord is either himself 
 a money-lender turned landholder, in which 
 case he is eager to make much more, or in the 
 hands of money-lenders, and driven by them. 
 Again, the ordinary landlord is ignorant, sur- 
 rounded from youth by adulation and indulg- 
 ence ; idle, never going out or attending to 
 business ; and leaves his affairs in the hands 
 of ill-paid, greedy, and unfaithful servants- 
 hands to which much of Hodge's money sticks 
 before reaching the master. To save himself 
 from losses of this kind, the landlord fre- 
 quently alienates by lease for a term or for 
 ever all his rights to speculators, whose one 
 object is to make money by the investment. 
 Then a wise father may be followed by a 
 foolish son; or the landlord's family, where the 
 estate is not kept together by primogeniture 
 or some such rule, may not agree to enjoy the 
 property in a friendly way, and may quarrel
 
 THE LANDLORD'S DEMANDS. 127 
 
 desperately over their rights. Or the landlord 
 may quarrel with a neighbour about a boun- 
 dary, or, in short, a dozen things may happen 
 to make trouble, into which Hodge is dragged. 
 
 When the landlord or his servant wishes to 
 make money out of the estate, Hodge is the 
 bee that must produce the honey. As land is 
 made to yield its produce by ploughing and 
 harrowing, so is Hodge ploughed and harrowed 
 by a bad landlord and his greedy servants. 
 Woe to him who makes a display of w r ealth ! It 
 draws the spoiler on him. How Hodge defends 
 himself we shall see further on. One thing 
 may be noticed, that the old-fashioned landlord 
 generally tries to get money out of his ten- 
 ants by means of occasional contributions, and 
 the new-fashioned by means of higher rents. 
 
 The landlord renders Hodge services, and 
 does not merely take his means away. He 
 is the local centre of order, and settles dis- 
 putes between village and village, keeping 
 up a sort of discipline too over the caste
 
 128 HODGE'S MASTERS. 
 
 "bosses." He is supposed to stand up for 
 his tenants against outsiders, and to satisfy 
 all the demands of Government against 
 them. I say he is supposed to do this, 
 although partly from the incapacity of the 
 landlords, and partly from the growing in- 
 dependence of the tenants serious inroads 
 on this principle have been made. The 
 landlord also used to, but now does not 
 often, keep large reserves of grain in case of 
 famine, and occasionally, if inclined that way, 
 introduces an improvement, such as a road, 
 a drain, or an irrigation work. Hodge looks 
 on such unusual outbreaks of benevolence 
 with a suspicious eye, not wholly without 
 reason. An old landlord once told me, at 
 the time when the Tenancy Bill was being 
 discussed, " They may make what laws they 
 like, but we can always get the ryots to 
 agree to our terms. There are ways. For 
 instance, I can start an improvement such 
 as a drain, and ruin a man's land." I am
 
 THE TWO LEANING STONES. 129 
 
 only repeating what I heard, and do not 
 vouch for it. It serves to account for Hodge's 
 suspicious attitude towards benevolent actions 
 which an outsider would expect to call forth a 
 gush of gratitude. 
 
 The money-lender's is the rival influence 
 to that of the landlord ; and as two stones, 
 either of which singly would fall on a man 
 and crush him, may, by supporting one 
 another, give him a safe shelter, so the land- 
 lord and the money-lender between them 
 often give him breathing-space. 
 
 In a land where capital is scarce, communi- 
 cations arc difficult, and the scale on which 
 Hodge does his business is so small, the bank- 
 ing system is necessarily very different from 
 that usual in a rich country like England. 
 In any part of the United Kingdom we have 
 banks with agents, well paid and able, dis- 
 posing of abundant capital, and financing at 
 moderate interest the operations of the farmers. 
 In the Bengal village we have the private 
 
 i
 
 130 HODGE'S MASTERS. 
 
 capitalist, with a very petty capital, and he 
 deals with Hodge on very hard terms. 
 
 I think the extortions of the money-lender 
 are sometimes described in exaggerated terms. 
 The risks are considerable, and, because of 
 the smallness of transactions, the working ex- 
 penses are great. When a creditor has to call 
 perhaps twenty times, making the journey of 
 some miles on his pony, to collect a debt of 
 a few shillings, the rate of interest needed to 
 cover his expenses in time and trouble must 
 be high. 
 
 Hodge is generally in debt to a money- 
 lender. If he were got out of debt, he would 
 probably lose no time in getting into it again. 
 Why is this, if the money-lender is such an 
 oppressor ? It is chiefly because he feels the 
 comfort of having a man with money in- 
 terested in keeping him going. If he falls 
 into trouble through litigation or failure of 
 crop, the money-lender who has invested in 
 him will spend what he can afford before he
 
 THE MONEY-LENDER. 131 
 
 will sacrifice the investment already made. 
 The investment means not money at so much 
 per cent, but simply that Hodge is in debt 
 and pays from time to time what he can 
 afford to give. The creditor keeps all the 
 accounts, which Hodge is not, as a rule, clever 
 enough to check. But he would indeed be a 
 clever man who could make much of the 
 accounts, for the transactions are more often 
 in kind than in money. It is not easy to add 
 up three bushels of grain, a kid, a pot of 
 clarified butter, eighteen annas in cash, two 
 pumpkins, and a bundle of straw. They rub 
 along somehow, Hodge giving what he can 
 afford and the money-lender taking what he 
 can get, with little extra presents that do not 
 go down in the accounts, such as bundles of 
 firewood, milk, and oil when visits are paid, 
 until something occurs to break the connec- 
 tion. But a connection of this kind often 
 lasts for generations. 
 
 The personal system, which means that the
 
 132 HODGE'S MASTERS. 
 
 banking business is carried out of the living 
 fund instead of out of savings, presses hard 
 on Hodge when his creditor dies, leaving sev- 
 eral sons who have all with their families to 
 live out of a capital that did not much more 
 than suffice for one. Then the cords are 
 tightened, and Hodge is squeezed. 
 
 The third of Hodge's local masters is the 
 village ruffian. I am not now talking of that 
 nuisance the village thief, who lives by levy- 
 ing stealthily small contributions from his 
 neighbours' crops ; nor that still greater nuis- 
 ance the cattle-poisoner, who destroys cattle 
 for the sake of getting their skins. These are 
 looked on and treated as vermin, to be extir- 
 pated if possible. But the village ruffian is 
 the man who levies blackmail by virtue of his 
 power to do mischief. Do we not know some- 
 thing of this man nearer home through the 
 discussions on the Irish troubles ? It is need- 
 less to enumerate the many ways in which the 
 village ruffian can exert his power. One will
 
 THE VILLAGE RUFFIAN. 133 
 
 suffice. Hodge lives in a thatched house 
 with stacks of straw beside it, and at certain 
 seasons a spark will make it blaze up. If 
 nobody else understands what that means, 
 Hodge does.
 
 OFFICIALS
 
 137 
 
 OFFICIALS. 
 
 officials whose influence is felt by 
 Hodge are the local authorities, the 
 police, the magistrate, and the Civil Court. 
 I will pass quickly by the local authorities, 
 some of whom have considerable powers of 
 annoyance, but have little direct power over 
 life and liberty. 
 
 The police, from Hodge's point of view, 
 consist of the village watchman nearest, the 
 Government police constable next ; then the 
 head constable or sub-inspector of the station, 
 and the inspector of the division ; and last, 
 in the remote distance, the superintendent of 
 the district. The more remote central au- 
 thorities Hodge sees and thinks of no more
 
 138 OFFICIALS. 
 
 than we see or think of any possible inhabi- 
 tants of the sun. The highest official who 
 may be said to have any contact with Hodge's 
 world is the sub-inspector. 
 
 The British reader can hardly realise the 
 position of the police in Bengal, nor can a 
 British official, save with difficulty, put himself 
 fairly in Hodge's place, and look at them from 
 his the outside point of view. In England 
 there are as many magistrates as policemen ; 
 in Bengal there are practically no local magis- 
 trates, and of all the magistrates in a large 
 district (say with two millions of inhabitants) 
 there is only one who has any control over 
 the police. I except, of course, the village 
 watchman, whom Hodge looks on rather as 
 one of his own people than as one of the 
 police. Imagine the nearest approach to a 
 parallel the sheriff of a Scottish county left 
 to control, with the aid of one chief constable, 
 and without any of the magistrates who at 
 present aid him, the police of an area as large
 
 THE VILLAGE WATCHMAN. 139 
 
 as the county of Inverness and as thickly 
 populated as the Lothians. That is one of 
 the many items of a District Magistrate's 
 duty in Bengal. 
 
 The village watchman is strictly local, paid 
 by the villagers, and never transferred from 
 his beat. The Government constable is strict- 
 ly Imperial, paid by the central Government, 
 and moved about all over Bengal at the will 
 of the central authorities. On an enormously 
 larger scale, and much less strongly and 
 efficiently manned or trained, it is more like 
 the Royal Irish Constabulary than like any- 
 thing in England, where each county has its 
 separate staff, control, and responsibility. No 
 local people, high or low, official or non-official, 
 with the one exception mentioned above, have 
 a word to say as to the pay, merits, disposi- 
 tion, or discipline of any policeman, officer or 
 private. They cannot get him appointed or 
 dismissed, punished or promoted. The con- 
 stable's pay is slightly above that of the la-
 
 140 OFFICIALS. 
 
 bourer. There is no coroner ; there are sel- 
 dom to be found gentlemen of position, 
 medical men, clergymen, professional men, or 
 men of property and leisure ; so that the 
 play can often be played in the dark. 
 
 The police station is seldom within five 
 miles, often it is over ten, sometimes twenty 
 or more miles distant, and from the village 
 it must be reached across country through 
 mud or jungle, and across unbridged streams. 
 
 Hodge's general associations with the police 
 are connected with the phrase, " Shell out." 
 A policeman, wherever he goes, has free quar- 
 ters and the best of everything. To enumer- 
 ate all the powers of a police officer by which 
 he can serve or harm Hodge would be tedious. 
 It is easy to see, where there are no magis- 
 trates, men of position, coroners, medical men, 
 newspapers or other means of publicity, how 
 murders, suicides, and other occurrences can 
 be hushed up or false charges concocted. The 
 power of arrest alone, which every police officer
 
 POWER OF ARREST. 141 
 
 above the rank of constable has, is a formid- 
 able weapon. I shall never forget the face of 
 a well-to-do and important man, who re- 
 mained in hiding when there was a warrant 
 out against him, and found his way to me 
 at last to give himself up and be admitted 
 to bail. He was a stout man, evidently in 
 ordinary life bearing himself with the portly 
 dignity of an alderman ; but he came to me 
 crouching, with cheeks flabby, pouched, and 
 shaking like a jelly, and staring eyes. This 
 was solely from dread of arrest. 
 
 Pretexts for arrest can be found very 
 readily. I remember, in a big town, one 
 of the richest men of the place was charged 
 with gang -robbery, one of the most serious 
 offences known to the law. The police, as 
 they are bound to do when they arrest a 
 man on such a charge, refused bail. The 
 gang -robbery alleged was an assault on a 
 beggar, and the property stolen was the 
 worthless rag he wore on his shoulders. I
 
 142 OFFICIALS. 
 
 judge of the fear that natives have of arrest 
 by the efforts they will make, and the money 
 they will spend, simply to be let out on bail. 
 What the police do to inspire dread it is not 
 my purpose to attempt here to describe. No 
 doubt they commit illegalities or irregularities, 
 besides using their formidable legal powers, for 
 illegalities are often necessary to get things 
 done. The European landlord who deter- 
 mined to run his estate on Christian prin- 
 ciples i.e., without employing clubmen 
 found it impossible. " The captain cut off 
 my hair as a punishment," said a soldier to 
 his comrade. " He can't do it : it's agin the 
 law," was the answer. "But he did," said 
 Tommy. "But I tell you he can't," insisted 
 the other. "But I tell you he did," said 
 Tommy. It is not what the police are sup- 
 posed to do that Hodge sees, but what in 
 fact they actually do, which is not the same 
 thing. 
 
 There was a bazar fire near the house of a
 
 POWER IS MONEY. 143 
 
 friend of mine, which was put in danger. My 
 friend wanted a police inquiry as to who was 
 to blame. I expressed a doubt whether the 
 culprit would be detected. " Oh, I don't care 
 for that. Let them be a day or two in the 
 hands of the police, and it will be all right." 
 
 Power is a property that can readily be 
 transmuted into money, and no doubt it 
 often is. 
 
 I do not say that there are no police officers 
 who use their powers only as they are meant 
 to be used. But Hodge looks on the police 
 officer as an extortioner and a bribe-taker, to 
 be avoided as such. If by chance he meets 
 one that is honest, he is as much astonished 
 as I was in a certain cathedral which I was 
 being shown over, when I met a verger who 
 refused a tip. 
 
 The magistrate is the next personage. He 
 is the authority who revises the proceedings of 
 the police, and to whom complaints may be 
 made of the conduct of landlords, neighbours,
 
 144 OFFICIALS. 
 
 private persons, public bodies, and officials. 
 During my whole career in India I have held 
 the office of a magistrate, and have often tried 
 to imagine what things are like, and how they 
 go on, in my absence. In my presence I see 
 every one courting my favour, and eager to 
 carry out my wishes. Is this loyalty, or is it 
 hypocrisy ? 
 
 In the district I now live in, with a million 
 and three-quarters of inhabitants and 5500 
 square miles of area, there are some eight 
 officials who may entertain complaints. We 
 hope in time to raise the number to ten or 
 twelve. The magistrate who has to receive 
 and sift the complaints of Hodge and others 
 is a man burdened with many public duties, 
 some of which involve money responsibilities ; 
 often, too, with domestic and social cares and 
 worries. The climate, for all but about three 
 months in the year, is unfavourable to bodily 
 exertion, and in many places destructive of 
 health. It is no unusual thing in a sickly
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE MAGISTRATE. 145 
 
 season to find all the people of a place weak- 
 ened with sickness, and in this state having 
 to struggle through their heavy day's work. 
 The married men have sent away wife and 
 children, or, worse, see the wife and children 
 they cannot afford to send away pining before 
 their eyes. In small societies squabbles are 
 frequently going on, which are in a way use- 
 ful, occupying the mind and keeping off ennui, 
 but which, in another way, wear out the spirit 
 and destroy its elasticity. 
 
 All this Hodge does not know. He looks 
 on the magistrate, European or native, as a 
 very great man with mighty powers. The 
 great man himself is in the centre of his 
 system, and, like a parson in his pulpit, has 
 always the last word. Arguments and evi- 
 dence on both sides are laid before him, and 
 he finally chooses which he will believe. The 
 cause which he favours is right, and, unless 
 his decision is upset by superior authority, 
 which happens in only a very small percentage 
 
 K
 
 146 OFFICIALS. 
 
 of cases, is thenceforth supported by the whole 
 power of the British nation, civil and military. 
 The law as it exists, with its provisions, pro- 
 cedure, and precedents, binds his conduct, and 
 the old methods of the witty Kadis which are 
 related in the pleasant old Persian tales are 
 not for him. 
 
 Hodge must take an interest in the magis- 
 trate, because, however much he may have 
 resolved to have nothing to do with the 
 courts, some neighbour or enemy may force 
 him there ; or, again, he may have himself 
 been so injured that he is obliged to seek 
 redress from the magistrate. 
 
 It is written in the law, in many sections, 
 " If A has done so and so to Z, then A will 
 be punished in such a manner." Hodge has, 
 however, before lodging a complaint, to con- 
 sider in the light of practical experience, 
 "Will he be punished?" and, "Is the game 
 worth the caudle ? " 
 
 The first thing he has to consider is the
 
 THE COURTS REMOTE. 147 
 
 time and trouble it will cost him to reach the 
 magistrate. The magistrate's headquarters 
 are five, ten, twenty, or even thirty miles 
 off, and Hodge may find on getting there 
 that he is out on tour and has to be fol- 
 lowed a further distance. The journey has 
 to be made over bad roads or perhaps 
 across country. Hodge, unless he lives very 
 near, may look forward to an absence from 
 home of three days or more for every visit 
 he makes to the magistrate's court. I remem- 
 
 o 
 
 ber, when I was at home on furlough, being 
 in a small village about eight miles distant 
 from the county town, with which it was 
 connected by a good road. The parson was 
 discussing a village rowdy who every now 
 
 OO*7 */ 
 
 and then broke out in a drunken fit and 
 created a disturbance in the street. The 
 parson said, "I have more than once been 
 inclined to prosecute him myself, but I 
 should have to go in to Salisbury and give 
 evidence, and who is to pay my expenses ? "
 
 148 OFFICIALS. 
 
 I was much struck with this view of the 
 matter from the outside, which confirms my 
 own impression that distance and expense 
 are strong deterrents to Hodge, when all he 
 wants is redress for the particular injury 
 he has suffered. Moreover, the time has 
 been chosen, not by him but by the enemy ; 
 and if, as is usually the case, it is a critical 
 time in field-work, such as ploughing-time, 
 or weeding - time, or harvest, when every 
 hand is busy and every hour precious, the 
 chances are that Hodge will bear and do a 
 good deal before he will give up the time 
 needed for an expedition to court. 
 
 Then, if he is the only adult male in his 
 house, he will have, when he goes, to leave 
 his wife and children unguarded in their 
 flimsy thatched hut with walls of mud or 
 mat ; the cattle and goats to be fed and 
 watched ; the unfenced fields with no one 
 to keep off thieves or trespassers, whether 
 four-footed or biped. If Hodge is strong
 
 COST OF THE LAW. 149 
 
 enough to take his change otherwise out of 
 the enemy, he will generally do so ; if not, 
 why, he will still hesitate. 
 
 There are other things he has to think 
 of. What will the landlord say ? Some 
 landlords object to their tenants' going to 
 court, as if they could not get justice at 
 home. What will the caste say ? What 
 will the neighbours say ? Will he be able 
 
 G */ 
 
 to get his witnesses to give evidence ? 
 Hodge, we must remember, lives in a small 
 community, and there is a strong party 
 against him. Will his witnesses accept the 
 fatigue of the journey and the loss of time, 
 and will they brave the hostility of Hodge's 
 enemies for the sake of helping him in his 
 effort for justice ? 
 
 Then comes the question of ways and 
 means. The Legislature has thoughtfully 
 cheapened the cost of coming to court, so 
 that a small initial fee is all that is neces- 
 sary to start a case. But Hodge very quickly
 
 150 OFFICIALS. 
 
 finds that the court fee is the smallest part 
 of the expense. There is first his own time, 
 trouble, and food, and reasonable compensa- 
 tion for the time, trouble, and diet of the 
 witnesses. If he does not satisfy them, he 
 may whistle for their evidence. 
 
 Then the way to the court is beset by 
 lawyers and lawyers' touts. There is a Solo- 
 mon Pell always on the look-out for the Tony 
 Wellers on their way there, not too proud to 
 take pice from those who cannot pay rupees. 
 The courts being few in numbers, each serving 
 a large area, armies of prowlers are concen- 
 trated on their avenues, and Hodge has to 
 run the gantlet through them. He is, especi- 
 ally when new to the business, bound to be 
 taken in tow by some one who offers to guide 
 him safely. Hodge in India cannot drop 
 round to the office of his neighbour, Lawyer 
 Smith or Jones, because India is a poor 
 country, unable to support lawyers away from 
 the chief centres of government, where the
 
 THE LEGAL TOUT. 151 
 
 magistrates live. So Hodge falls into the 
 hands of the first affable person he meets 
 claiming professional knowledge, or, if he gets 
 past the first, then the tenth or the fifteenth. 
 This gentleman will find out what Hodge is 
 prepared to spend, and arrange his bill accord- 
 ingly. His first piece of advice generally is 
 that it will never do to tell the truth, so that 
 Hodge and his witnesses usually turn up in 
 court with an ingenious but obviously arti- 
 ficial tale. Sometimes the simplicity of the 
 witnesses betrays them, as when one turned 
 to his principal on an unexpected question 
 being put, saying, " You never told me what 
 to say to that ! " 
 
 However it comes about, Hodge in court is 
 much more given to lying than Hodge among 
 his neighbours, and I believe that is because 
 he is handled before entering the court by 
 unscrupulous tutors. 
 
 Well, we have brought Hodge within sight 
 of the court, and may suppose that he has got
 
 152 OFFICIALS. 
 
 his petition and power of attorney written, 
 engaged a lawyer, bought the stamps and 
 attached them, and is ready to enter the great 
 man's presence. There is a good deal of wait- 
 ing about, and at length he reaches the magis- 
 trate, and his turn comes. The magistrate is 
 most likely an entire stranger to him, and he 
 to the magistrate. They meet here for the 
 first time. I know what the magistrate sees. 
 What does Hodge see ? 
 
 He sees before him a man seated at a table, 
 pen in hand. Magistrates are of all sorts- 
 European, Eurasian, Hindoo, Mahomedan ; 
 old and young ; stout and thin ; athletic and 
 puny ; healthy and sickly ; patient and hot- 
 tempered in short, every variety of man. 
 But one point they have in common all are 
 in a hurry. Hodge would like to squat on his 
 hunkers as he would in his own village, and 
 tell his tale in a roundabout and leisurely way, 
 beginning somewhat as follows : " Well, ye 
 see, sahib, it's like this here. I have a field
 
 A HURRIED INTERVIEW. 153 
 
 on the west side of the village. It's a field 
 my father had before me been in our family, 
 oh ever so long; ! " Most often, however, he 
 
 O } * 
 
 has learnt off a yarn which his legal adviser 
 has taught him. He appears before the 
 magistrate and begins firing off his story. 
 He is pulled up, made to stand at attention, 
 and hurried through a form of oath. If not 
 
 o 
 
 too much confused by this interruption, he 
 tries again, and is snapped up at once, and 
 brought to the point. His way would take 
 an hour, and the magistrate has only five 
 minutes for him. He often gets flustered, 
 and, forgetting the story he has been taught, 
 blurts out the truth. Very often, however, 
 he is questioned superficially, and the con- 
 cocted story may pass. Occasionally he tells 
 the truth from the outset. Hodge going to 
 court is very like a schoolboy going up for 
 examination, and has a schoolboy's contempt 
 for his examiner's brains. But Nupkinses are 
 not common among the trained and ex-
 
 154 OFFICIALS. 
 
 perienced servants of the State, and the 
 practised eye of the magistrate searches deep 
 into the story brought before it by Hodge, if 
 only by a glance or two. Many a man is, 
 unknown to himself, protected from the 
 malice of his enemies by the good sense and 
 intelligence of the magistrate. When that 
 official is a very young man, some simple traps 
 are generally laid to draw him off his balance. 
 One is to say : " I said I would complain to 
 the magistrate, and he said, ' What do I care 
 for the magistrate ? That for the magis- 
 trate ! ' ' the intention being to cause the 
 magistrate to say, " Oh, he doesn't care for 
 the magistrate, don't he ? We'll soon see about 
 that ! " 
 
 Hodge has still many risks to run. It is 
 a favourite trick, when the injured person is 
 known to have gone to court, for the other 
 side to race him in, and even get the start of 
 him with a cross-case. As the wooer who is 
 not in love is often the most persuasive, so is
 
 BLACKMAIL. 155 
 
 the petitioner who has not been injured often 
 the most plausible ; and where the magistrate 
 knows nothing of either side, it is a toss up 
 which of the two gets the very important 
 advantage of the start. Then if the magistrate 
 be ill, weak with fever, or out of sorts with 
 liver, or exhausted after a long journey or 
 with overwork ; knocked up with the heat ; 
 in a hurry to get on to his other duties, or 
 perchance to sport or private business, or is 
 of a fiery disposition, Hodge's reception is 
 discouraging. I have been told of a magis- 
 trate who so furiously glared at the approach- 
 ing petitioner, and in so fierce a voice asked, 
 " Well, and what do you want ? " that he 
 timidly said, " Oh, nothing, sir ! " and 
 vanished. 
 
 If Hodge has succeeded in taking out a 
 summons and getting a day fixed, then comes 
 the process fee to be paid, and the tipping of 
 the clerks and court servants. It is illegal, of 
 course, but it is always done. Hodge calcu-
 
 156 OFFICIALS. 
 
 lates that on the whole it pays better to be on 
 friendly terms with the court officials than to 
 make enemies of them all, as he would by 
 refusing to pay or complaining. A friend of 
 mine who was stationed on the border of a 
 native state once met a man who had migrated 
 into it from British territory, and asked him 
 how he was getting on. " Oh, much the same 
 as before," he said. "But don't you find it 
 harder to get justice over there?" he asked. 
 "No," said the man, "I can't say it costs 
 more." " But have you not to pay the 
 hakims? On our side you did not do that." 
 " Oh," says the man, " where I am now we pay 
 the hakims, on your side we used to pay the 
 clerks, and it comes to much the same thing." 
 Then comes the business before the trial, 
 rallying and tutoring and keeping in good- 
 humour the witnesses, who have now gained 
 in value since they have been named, and 
 doing what he can to prevent their being 
 bribed or threatened off by the opposite side.
 
 THE CIVIL COURT. 157 
 
 Then there is the journey to court, some- 
 times repeated many times, with or without 
 witnesses, and finding out and meeting the 
 case of the other side. 
 
 Altogether, long before the case has been 
 decided Hodge has probably dipped deep into 
 his little store, and gone dangerously close to 
 his margin of credit. As only one side can 
 win, perhaps he loses in the end ; and if he 
 wins, he may find that his enemy has lost, 
 fine included, considerably less than himself 
 a Pyrrhic victory ! 
 
 " Why does Hodsje ever o-o to court at all ? " 
 
 J O O 
 
 one is inclined to ask. That we shall come 
 to later on. 
 
 The civil court differs from the criminal 
 court in two main points : one, that it is less 
 serious, touching property rather than life 
 and liberty ; the other, that it is more danger- 
 ous, since a man may be condemned behind 
 his back, which in the criminal court is never 
 done.
 
 158 OFFICIALS. 
 
 No doubt care is taken to have notices 
 served, but this opens up a wide field of 
 profits to the process-serving establishment 
 of the court. Hodge dreads the expense of 
 the civil court, and its delays. 
 
 As for expense, Hodge has to engage a 
 pleader, and to pay costs on costs, whether 
 he is plaintiff or defendant, whether he wins 
 or loses. The words of a Scottish poet apply 
 very well : 
 
 " He took her three geese to get it begun, 
 And he needit her cow to carry it on." 
 
 As for delays, his case may drag on for 
 years. When a decree has been got, he is 
 not at the end; for then begin a series of 
 appeals, reviews, and revisions. It is the 
 way all the world over. To quote again 
 from the same author : 
 
 " In vain did the writer lad promise success 
 Speak of Interim Decrees, and final redress ; 
 In vain did he tell her that judgment was comin' 
 ' It's a judgment already this Soumin an' Eoumin ! ' '
 
 PROCESS-SERVERS. 159 
 
 In India, for economy's sake, eases are 
 tried in the first instance by low - paid 
 judges ; and to prevent injustice, appeals 
 and revisions are allowed very freely. But 
 what interest has Hodge to lose that will 
 compare with a cheap and swift settlement ? 
 Unless his land is concerned, Hodge seldom 
 troubles the civil court, though he is often 
 dragged there. 
 
 Then there are the process - servers. For 
 economy's sake they have small pay, and, 
 unlike the sheriff's deputies in England, 
 they are not under any check of close super- 
 vision or of public opinion. A process-server 
 has to serve a notice, perhaps twenty miles 
 away from the court, on one who can neither 
 read nor write. If he has been paid by the 
 other side to report that it has been served 
 but at the same time not to serve it, they 
 will provide plenty of false witnesses to prove 
 the service. 
 
 Lastly comes the execution of the decree
 
 160 OFFICIALS. 
 
 the seizure of household goods, cattle, dishes, 
 clothes, even doors, grain, and everything 
 movable, and their forced sale at a loss ; 
 the seizure of one man's goods or land for 
 another man's debts, which involves anxious 
 and uncertain efforts to reclaim them ; the 
 submission to the court of false lists of things 
 seized, articles being omitted all illegal, but 
 constantly done. 
 
 For Hodge, the civil court too often means 
 ruin, and his feelings are much the same as 
 those of Outram's " Grannie " : 
 
 " The Priest spak' o' Job said to suffer was human 
 But she said, ' Job kent naething o' Soumin an' Roumin.' " 
 
 This is one of the joys of civilisation to 
 which we have introduced Hodge, and the 
 only thing he can say in its favour is that 
 at least it keeps off other evils ! 
 
 I shall never forget my experience when 
 I was mobbed by crowds of anxious - eyed 
 Hodges, who had been encouraged by an 
 official to bring suits which in the end were
 
 EVERYTHING LOST. 161 
 
 given against them. " You, the hakim " 
 (magistrate not myself, but my predecessor 
 in office), " told us to do it. We sold and 
 pawned all we had cattle, dishes, clothes 
 and borrowed money to buy court-fee stamps 
 with. What have we got by it ? We have 
 lost the land we sued for, and everything 
 else besides." It was a warning to me, and 
 I am always most careful never to advise a 
 man to go to law.
 
 OTHER CLASSES
 
 165 
 
 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 TTAYINGr finished what I have to say about 
 Hodge, I will now shortly glance at the 
 other classes of the community. There are 
 first the great army of producers and distribu- 
 tors the fishermen, boatmen, carters, milk- 
 men, weavers, oil-pressers, makers of shoes and 
 other garments, blacksmiths, potters, carpen- 
 ters, goldsmiths, barbers, and other village ser- 
 vants, grocers, dealers in cloth and other wares. 
 In the great centres, where workshops and 
 factories on an extensive scale have been set up, 
 large bands of trained work- men and women 
 have been organised. These have been more 
 or less imbued with English notions, and 
 strikes are not unknown.
 
 166 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 I cannot say that I have any very vivid 
 dreams of these as distinguished from Hodge. 
 Many weavers, thrown out of work by Man- 
 chester, have taken to cultivation, while such 
 men as skilled carpenters, for instance, are 
 hardly to be got. 
 
 The chief characteristic of indigenous indus- 
 try seems to be that it is all hands and no 
 head all labour and no capital all instinct 
 and little thought power of imitation but 
 little originality ; and more patience than 
 energy. 
 
 In every industry there is a capitalist who 
 advances funds and materials, and who receives 
 back the finished product. He generally holds 
 the skilled artisan in his debt, doling out to 
 him enough to keep him alive. This capitalist, 
 however, is a trader, not helping the artisan 
 with direction and advice, but merely exploit- 
 ing him. Herein the artisan differs from the 
 
 o 
 
 beast of burden, which has not to consider 
 how to supply its own wants or those of any
 
 EXPLOITING THE ARTISAN. 167 
 
 one else. There are the same general charac- 
 teristics, the same minute budgets ; the same 
 problems of caste, society, domestic affairs, &c. 
 Although not so firmly tied to one spot as the 
 cultivating ryot in a closely settled district, 
 the artisan in the country is nearly as station- 
 ary. In the towns houses are to be had for 
 hire, and people can therefore freely change 
 their residence at their convenience ; but in 
 the country a man has to build his own house, 
 and for this he needs a site. Over this site 
 much thought has to be taken, for it is not 
 a comfortable position to be a tenant at will, 
 liable to quit on notice at any time. He gen- 
 erally gets a lease, which secures him in the 
 land, and this anchors him. Nearly all arti- 
 sans and producers on an estate give to the 
 landlord of their skill and its fruits, whether 
 it be in the terms of their lease or not the 
 fisherman of his catch, the weaver of his cloth, 
 the shoemaker of his slices ; the potter, the 
 milkman, and others of their products.
 
 168 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 Passing from these, we now come to the 
 two classes who work the springs of all in- 
 dustry in India the money-lender and the 
 landlord. 
 
 The money - lender is a man with a very 
 bad name indispensable, but hard to en- 
 dure. When I first came to India I was, as 
 all Britons are on coming to this ancient and 
 conservative country, somewhat radical in my 
 notions, by which I mean that I underrated 
 the force of custom and of circumstances, and 
 perhaps overrated my own capacity for manag- 
 ing other people's affairs. 
 
 I have slowly taken in the fact that the 
 money-lender not only has his bad points 
 not only is too often an extortioner and so 
 forth but that he has also his uses, for the 
 sake of which his bad qualities are borne with, 
 and his grievances and difficulties which drive 
 him to be what he is. 
 
 In fact, it is with the money-lender as with 
 most other men, that he has a good deal of
 
 HUNKS. 169 
 
 human nature in him. His acts and notions 
 are to a great extent determined by circum- 
 stances, and he looks at things from a point 
 of view of his own, which is different from 
 that of his debtor, and from mine. With the 
 money-lender, as with Hodge, the centre of 
 interest is the family budget. He has so to 
 regulate income and expenditure that the 
 income exceeds the expense. The expenses, 
 apart from business, do not differ materially 
 from those of Hods;e. It is the method of 
 
 O 
 
 business and the source of income that are 
 different. 
 
 In the first place, " Hunks," as we may call 
 him (money-lender is such a long word to re- 
 peat often), works not with land but with cash. 
 Having no land, he cannot so readily borrow, 
 and must provide his own capital. 
 
 Hunks's capital is ordinarily limited, and the 
 necessity that he and his family should live 
 out of it forces Hunks, as it does the small 
 man of business all over the world, to be very
 
 170 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 hard. If we bear in mind how small a capital 
 many a family has to live out of, we shall, I 
 think, be less ready to condemn its careworn 
 head for his skinflint proceedings with his 
 debtors, who are less interesting to him than 
 his own family. His back is at the wall. He 
 has no money-lender behind him to support 
 him when his venture miscarries ; and he 
 must therefore screw out of his little busi- 
 ness every farthing he can, suffer who may. 
 
 Hunks has his trials. When he has lent 
 money to a debtor, he cannot recover prin- 
 cipal or interest without an immense expend- 
 iture of time, labour, and perhaps money. He 
 rides round on his pony to collect his little 
 debt ten twenty times, always to receive 
 the same answer, " Not to-day : come another 
 day." His debtor perhaps absconds, carrying 
 oif a morsel of the precious family capital, and 
 leaving behind a bond not worth the paper it 
 is written on. 
 
 Hunks has his ways of making little more.
 
 HUNKS'S TRIALS AND TRICKS. 171 
 
 He deals in running accounts, of kind and 
 credit. Like the American editor, he believes 
 rather in interest than in " principal." 
 
 Hunks lends and receives in kind as well 
 as cash. I once saw an account which was 
 worked out by the man who made it, in 
 court, in which he tried to prove that for a 
 loan of three bushels, made a year or two 
 before, there was due to him a return of 
 thirty. Then he buys with one measure 
 and sells with another. I have heard of a 
 trader who, when any one came to sell, used 
 to call for the burr a bou (elder wife), and 
 when any one came to buy, for the clwta 
 bou (younger wife), thereby directing the 
 people inside to bring out the large (burro) 
 or small (chota) measure. Another used, 
 in the same way, to call for Becharam and 
 Kena'ra'm, which are proper names, and were 
 used to denote selling (becha) and buying 
 (Jcena). We introduced in one place cast- 
 iron standard measures, which were largely
 
 172 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 bought by the people, and discovered imita- 
 tions of these being secretly introduced that 
 held more, and sold for five times the price. 
 The selling measures are often lined with 
 mixtures to make them hold less. I have 
 been told of more lining being taken out of 
 one measure than it could hold when broken 
 up and loose. 
 
 Hunks makes his debtors sell to him at less 
 than market rates, and the interest on debts 
 that he charges is often 30 or 40 per cent a- 
 year, and sometimes double ; besides that, the 
 principal is falsely stated, and little presents 
 of oil, milk, salt, and firewood outside the 
 account are taken when he pays one of his 
 visits. 
 
 For recovering his money Hunks has little 
 confidence in the law. A civil suit means 
 costs from beginning to end, and a very 
 doubtful chance of realising, even if he gets 
 his decree. He believes a good deal more in 
 the limbs of the law, and has more intimacy
 
 JOSEPH'S BARGAINS. 173 
 
 with the subordinates of the police and of the 
 civil courts than with their masters. 
 
 What Hunks needs for successful operations 
 is a good screw. In some way he must have 
 a man in his power. Sometimes this is done 
 by getting him into debt on such extortionate 
 terms of interest that the debtor can never 
 hope to get free. Sometimes he gets hold of 
 Hodge's land, and makes him work on as an 
 under-tenant at a rack-rent. Sometimes the 
 mere fear of not getting credit when it may 
 be urgently needed is enough. Since the days 
 of Joseph, those who have continue to drive 
 hard bargains with those who have not and 
 who are in extremity. Hunks has certainly 
 this to be said for him, that he and his have 
 succeeded in laying by some at least of that 
 very scarce commodity in India, capital, and 
 he may drive bargains because he holds a 
 strong position. 
 
 When Hunks has once fixed his tap in 
 Hodge, or in his fellow-producer, Hodge be-
 
 174 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 comes henceforth the bee that makes honey, 
 not for himself; the ox that bears the yoke, 
 but not for himself. Hodge's compensation is 
 that in hard times he will have some one to 
 keep him in life and hold his head above 
 water. 
 
 Hunks is a person, and not, like most banks 
 in England, a corporation. In India there is 
 no law of primogeniture, so when the little 
 Hunkses grow up, marry, and have children, 
 the burden on the family capital increases. 
 When at last Hunks dies, and the family 
 breaks up, each member taking his share of 
 the capital and of the debtors, farewell to easy 
 circumstances, both for the younger genera- 
 tion, each of whom has to live out of a share 
 only of the old capital, and for the debtors, 
 who have to be screwed harder and harder to 
 provide the wherewithal. 
 
 All his life Hunks has to look forward to 
 this time in the future. Hodge may hope 
 that, when his sons are strong enough to
 
 LOOKING AHEAD. 1*75 
 
 work, they will be able to expend their 
 labour on more land. Hunks has no such 
 prospect. No one is likely to give him more 
 capital for his sons to manage, and make 
 money out of. What he gains, that they may 
 look for, and nothing more. Therefore there 
 is little hope that, while things are what they 
 are, Hunks will cease to deserve his reputa- 
 tion as a skinflint and an extortioner. He 
 cannot help himself. Needs must when the 
 devil drives. And this will continue to go 
 on until money-lending transactions are con- 
 ducted out of savings instead of from the 
 living fund. 
 
 We come now to the landlord, who shares 
 with Hunks the office of Providence to Hodge. 
 
 A person of the well-to-do landlord class is 
 generally uneducated, having been a spoilt 
 child from his youth up. In India education 
 and accomplishments have been hitherto re- 
 garded rather as a means of living- for the 
 
 o o 
 
 poor than as a necessary ornament for the
 
 176 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 wealthy. Like the old king who was "above 
 grammar," they are too great men to need 
 education. 
 
 The name of the landlord in most large 
 estates is legion. With the exception of a 
 comparatively few estates, which custom for- 
 bids to break up, the property is generally, 
 by the ordinary law of inheritance, split up 
 into many shares, the owners of which are 
 of many varieties, old and young, men and 
 women, rich and poor. Each owner has, and 
 many of them exercise, the power of selling, 
 subletting, or mortgaging his or her own 
 interest. The person so acquiring a share in 
 the estate is often a speculating stranger who 
 does what he can to increase his profits at 
 the expense of his partners. Eights are sub- 
 let, and again sublet, so that the records of 
 titles in a large estate often present a most 
 bewildering number and variety. 
 
 The custom of the country is that, while 
 rights are many, the management vests in
 
 COMPLICATED RIGHTS. 177 
 
 one leading partner ; and there are heads of 
 households the members of which number 
 hundreds, and whose affairs are nearly as im- 
 portant as those of some small States. 
 
 What with keeping the peace ; preventing 
 the break up of the estate ; guarding its 
 interests as a whole in relation to tenants 
 and neighbours ; watching the doings of the 
 various partners, their assigns and lessees, 
 and the servants of the estate ; arranging for 
 payment of dues and wages, and for the dis- 
 tribution of income to the shareholders ; pro- 
 viding for the maintenance of poor relations 
 and widows, for marriages and other family 
 ceremonies, and for other affairs too numerous 
 to relate, the manager of the family has 
 enough of politics within it to take up his 
 whole attention. 
 
 There is a saying, that one generation 
 makes a family, the second keeps it going, 
 and the third breaks it up. It seems to fall to 
 pieces by its own weight. Even where there
 
 178 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 is a capable manager, who is trusted and 
 obeyed by all the shareholders, sooner or 
 later comes the dreaded time when, either 
 owing to the death of the manager, or other 
 causes brought about by time, dissension 
 raises its head, and there is a demand for 
 separation. 
 
 I remember an old family which was kept 
 united for a very long time by the dread of 
 a curse laid by the founder on the first mem- 
 ber who should break its unity. At length 
 a scapegoat was found in a widow, who had 
 a tiny share for life, and was induced to 
 sue for its separation. The opportunity was 
 seized by all the principal shareholders, who 
 deluged the civil and criminal courts with 
 litigation, which, for all I know, is going on 
 yet. 
 
 Family dissensions in great houses are a 
 national calamity, and have been before now 
 deemed of sufficient importance to justify the 
 interference of high officials. The last year
 
 FAMILY DISSENSIONS. 179 
 
 of Sir Ashley Eden's term of office as Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor of Bengal was distinguished 
 by successful efforts to bring peace into lead- 
 ing families ; and to make such efforts in a 
 smaller way is part of the duty of all Gov- 
 ernment officials. 
 
 The head of a great family, like every 
 other head of a family, has before him the 
 problem of the budget as the most persistent 
 and troublesome of all his problems. Most 
 landlords, being small men and not big, have 
 it in an acute form. Few landlords are 
 wealthy. If the income is large, so also are 
 the outgoings. Most families inherit debt ; 
 and what with this and litigation, and the 
 payment of charges on the estate for revenue, 
 management, maintenance, and the like, there 
 is more often a deficit than a surplus at the 
 end of the year. 
 
 As the family grows, the problem of house- 
 room grows too. The wealthy members gen- 
 erally hive off, and build separate houses for
 
 180 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 themselves, leaving the old family residence 
 to go to ruin, a rookery for the poorer mem- 
 bers who have nowhere else to go. The only 
 occasions when the others visit it is to wor- 
 ship at the old family shrine, when there is 
 often a struggle for precedence, accompanied 
 by fighting. 
 
 The maintenance of the poorer members 
 is a charge on the head of the family, and 
 evidently presses on him severely. I see 
 men of the highest position striving with all 
 their might to get poor relations provided for 
 in the service of Government as clerks, con- 
 stables, or messengers even, if nothing better 
 is to be had anything to lighten their 
 shoulders of a part of their heavy load. 
 
 The manager of the family generally acts 
 through others, and is not so much himself 
 a man of original force as a centre of influ- 
 ences, chiefly of relatives mostly females 
 and servants. Ladies have thus been known 
 successfully to manage great estates. The
 
 THE MANAGING PARTNER. 181 
 
 pressure is brought to bear on the manager, 
 and he acts. The great landlord is often dis- 
 appointingly careless and incompetent when 
 lifted out of his natural position, and placed, 
 say, on the bench, where he is expected to 
 act and think for himself. You will see a 
 smart and penniless lawyer who easily out- 
 shines him in eloquence, argument, and quick- 
 ness. But it would be a great mistake to 
 estimate his importance by the figure he 
 makes on such occasions. When it comes to 
 a question of influence, the apparently leth- 
 argic head of a family will be listened to and 
 obeyed, while the brilliant orator may rant in 
 vain. He speaks with a wisdom and a weight 
 far more than his own for the great constitu- 
 ency he represents, while the other is com- 
 paratively an adventurer. 
 
 As to the towns, I have had something to 
 do with the people in some of them, though 
 not so much as with Hodge. They are, as 
 being a small fraction of the population, of
 
 182 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 comparatively little importance ; but yet in 
 some ways they bulk largely before the world. 
 For one thing, they are formed into larger 
 communities than the rural population com- 
 munities that have rubbed shoulders so much 
 with the world and with one another that 
 they are more intelligent and quicker witted 
 than the villagers. Among them are arising 
 professional and business men of all the call- 
 ings which make and are encouraged by capital 
 men who can write and talk and organise. 
 
 Then, again, there is generally a town 
 at each centre of Government. The towns- 
 people are thus better known to Government 
 officials, and know them and their ways 
 better. They see the Government officer 
 going out for his daily ride, taking his 
 amusements, and attending office. No doubt, 
 if inclined that way, they can gossip with 
 his servants, tradesmen, and clerks about his 
 affairs. 
 
 To the Government official the people of
 
 THE TOWNS. 183 
 
 the town in which he lives are apt to have 
 the importance which the near always has 
 when compared with the distant. He is 
 tempted to judge others by their life, and 
 their affairs occupy a disproportionate share 
 of his time. Since their manners and customs 
 are modified by the courts, lawyers, and 
 police in their midst, any one taking them 
 for a sample of the country would have a 
 wrong impression of it. I have often thought 
 how typical of the town-moulded mind is the 
 Calcutta newspaper, which, in a country whose 
 law courts are teeming with tragedy of the most 
 desperate kind, passes most of the tragedy by 
 unnoticed, but finds a place for a report of 
 any petty assault case or accident that hap- 
 pens in the town itself. The local incident 
 has come under the notice of the reporters, 
 and the others have not. In this respect 
 the town community is little in advance of 
 the village community, its members being 
 ignorant of all beyond their own narrow
 
 184 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 circle, and unaware what a small proportion 
 of the whole country that circle is. 
 
 To a certain extent this state of mind is 
 paralleled in Europe, where both the London 
 cockney" and the Paris bourgeois are eminently 
 local, but there is a difference. One differ- 
 ence is that the townspeople of Bengal live 
 as it were in a glass case, and have no occa- 
 sion to consider the great national problems 
 which take up much of the attention of every 
 citizen of England and France. I remember 
 receiving a deputation from a certain town, 
 which suggested that a great deal of money 
 might be saved by abolishing the police, who 
 were no longer needed. I asked why they 
 thought that, and they said because there 
 were no burglaries or thefts now. I said 
 they might as well break down their garden 
 fences because the cattle did not get in. The 
 Bengal town is a well-walled garden, and the 
 people do not even know that there is a wall, 
 and what it is useful for.
 
 THE TOWN-MOULDED MIND. 185 
 
 Again, unlike the English towns, those of 
 Bengal are full of improvements and institu- 
 tions which are so far from local, that most 
 of them were forced on the towns against 
 their will. How their secret inclinations tend 
 what they would do if outward influence 
 were removed is a matter of doubt. My 
 own impression is, that a good many of those 
 institutions that are now apparently their 
 pride would collapse like the souffle pudding 
 which " got up and sate down." 
 
 I do not think the towns will advance far, 
 unless the villages advance with them. They 
 have been pushed far ahead of their natural 
 place by the outside influence of Europeans. 
 
 These are my dreams of the classes of Indian 
 people other than Hodge.
 
 AEISTOCEAGY
 
 189 
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 A CLASS about whom I have often had my 
 ^- dreams is the aristocracy those who 
 call themselves the " gentry " or respectable 
 classes. 
 
 In Bengal the gentry are determined as a 
 class by birth, and not by wealth or ability. 
 The poor man of high caste, even though in 
 a low position, despises the rich man of low 
 birth, who is not in his eyes fit to eat with, or 
 to intermarry with. Pride of birth is common 
 to all parts of the world. We Britons have it 
 strongly developed among ourselves, and the 
 claims of those who have birth are, in the 
 main, acknowledged by those who have it not, 
 both in Britain and in India. How do our
 
 190 AKISTOCRACY. 
 
 Indian men of birth take themselves ? What 
 do they think of their duties and privileges ? 
 What do they desire to make of themselves ? 
 
 I believe that our British notion of an aris- 
 tocracy substantially agrees with the meaning 
 of the old Greek word the rule of the best. 
 The controversy over the House of Peers is 
 generally centred round the question of its 
 merits. Those who denounce endeavour to 
 prove that its members are useless, and those 
 who defend point to what they have done and 
 are doing for the nation. 
 
 The man who receives honour and comes to 
 the front, is he who adopts the motto of the 
 heir to the Crown " I serve." The chief sub- 
 ject is the " Prime Minister," or head servant 
 of the nation. Service, though often well re- 
 warded, is not always given for the sake of 
 reward. The nation has many wants, and 
 many servants who are working to supply 
 those wants, of whom it is not aware, and of 
 whom a very large proportion get no reward
 
 THE " BEST." 191 
 
 of wealth or honour while they live, or even 
 afterwards. 
 
 Those who receive honours as the " best " in 
 Britain are those who are believed to struggle 
 and strive for her service. They labour in 
 many fields in battle, on land, on the sea, in 
 the mine, in the tropics, at the poles, in the 
 backwoods, in the study, the hospitals, the 
 law courts, the senate, the school, the pulpit, 
 the studio, the workshop and factory. The 
 British nation is rich and powerful because 
 she is well served. No matter how great the 
 risk, or severe the service, let her call for 
 men, and they leap forth, ready to do or die. 
 When she finds a man she honours him, as 
 the Seigneur did Dunois : 
 
 " Puisque tu fais ma gloire, 
 Je feral ton bonheur." 
 
 In these days, when there is a party of 
 Indian politicians desirous of replacing with 
 natives of the country the small band of 
 British officials who still take part in the gov-
 
 192 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 eminent of the country, curiosity must be felt 
 about the minds of the class from among which 
 these substitutes would be taken. I am not 
 without experience of that class, having had 
 thousands of them under me as subordinates, 
 done business with thousands, and investi- 
 gated the disputes of thousands more. 
 
 Now that they have thrown their cap on 
 the stage, and have become competitors for a 
 prize which, if they win it, will make them 
 guardians of vast interests, politeness and 
 reserve must give way to sincerity and can- 
 dour. The men of this class must be regarded 
 with a very different eye, and scrutinised with 
 greater severity than would have been neces- 
 sary, or even right, when they were nothing 
 more than bystanders or underlings. 
 
 To begin with, Who are, in the eyes of the 
 active politicians, the " people of Bengal " ? 
 We hear sonorous periods about the vast popu- 
 lation the countless millions who are crying 
 for " justice." It appears to me that this is
 
 A CASTE AMBITION. 193 
 
 rhetoric to catch the ears of the British nation. 
 The politician of Bengal is no more thinking 
 of sharing with Hodge and the masses of the 
 population the fruits of his agitation than the 
 Australian squatter thinks of taking his sheep, 
 cattle, and horses into partnership. 
 
 In England, the " best " spring from all 
 grades, classes, and races ; in Bengal the higher 
 castes a small minority of the population 
 claim that capacity for and the right to rule 
 are to be found within their limits only 
 among the people of Bengal. This is their 
 theory, whether it be correct or not. Their 
 dream is a caste not a national dream. 
 
 This dream of theirs what is it ? How 
 will they work out their destiny if given their 
 own way ? 
 
 We have in England an expression describ- 
 ing the men by whom her prosperity has been 
 built up, as " captains of industry." These 
 men have forced themselves and their dreams 
 to the front, most often in the teeth of resist- 
 
 N
 
 194 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 ance from the Government and the public. 
 By their moral and physical, no less than their 
 intellectual qualities, they made their oppor- 
 tunities, and utilised them. 
 
 In India many great institutions and indus- 
 tries have been built up, the Government, 
 with all its vast machinery for the service of 
 the public ; the railways ; the great indus- 
 tries of tea and indigo ; the factories and 
 mines. But it was Europeans who made them, 
 and carry them on. The natives of the coun- 
 try have no doubt supplied most of the rank 
 and file, and a share of the national means, 
 but very few of the " captains " have come 
 from their ranks. Even among nations of 
 Asia, the comparatively small sections of Par- 
 sees, Marwaris, Jews, and Armenians have 
 produced much more business enterprise than 
 the overfull ranks of the Bramins and Kayests 
 of Bengal. 
 
 It would be going too far to say that be- 
 cause the high castes of Bengal have in the
 
 TWO DREAMS. 195 
 
 past produced few " captains of industry," 
 therefore they cannot be expected to produce 
 many in future. But the qualities which go 
 to make a " captain of industry " have a way 
 of forcing themselves into notice. If people 
 say, as some do, that the natives have no field, 
 why is that ? Men with the right qualities 
 will make their own field, as sure as water 
 finds its own level. 
 
 The dream that governs the British race is 
 one of energy and of conquest the strong 
 man rejoicing in his strength, and employing 
 it for the conquest of men, of wealth, of dis- 
 ease, and of the forces of nature. The dream 
 of the native of Bengal is rest, freedom from 
 want and from worry. He does not exert 
 himself for the love of it, but only to save 
 himself from want or trouble. To earn a liv- 
 ing ; to have no fear of an attack by his 
 neighbours ; to keep on good terms with the 
 authorities and all who can do him harm, 
 these are the motives that in India drive a
 
 196 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 man to work and exertion. He does not "re- 
 joice in his strength," but works because he 
 must, and ceases as soon as he dares. 
 
 It is here that the British and the Indian 
 dreams are at cross purposes. We dream the 
 great mass of us do, though the cynics and 
 superior persons pity the delusion of vast 
 springs of energy bubbling up against the 
 pressure of adverse circumstances, and ready 
 when these are removed to gush forth. The 
 Bengali rhetorician, catering for English au- 
 diences, conjures up lively pictures of the 
 same state of things in India, the adverse 
 circumstances there being a handful of Brit- 
 ish officials. Remove these, and the fountains 
 will spout forth. Among themselves, however, 
 this is not their dream, and I doubt if they 
 have any but the dimmest notions of what is 
 to follow. We believe that we owe the great 
 place British institutions and British men 
 have attained in India not so much to clever- 
 ness and calculation as to moral and physical
 
 BRITISH ENERGY. 197 
 
 energy. In intellect we find rivals among the 
 people of the land, but what we are rich in is 
 motive power. I do not think they realise 
 this fact, and I believe that, not realising it, 
 they, without the command of motive power, 
 seek to be intrusted with tasks which cannot 
 be performed unless with its aid. A Scotch 
 friend of mine, managing a jute-mill, said 
 to a native who was arcming; about the II- 
 
 O O 
 
 bert Bill : "Do ye see this mill, Baboo ? 
 How long do ye think ye could run it 
 without a break - down ? I'd give ye two 
 days ! " This is a very common dream 
 amonor us Anglo-Indians. Our British aris- 
 
 O o 
 
 tocracy were always noteworthy for their en- 
 ergy. In warlike days it exhausted itself 
 in fighting ; and in our more peaceful days 
 it has been turned into, and utilised in, other 
 channels. Other classes have entered into 
 friendly and more and more equal rivalry 
 with it, until the national energy has over- 
 flowed into every continent. The highly paid
 
 198 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 posts the various emoluments that have 
 followed British enterprise all the world over 
 are accidents ; the work was the end, these 
 are but necessary means to the end. I fear 
 the dreams of the native classes are fastened 
 not on the work but on the emoluments. 
 Our end is their means ; our means their 
 end. They do not understand our dream, 
 and they dream that we are also dreaming, 
 like themselves, not of the work, but of the 
 emoluments. 
 
 To conduct the business successfully, we 
 must see, first, that it is well protected ; 
 second, that there is sufficient motive-power ; 
 third, that the machinery is kept in good 
 working order ; and fourth, that economical 
 and sufficient results are got. 
 
 I fear our "no foreigner" school of poli- 
 ticians have very little notion what a rough 
 place the world is, and how troublesome a 
 team they would have to drive, even within 
 the province, supposing that no one from
 
 A DIVISION OF LABOUR. 199 
 
 outside jumped on the box and snatched the 
 reins from their hands by force. I fear, too, 
 that their end being a different one from 
 ours, the emoluments being the end, and 
 the work a mere means of obtaining them, 
 the business of the country would not be 
 done thoroughly and successfully, and might 
 fall into confusion. 
 
 The politicians, no doubt, reply to this 
 that it is a mistaken idea, and that there 
 are plenty of men endowed with honesty, 
 energy, zeal, and every quality needed for 
 the successful conduct of the country's busi- 
 ness. I do not think any practical man has 
 proposed to give up British protection. The 
 idea of most of them is that Britain should 
 mount guard while a fair trial is given to 
 the plan of the politicians a division of 
 labour suspiciously like that proposed by 
 John Leech's little girl to her baby-brother 
 by the sugar-barrel, " Now, Johnny, you drive 
 away the naughty wasps, while I eat the sugar."
 
 200 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 I doubt if the politicians have any definite 
 plans in their head as to how the "trial" 
 or experiment is to be carried out, if it is 
 ever allowed to be tried ; whether they 
 have ever thought of any further change in 
 a machine designed and intended to be made 
 of one material than the substitution in some 
 vital parts of a different material for which 
 it was not designed ; or whether any arrange- 
 ments will be made for a break-down gang 
 in case this huge experiment on the " vile 
 corpus" of an Indian province, its people 
 and their interests, should not answer the 
 expectations of its promoters. I have had 
 many dreams about this experiment which 
 gome people want to see made, and the 
 following is an effort to present some of the 
 most lively of them in a short space,
 
 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC 
 
 A DREAM OF HOME RULE
 
 203 
 
 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 A DREAM OF HOME RULE. 
 
 TT is the birthday of a nation. The Presi- 
 dent of the new Republic has just been 
 elected, and faces for the first time the Legis- 
 lative Assembly with which he is to share 
 the honour and responsibility of ruling a 
 mighty people of 70 million souls. A Minis- 
 try has been formed. The ministers, officers, 
 and members of the Assembly are in their 
 places, and turn silently, on this historic 
 occasion, to hear the first words that will 
 fall from the lips of the new chief of the 
 State. 
 
 As one glances along the rows of members,
 
 204 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 it is apparent, from their intellectual fore- 
 heads, pale complexions, and delicate hands, 
 that they are more familiar with the study 
 than with the field. 
 
 The President, in opening the session, 
 begins by saying that freedom has come 
 upon Bengal suddenly, unexpectedly almost 
 before she was ready for it. Not without 
 misgiving even remonstrance have the 
 leaders of the nation witnessed the with- 
 drawal from their country of those British 
 troops on whom they had hitherto relied for 
 the maintenance of order. But, since the 
 British Government have insisted that those 
 who make and carry out the laws should also 
 be responsible for keeping order, the leaders 
 of the nation have accepted responsibility for 
 the maintenance of order, stipulating only 
 that, on payment by Bengal of the cost, the 
 frontiers shall for some time longer be 
 guarded from invasion by British troops. 
 
 Thus they have at length come forth from
 
 THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 205 
 
 under the protection of that great nation 
 whose fostering care has advanced them to 
 so high a place among the peoples, while 
 still retaining her friendship and good 
 wishes. 
 
 An army has been formed of good mate- 
 rial, the men being recruited from among 
 the warlike races of Upper India, and the 
 officers being mainly obtained from among 
 the flower of their own youth, unrivalled in 
 intellect, and well trained in the athletic 
 exercises of Europe mens sana in corpore 
 sano ! 
 
 Hope, as is right on such an occasion, 
 prevails ; and as minister after minister rises, 
 and in flowing periods gives an account of 
 the department over which he presides, one 
 draws a contrast, not wholly to the advan- 
 tage of our own people, between these fin- 
 ished and ready orators and the European 
 rulers of old, who were, nearly all, halting of 
 speech, awkward of expression, and slow of
 
 206 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 utterance. A full treasury, a well-balanced 
 budget, a well - drilled army, and depart- 
 ments in a state of high efficiency, are suf- 
 ficient to account for the satisfied buzz and 
 the happy smiles of congratulation which 
 follow one another over that sea of faces, 
 like the waves over a field of standing corn 
 swept by the wind. 
 
 The clouds fall, and open on a different 
 scene. 
 
 We are in a meeting, it may be of a 
 district board or a municipal committee. 
 What is this noise of wrangling that we hear ? 
 The foreigner has been got rid of, and yet 
 we hear cries of tyrants and traitors, strong 
 and earnest denunciations, on the one hand, 
 of oppression and jobbery ; on the other, of 
 conspiracy and sedition. 
 
 We listen attentively, and from among the 
 babel of voices we begin to gather something 
 coherent. There are two factions among the 
 members at the meeting, and each side has
 
 BABEL. 207 
 
 a chief. The chiefs are grandees, much too 
 dignified to sit in such an assembly them- 
 selves ; so they have caused their followers 
 to be elected members of the board, while 
 they sit outside and pull the strings. 
 
 One disadvantage of what has been called 
 " oratorical pressure " is the tendency of 
 several speakers to hold forth at a time, and 
 a consequent difficulty in hearing what is 
 said. There is also much that is irrelevant 
 in the flood, or rather floods, of eloquence 
 rushing about the bewildered ears of the 
 listener. Steady reiteration is, however, 
 found to be given to the assertion, on the 
 one side, that the chief of the majority 
 is giving away appointments and contracts 
 from corrupt and party motives ; and that 
 the officials and contractors favoured by him 
 sacrifice the public good to the interest of 
 themselves, their party, and chief. On the 
 other side, it is urged as constantly that 
 what the minority charge the majority chief
 
 208 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 with doing is exactly what they want to 
 have a chance of doing themselves that, and 
 nothing else, being the secret of their violent 
 language. 
 
 Up and down the country this violence of 
 language, these constant charges of jobbery 
 and peculation, are bandied to and fro. The 
 highest character, the most exalted position, 
 is not spared. No doubt grave accusations 
 and foul insinuations are the more lightly 
 employed that so many of the speakers and 
 listeners are lawyers, who import into lay 
 arenas the licence of the Bar. But people 
 outside the discussions begin to wonder if 
 there is not, after all, some fire with all this 
 smoke. 
 
 Again the cloud falls, and this time, as it 
 rises, we see before us a social gathering of 
 Scotsmen in Behar. It is St Andrew's Day, 
 when, tenacious of old customs, the sons of 
 Bonnie Scotland meet for one night to for- 
 get their exile. The feasters are few, and
 
 A RUINED COMMUNITY. 209 
 
 they have not the prosperous appearance 
 that used to be observed at such gatherings. 
 Gloom and discontent are on every brow, 
 and a dangerous look is in many eyes. 
 
 For these arc the remnant of the once 
 great community of planters and merchants 
 who in former days claimed to be the 
 leaders of enterprise in this part of India. 
 The period of Native Rule which preceded 
 the Republic witnessed the departure of 
 many of their chief men, and the outflow 
 has been still more rapid since ; for under 
 the Republic it has not gone well with 
 them. Those we see here are nearly all 
 men who would fain go and cannot, with 
 perhaps a sprinkling of tenacious and brave 
 souls who look on the present order of 
 things as temporary, soon to pass away. 
 
 The broad Doric which prevails betrays the 
 more provincial character of the greater part 
 of those present. There is not wanting, how- 
 ever, a dash of the more refined but not less 
 
 o
 
 210 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 genuine "classes." It is one of these latter 
 who occupies the chair. Careworn and sad, 
 little acquainted for many a day with pros- 
 perity, he is yet honoured as a man of ancient 
 family one of the chiefs of the race of 
 unblemished honour, high courage, and un- 
 wavering dignity. In the old times he was 
 well known as being always in the heart of 
 every movement for the welfare of the natives, 
 and even now he cannot join in the fierce 
 looks and bitter words of many a one among 
 his neighbours when the native is talked of. 
 From his eye there is ever a kindly gleam, 
 and mild words alone pass his lips. 
 
 Those who look at his grey hairs and worn 
 face, and think of what he has had to suffer, 
 feel shame to talk fiercely and angrily, when 
 he, who has a better right to do so, can keep 
 his mind free from resentment. 
 
 He has just risen to propose a toast. He 
 says that since the last anniversary of their 
 national feast - day an event has happened
 
 THE LAND WE LIVE IN ! 211 
 
 which renders it necessary to change the form 
 of this toast. Formerly it was "The Viceroy 
 and the land we live in," but now for the last 
 ten months we have been living under the 
 rule of the Bengal Republic. We have been 
 torn from our beloved country and turned 
 into foreigners ; and Bengal has got Home 
 Rule. Since it is no longer permitted to 
 drink the health of a British governor, and the 
 sense of the managing committee is against 
 substituting the President, it has been decided 
 to alter the toast by omitting the Viceroy's 
 name, and to make it simply " The land we 
 live in." He then goes on to say that Scots- 
 men have never been wanting in a kindly and 
 sympathetic feeling for their native neigh- 
 bours. As things are at present, we have 
 little reason to love the Government. We 
 must never forget, however, that the Govern- 
 ment is one thing and the People another. 
 We are as much bound up as ever with the 
 prosperity of the land we live in nay (and
 
 212 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 here with a sad smile he casts his eyes around 
 the thinned ranks and worn faces of his 
 audience), all those who could leave have 
 already left, and we who are here must sink 
 or swim with the ship. He goes on for some 
 little time longer in the same strain, and ends 
 by proposing " The land we live in," which is 
 drunk more heartily than at one time seemed 
 likely. 
 
 The conversation is resumed, and, as is 
 natural after a more or less political speech, 
 it turns on politics. Partly because it comes 
 natural to many, partly as it is not, like 
 ordinary English, understood by the servants, 
 the Scotch dialect is used more than it would 
 have been in ordinary life. 
 
 " Ay," says one big-headed, sandy-haired 
 man, " things is a' tapsalteerie e'en noo. 
 Them that sid hae been keepit butt hae won 
 ben." 
 
 " Deed, Jock, ye're richt there. Wha wad 
 hae thocht ten years syne 'at you an' me wad
 
 THE UNBELIEVERS. 213 
 
 be gettin' kickit aboot by a wlieen ' bra'w, braw 
 clerks in a ofisli ' ! " 
 
 " Clerks, quo' lie ! " says a third. " They're 
 far aboon the like o' that noo ! Set them up ! 
 They're like oor ain hotch-potch, that has 
 ' peas intil't, an' beans intil't, an' carrots an' 
 neeps an' greens intil't!' There's M.P.'s intil't, 
 an' judges intil't, an' managers an' secretaries 
 an' a' intil't." 
 
 "Ay, an' there's generals intil't an' cornels 
 intil't," says another. 
 
 " Hoot awa', man ! " says the second speaker. 
 " They're naebut like the curry they used tae 
 gie us on board ship, ae day it wad be ca'd 
 Portugee ; anither day it was Bombay ; syne 
 it wad be Madras, ilka day a new name, but 
 it was a' ae curry ! Ye may ticket them 
 M.P.'s an' cornels an' siclike names, an' 
 dress them in braw uniforms, but, when 
 a's said and dune, they're naebut a wheen 
 clerks ! " 
 
 " A'm thinkin'/' says good-natured Jock,
 
 214 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 who fears the conversation is growing too 
 fiery, "we wad be nane the waur o' a 
 sang." 
 
 " Ay, man," says another, " but I heard a 
 fine sang the ither day at Davie Anderson's, 
 an' here's the lad that baith made it an' sang 
 it." With this he pats on the back a blushing 
 youth. 
 
 "Come awa', Willie lad, an' let's hear yer 
 new sang. What's it aboot ? I'll wad this 
 bap it's aboot yer sweetheart." 
 
 "Na," says the introducer, "there's naebut 
 ae thing we can think o' noo politics ! Man, 
 it's a fine sang, an' garred a' oor heads birl. 
 My haun' fair dinnled wi' rappin' on the table. 
 An' it's tae a graund tune tae ' The wee, wee 
 German Lairdie.' " 
 
 " What's the name o' the sang ? " 
 
 " ' The sly bit wee Bengali.' " 
 
 " Od," says one, " it'll be a rare ane ! I'se 
 warrant he's sortit them weel ! Let's hear't, 
 man ! "
 
 NEW MASTEKS. 215 
 
 " Stop a bit," says the chairman. " I am 
 only afraid it may rouse bitter feelings against 
 our rulers. I gather from the title and the 
 tune that the song is an attack on the natives 
 of Bengal." 
 
 " It's a' that, sir ; but ye maun jist ca' tae 
 mind yer ain words in yer speech that the 
 Government is no' the same thing as the 
 people. We've aye been friendly tae the 
 people, an' never said a word again' the Ba- 
 boos till they cockit theirsels up in places 
 whaur they had nae business tae be. We 
 was Men's eneuch wi' them or ere they grip- 
 pit what wasna their ocht. As lang as we 
 were subjects o' ae Croon under ae Parlia- 
 ment, an' that oor ain, we wadna hae said a 
 word. But we hae been sel't or gien awa tae 
 them, an' they bood tae be our maisters, an 
 unco word, I trow ! " 
 
 "D'ye mind, sir," says another, "what the 
 Ulster men said when there was word o' Hame 
 Rule for Ireland ? ' Ye can govern us yersels, '
 
 216 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 quo' they, 'but ye hae nae richt tae gie us 
 ower tae onybody else tae govern.' ' 
 
 " I can't deny," says the chairman, " that 
 we have been cut adrift by the Government 
 we owed our loyalty to ; and I myself have 
 suffered severely because I would not transfer 
 it to our new rulers. Well, my lad, let's hear 
 your song. It would hardly be fair to judge 
 it unheard, at all events." 
 
 So Wullie Macneill rises and sings his 
 song 
 
 THE SLY BIT WEE BENGALI. 
 
 " Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king 
 
 But a sly bit wee Bengali ! 
 We learnt him first a sang tae sing, 
 
 An' wow ! but he sang sma'ly. 
 He was soopin stairs an' dichtin' shoon ; 
 Whan we suppit oor brose, he'd lick the spune, 
 An' there wasna a thing but he'd hae dune, 
 
 This sly bit wee Bengali. 
 
 Noo he's clappit doon in oor justice-chair, 
 
 This sly bit wee Bengali ; 
 An' his sib an' cronies gather there, 
 
 An' hech ! they blether brawly !
 
 A SONG. 217 
 
 He has filled the land wi' writer loons ; 
 Mortgaged the country an' bocht the toons, 
 An' on rich and puir he sets his thoonis, 
 This sly bit wee Bengali ! 
 
 Oor chiefs lang syne were men o' micht, 
 Wide waved their banners glorious ; 
 
 Their bluid ran free for their country's richt; 
 They fell, or stood victorious. 
 
 But I doot for fechtin' ye've nae great will; 
 
 Instead o' a sword ye'll wave yer quill, 
 
 An' for yer banner a lawyer's bill, 
 Ye sly bit wee Bengali ! 
 
 Oh man, but, Sandy, Jock, and Pat, 
 
 Ye've a' been unco pally, 
 Tae loot the knee tae a cuif like that 
 
 That sly bit wee Bengali ! 
 Then tak' yer laurels in yer ban', 
 They're no' the fashion, tho' ance sae gran', 
 For wha the deil noo rules the Ian' 
 
 But a sly bit wee Bengali ! " 
 
 As the song proceeds the audience listen with 
 that intent look peculiar to Scotsmen, and 
 the glare of enthusiasm shines in every eye. 
 Their bodies sway ; their toes tap the floor ; 
 they clink their glasses, drum on the table to
 
 218 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 the time, and join in the refrain. General 
 applause rewards the blushing singer, and all 
 rise to drink his health. 
 
 The chairman, fearing least the passions 
 roused by the song should become too violent, 
 attempts to restrain the excitement ; but in 
 vain it is too strong. 
 
 " Od, sir," says the second speaker, " oor 
 forebears ne'er tholed what we hae tae pit up 
 wi' ; an', my word, neither will we ! " 
 
 "Gin ye dinna like the new sang," cries 
 another, the light of battle in his eye, " I'll 
 e'en gie ye an auld ane ! " and in a stentorian 
 voice he strikes up " Scots wha hae ! " in 
 which all present join with a roar. When this 
 is done, " Scotland yet " is sung with equal 
 enthusiasm, the chairman at last letting himself 
 go, and joining in. Most inconvenient things 
 are these Scotch songs when the Scotsman is 
 undermost in any part of the world. They 
 make him restless and unfit for his place. As 
 the toddy-tumblers are being replenished, and
 
 A CABINET COUNCIL. 219 
 
 the buzz of talk goes round more loud and 
 general than before, the vision passes. 
 
 Again the cloud lifts, this time upon a 
 Cabinet Council. It is attended by all the 
 chief ministers, heads of the great depart- 
 ments. They seem to be in trouble. It 
 appears that the Budget forecasts are not 
 being fulfilled, and the revenue is not coming 
 in as had been expected. From one to 
 another the Prime Minister looks, but in no 
 direction does he find comfort. He hears of 
 arrears of land revenue, and a diminished 
 yield of excise, stamps, and customs ; of a 
 falling income and growing expenditure on 
 the railways. He hears that trade is deserting 
 the port of Calcutta, that some of the mills 
 have been closed, and all the rest are running 
 short time ; that tea and indigo are ceasing to 
 come down, and that the supply of jute is 
 diminishing ; that the coal-mines are closing, 
 and industry in all its branches languishes. 
 Why is this ? Who knows ? Every one has
 
 220 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 been diligent in issuing orders and reminders, 
 and in calling for explanations. 
 
 The Home Secretary demands that the police 
 be strengthened, since bad trade has caused 
 much distress, and the criminal classes have 
 been recruiting their ranks with men that it 
 has reduced to ruin and desperation. The 
 War Minister reports that the soldiers are 
 out of hand, and openly show disrespect for 
 their Bengali officers. They can only be kept 
 steady by severe punishment of insubordina- 
 tion, and by the grant of fresh privileges and 
 advantages. The Finance Minister says the 
 long and the short of it is this : outgoings 
 are rising rather than falling, and income is 
 dwindling. This cannot go on. If we are not 
 to land in bankruptcy, something must be 
 done. 
 
 What is to be done is not so easy to say. 
 The members of the Cabinet have studied 
 political economy long enough to put aside 
 as useless many expedients that would look
 
 A PUZZLED EXECUTIVE. 221 
 
 hopeful to less enlightened men. They can 
 but issue fresh instructions to all local officials 
 that every effort is to be made to get in the 
 revenue, and that expenditure is to be re- 
 stricted as far as possible. The cloud falls on 
 a group of very anxious men, who know they 
 are in a mess, and sec no way out of it. 
 
 We flit with the speed of thought to a dis- 
 tant country place, where a group of local 
 officials are discussing the recent orders of 
 the central Government. 
 
 " Things are certainly beginning to look 
 bad," says the chief. " We have sent away 
 all the money we can spare, and are making 
 every excuse to avoid paying any out. Yet 
 the treasury is empty, and, what is more, is 
 not likely to fill. Something must be done. 
 There is not enough to pay us our next month's 
 salary. Oh yes ! You may give reasons ; but 
 will reasons fill the treasury ? The fact is, 
 neither the outside public nor our own subor- 
 dinates are afraid of us as they used to fear
 
 222 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 the Europeans. It is very hard ; for even 
 when the Europeans were here we did most of 
 the work, and I am sure we knew far more 
 about the rules than they ever did. But there 
 it is ! When they gave an order, the thing 
 was done, while we only get excuses and ex- 
 planations. Come, gentlemen, can you suggest 
 anything ? " 
 
 Then says that shrewd man, the collector of 
 income-tax : "In my department there are a 
 good many in arrears. It would never do to 
 press Baykanta Baboo, our patron. But there 
 are Mr Wilson, and Moulvie Wahedulla, and a 
 few others, on whom the screw might be put, 
 and even some penalties might be got out of 
 them." 
 
 Says the excise officer : " There are seven- 
 teen shops that have not paid up. Eight of 
 them Baykanta Baboo's men have, and they 
 must be let alone. From the others I will 
 squeeze what I can." 
 
 Says the district police officer : " My men
 
 RAISING THE WIND. 
 
 are getting discontented. With all these idle 
 and starving people about, there has been a 
 regular outbreak of gang robberies and bur- 
 glaries, and they are being worn out with 
 extra duty. The men have had no pay for 
 two months, and are pressing for it. They 
 say they cannot live on air." 
 
 " When did they ever live on air ? " says 
 the chief. " Let them live on the people, as 
 they always did." 
 
 "Ah, but things are different now. The 
 red turban does not inspire the awe it 
 did, and my men have been several times 
 refused food and lodging, and even beaten 
 when they tried to take by force what they 
 needed." 
 
 "Then start a good prosecution against 
 some fat trader. You could keep a score of 
 men for months on the proceeds." 
 
 " Fat traders are not so easy to find now- 
 adays. It is bad trade that has brought us to 
 this, and bad trade means lean traders."
 
 224 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 "Anyhow, it is clear your men can't get 
 their pay yet. They must wait." 
 
 " If they must, they must. Only it is my 
 duty to warn you that you may expect a good 
 deal of desertion. They say the robbers are 
 better off than they are, and at least work for 
 themselves." 
 
 " I can't help it. We must trust to the 
 army. Now mind, gentlemen, if you catch a 
 criminal fines, not imprisonment ; and if you 
 get a well-to-do man, give it him hot, and try 
 if you can to catch him in contempt of court. 
 
 Then " And here the cloud falls, and the 
 
 vision flits to a country town, where we see a 
 group of traders talking. 
 
 " What am I to do ? " says one. " I am 
 losing all the trade I had with Calcutta. The 
 roads are all broken up, and freight of carts 
 has risen. It is very difficult to get those 
 stupid ryots to take lower prices, and unless 
 they will, I cannot export produce at a profit." 
 
 " But why are the roads bad ? " says
 
 JOBBERY. 225 
 
 another. " I know the road-rates are high 
 enough." 
 
 " Ah ! " says a third, " don't you know who 
 is the great man with the board, and whose 
 friends get the contracts ? Little chance is 
 there of any complaints against them being 
 listened to ! " 
 
 " That is not all," says another. " For- 
 merly, when the station - master and goods 
 clerk charged us heavy fees for letting us 
 have waggons, there was at least an inquiry 
 if we complained ; now it is no use com- 
 plaining, for they are all some politician's 
 pets." 
 
 " By the by, what was that accident on the 
 line the other day ? " 
 
 " Kotten sleepers more jobbery ! " 
 
 " I hear the railway are going to raise 
 freights." 
 
 ''They've done it already, crushing out 
 what little business remains." 
 
 "Is it true that the Calcutta merchants 
 p
 
 226 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 have lowered their rates for up - country 
 produce ? " 
 
 " Yes. The politicians have been reforming 
 the Port Trust and the pilot service, and big 
 vessels won't venture up the Hooghly. Goods 
 have to go down in lighters, and so they have 
 had to reduce our prices." 
 
 " I hear you had a burglary in your house 
 the other day." 
 
 " Yes, and one of my carts was looted too. 
 When the police came, they were so lean and 
 ragged and greedy that I thought it was the 
 robbers back again. They can't be getting 
 any pay." 
 
 " Are you bothered about income-tax ? " 
 " I should think so ! Are you ? " 
 " Oh no ; I'm on Baykanta Baboo's side." 
 "Worse luck, I'm not. I suppose it would 
 be too late now to And we are whisked 
 away to a room in a great house, where is 
 being held a meeting of gentlemen Euro- 
 peans, Mahomedans, and one or two Hindoos.
 
 MALCONTENTS. 227 
 
 As we enter, a European is speaking, and 
 we catch his concluding sentences. 
 
 "So," says he, "it is understood that we 
 are all in the same boat. Whichever one of 
 the more numerous factions prevails, we are 
 bound to be below. In the hard times that 
 are coming we shall first be squeezed, and 
 they will squeeze the very life out of us." 
 
 " What can we do ? " says a native gentle- 
 man. " Who can resist the Sarkar ? " 
 
 " Hark ye ! " says another European, " sit 
 close. There are different kinds of Govern- 
 ments, and I am much mistaken if this one 
 is of the same kind as the one before it." 
 
 " Where is the difference ? There is the 
 law, the courts, the magistrates and police, 
 the jails, the taxes, and the army as before." 
 
 "The Government depends for support on 
 four things the goodwill of its subjects, the 
 revenue, the police, and the army. Has it 
 got the goodwill of the people ? " 
 
 " No, I think not. Of course we ourselves
 
 228 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 dislike it, but I doubt if any but the thick- 
 and-thin partisans of the ruling factions care 
 for it. They are getting offices and contracts, 
 and the public interests are suffering. Trade 
 is bad ; many are in want, and want means 
 discontent." 
 
 " Then what about the revenue ? " 
 
 " I believe the Treasury is very hard up. 
 Taxes are not paid." 
 
 "Good! What about the police?" 
 
 "They are certainly not in good order. 
 They are in arrears of pay and overworked. 
 Many are sick, many retiring or deserting. 
 Kecruits cannot be got." 
 
 " Then there is only the army ? " 
 
 " The army is untouched. It is paid 
 regularly, and is up to its full strength." 
 
 " Has any one seen it fight ? " 
 
 "No, it has not been in action yet; but 
 its men are good stuff." 
 
 "What about its officers?" 
 
 " Very scientific, and well up in their drill."
 
 RESISTANCE COUNSELLED. 229 
 
 " Would they stand or run away if they 
 came under fire ? " 
 
 " Of course one can't tell, but they are 
 Bengali Baboos, and old instinct might be 
 too strong for them. They would probably 
 run." 
 
 " Then a fig for the army ! We have not 
 so much against us, after all. Don't let us 
 wait to be eaten up piecemeal. Let us hold 
 together and keep our own." 
 
 " I agree that we should resist," says the 
 native gentleman, " if we have any chance, 
 for we are bound to be ruined unless we 
 do." 
 
 " Well," says the first speaker, " see here 
 
 And while they are consulting, they 
 
 fade from view. After this, vision succeeds 
 
 vision rapidly, and they are hurried and 
 
 confused. 
 
 I see a great crowd a mixed multitude 
 of Europeans and natives bound together 
 by the common tie of fear. The little knot
 
 230 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 we left discussing made up their minds to 
 open resistance, and are astonished at the 
 number of malcontents who have come to 
 join them. A leading statesman has come 
 down to prove how foolish and hopeless it 
 is to resist. He delivers an oration in his 
 best and most eloquent style. They say 
 quietly, when he has finished, that they 
 have thought it over, and mean to have a 
 try. 
 
 The speaker, confident in his own persua- 
 sive powers, persists, but interruptions, hoot- 
 ings, and hissings become first frequent, then 
 incessant, and missiles begin to be thrown, 
 till at length the great statesman is smug- 
 gled out the back way under an escort from 
 the leaders of the disaffected. 
 
 In a twinkling the same crowd appears 
 on the open field. It has been transformed, 
 many being in uniform and armed many 
 more provided with such rustic weapons as 
 they could lay hold on. They have leaders,
 
 A RISING. 231 
 
 and are being drilled. Even if the police 
 had not melted away, nothing but regular 
 troops could touch so great a force. As we 
 come on the scene, a force of regular troops 
 is advancing. Their leader, having ascer- 
 tained the position and numbers of the 
 enemy, has formed a plan of attack and 
 instructed his officers. The insurgents, 
 cheered on by their European and other 
 leaders, stand their ground, and have begun 
 to open fire. A few bullets whistle through 
 the air, and one soldier even is wounded. 
 The officers fall behind, and order the troops 
 to advance. This draws murmurs from the 
 soldiers, who demand to be led. Seeing the 
 hesitation, the insurgent leaders advance 
 their men, and strengthen their fire. One 
 or two men fall. This is too much for the 
 student officers, who end by fairly turning 
 tail and bolting, followed by the jeers and 
 curses of their men. The insurgent leaders, 
 watching through their field-glasses, send an
 
 232 THE BENGAL REPUBLIC. 
 
 envoy to the troops with overtures, and a 
 negotiation is begun which ends in the troops 
 joining the banner of the rebel chief. 
 
 My dreams end here, but it is easy to 
 guess that, by much suffering, heavy losses, 
 and fierce struggles, this lesson was burnt 
 into the minds of the people of Bengal 
 "Deliver not the tasks of might to 
 weakness,"
 
 QUARRELS
 
 235 
 
 QUARRELS. 
 
 rTIHERE is one more dream about my native 
 neighbours which I will record, and that 
 relates to their quarrels. The importance of 
 a quarrel as showing character is that there 
 is more reality, more sincerity less disguise, 
 pretence, and humbug about a man when 
 he is engaged in a serious quarrel than at any 
 other time. 
 
 By quarrel I mean a contest between two 
 parties in which, if the one side wins, the 
 other must lose. The parties may be face to 
 face ; or the one may pursue and the other 
 flee ; or one may be plotting against the 
 other, who is unconscious of it. The quarrel 
 may be between parties of any numbers, from
 
 236 QUARRELS. 
 
 nations to individuals ; it may be sudden and 
 soon over, or last for many years ; it may be 
 on one spot, or spread over a large area; a 
 simple event, or a game of many moves and 
 pieces. In all quarrels there is something to 
 be lost and won, and it is a matter of great 
 interest to watch what are generally the 
 stakes, and how the game is played. 
 
 So far as my native neighbours are con- 
 cerned, quarrels on a great scale national 
 quarrels or wars are things of the past. 
 The invader no longer makes raids from out- 
 side India ; nor are the races within the 
 country, such as the Mahrattas, allowed to 
 attack their neighbours. Fighting and wars 
 there still are ; but they have been taken 
 over as its own affair by the British Govern- 
 ment, and I doubt if one man out of ten 
 thousand of my native neighbours gives them 
 a thought. This immunity from war has 
 brought, no doubt, blessings in its train not 
 unmixed with the reverse. For one thing,
 
 PAX BRITANNICA. 237 
 
 it is accepted by these people as if courage 
 and forethought had nothing to do with it, 
 as if it were a gift of nature. Again, it 
 has reduced the capacity of the people for 
 self-defence ; and lastly, it has driven the 
 instinct for quarrelling which all men have 
 inwards, and removed the very powerful 
 bond of union which successful resistance 
 to external attacks gives to a people. 
 
 We hear of the fabled Arcadia where all 
 men are loving and neighbourly. It is a land 
 that was never seen. Men will quarrel if 
 not about one thing, then about another. 
 
 After war on a great scale ceased to be a 
 concern of my Indian neighbours, broils and 
 disturbances, little short of war, survived in 
 the land for some generations. 
 
 The wild tribes used to issue from their 
 jungle fastnesses and raid the more peaceful 
 plains ; the dacoits, or gangs of robbers, har- 
 ried with open violence the houses of the rioli, 
 and the goods of merchants on road and river,
 
 238 QUARRELS. 
 
 sometimes on land, sometimes afloat ; the 
 great landlords sometimes turned out their 
 little armies of ryots and clubmen hundreds 
 strong, to do battle, not without bloodshed, 
 for disputed territory ; or leagues of ryots 
 combined to resist by force the claims of the 
 landlords. 
 
 The wild tribes have for the most part been 
 pacified. It was found that their wildness 
 was caused as much as anything by their 
 being treated like wild beasts. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the Rajmehal hillmen. During the 
 eighteenth century they were dealt with as 
 banditti, and picketed round with colonies of 
 fighting men, whose business very badly 
 performed was to hem them in and stop 
 them from raiding. So badly was this busi- 
 ness done, that Government superseded the 
 landlords, who were in charge of it, and sent 
 in _ troops. The officers won the confidence of 
 the hillmen, and finally these tribes were 
 organised; a regiment of militia was raised
 
 BROILS AND TUMULTS. 239 
 
 among them to keep order, and a court of 
 their chiefs established to try offenders against 
 justice. I remember reading an account of 
 a trial before this court of over 100 hillmen, 
 who had made a raid in which many murders 
 were committed and about 900 head of cattle 
 lifted. While the trial was going on many of 
 the prisoners had to be made over for custody 
 to their chiefs, as whole villages had been 
 left without a man to look after the women, 
 children, and stock. It is about eighty years 
 since we have heard of such occurrences. Hill- 
 men are still fond of stealing cattle, but they 
 no longer do so openly or with violence. 
 
 Then there was the Sonthal rising in 1855. 
 Driven to desperation, as it afterwards ap- 
 peared, by the exactions of the money-lenders 
 and the police, they took to arms, and had to 
 be put down by an armed force. As with the 
 hillmen, so with these, the method adopted 
 was to gain their confidence and organise 
 them, protecting them as far as possible from
 
 240 QUARRELS. 
 
 oppression in the name of justice. The result 
 has been that they are a loyal and contented 
 though high-spirited people. They have to 
 be watched and managed, but no longer break 
 out into violence. 
 
 I remember reading accounts of the supres- 
 sion about forty years ago of the gang-robbers 
 who used to infest the banks of the Hooghly, 
 plundering the traffic which by land and water 
 passed in large volumes to and from Calcutta, 
 and terrorising the well-to-do inhabitants of 
 its environs. Gangs of fifty or sixty at a 
 time were brought before the courts and tried. 
 Many were convicted and sentenced to trans- 
 portation for life. The places where they used 
 to lie in wait are now occupied by busy jute- 
 mills. I remember in particular the story of 
 one man who was charged with being a 
 notorious and desperate robber. His defence 
 was that he was a broken-down and feeble old 
 man, incapable of the active deeds ascribed to 
 him. On his appearance, this was believed,
 
 GANG-ROBBERS. 241 
 
 and an order was passed for his discharge. As 
 soon as he heard the order, with great im- 
 prudence he turned a back somersault out 
 of the dock. His premature glee cost him his 
 liberty, as he was brought back and sentenced. 
 There are still gang-robberies. Gangs form 
 wherever they get an opening, and doubtless 
 a year or two of neglect would cause a tre- 
 mendous growth in them. But they are no 
 longer the sturdy and desperate bands that 
 once swarmed over the country, and as soon 
 as a gang becomes formidable it is detected 
 and broken up. 
 
 What we call a river in India is more like 
 what in England would be called an inland 
 sea. In the height of the rainy season the 
 Ganges spreads out to a width of twenty 
 miles. Its delta is a network of deep and 
 gloomy creeks bordered by dense forests, and 
 very lonely. Even to-day the forest is exten- 
 sive, though immense tracts have been cleared. 
 In the islands of this delta the pirates Portu- 
 
 Q
 
 242 QUARRELS. 
 
 guese and natives had their nests, whence 
 they were rooted out by the Mogul princes, 
 and here their descendants in our time moved 
 about in swift boats, plundering richly-laden 
 vessels, and sometimes also villages on shore. 
 A few may still escape the vigilance of the 
 police, but the energy that was once expended 
 on righting and robbery is now for the most 
 part diverted into the more honest industries 
 of fishing, and serving as lascars on river and 
 ocean steamers. 
 
 When landlords disputed the ownership of 
 land it might be a new island found at the 
 end of the floods to have been formed in 
 the bed of a great river, or it might be waste 
 land of any kind many were the moves in 
 the struggle. Men would go with boats or 
 carts to cut whatever produce there was 
 trees, grass, or anything to stick up sheds, 
 to dry fishing-nets, or perform any other act 
 of ownership they could think of; grazing 
 cattle, ploughing, &c. A rival party would
 
 FIGHTING LANDLORDS. 243 
 
 arrive from the other side with similar inten- 
 tion, and pitched battles often ensued. For 
 a newly - formed island, though next season 
 might see it swept away again, might also 
 become a rich estate, thousands of acres in 
 area, of good land. 
 
 Again, according to the law of the land, an 
 estate may be held jointly by a number of 
 partners, each of whom has certain rights 
 over it, and may sell, or mortgage, or sublet 
 his or her rights. There used to be notorious 
 speculators, with disciplined bands of retainers, 
 who would buy up a tiny share of an estate, and 
 then by sheer force prevent the other owners 
 from collecting rent, or making any other use 
 of the property until they were ready to 
 part with their interests for an old song. 
 
 In all quarrels about land, the great thing 
 is to get possession, and so drive the opposite 
 side, if it desired to enforce its claims by law, 
 to be the plaintiff, on whom ordinarily lies 
 the burden of proof.
 
 244 QUARRELS. 
 
 When fighting was to be done, the local 
 men managed their battles, aided sometimes 
 by hired bravos. The hired bravo was often 
 distinguished by the blindest and most de- 
 voted courage, and absolutely reckless in 
 exposing his life to danger. A story is told 
 of a landlord in Eastern Bengal who was 
 out with a solitary attendant, and saw ad- 
 vancing on him a large band of the enemy's 
 clubmen. " Run, sahib," said his henchman, 
 "and I will meet them." "But they will 
 kill you," said the master. "Very likely," 
 said the man, " but never mind. What a 
 splendid case you will have in court ! " This 
 is the stuff of which professional clubmen 
 were made. 
 
 The fighting qualities of local people varied 
 greatly. There were the industrious but ef- 
 feminate Hindoos of the plains around Cal- 
 cutta, whom one or two bravos would suffice 
 to overawe ; who, to save their skin, would 
 yield to almost any demand. Then there
 
 METHODS OF FIGHTING. 245 
 
 were the manly Rajpoots, Ahirs, and Puri- 
 tan Mussulmans of Behar, dwelling by the 
 Ganges, and wielding the great iron-bound 
 club, which they whirled round their head, 
 and one blow from which would dash out 
 a man's brains. There were the Gwallas of 
 Nuddea, also renowned wielders of clubs. 
 There were the sturdy Chandals of Fureed- 
 pore, described by tradition as a whole com- 
 munity of Hindoos, outcasted from Bramins 
 downward, who made themselves homes in 
 the swamps of Fureedpore, raising large 
 mounds to build their houses on, and living 
 chiefly on fish. Their favourite weapon was 
 the spear. Then there were people lower 
 down the delta of the Ganges Puritan 
 Mussulmans of Backergunj, who fight with 
 guns, and their coreligionists in the districts 
 of Tipperah and Noahkolly, still farther east, 
 where the ryots are, man for man, a match 
 for an equal number of clubmen. Then, too, 
 there are the wild tribes of the western
 
 246 QUARRELS. 
 
 jungles the Sonthals, Kols, Bhuyas, Paha- 
 rias, and others, with their bows and arrows 
 and battle-axes ; and those of the east and 
 north as the Dufflas, Nagas, and Bhuteas, 
 the Kookies, Chukmas, and Looshais, with 
 their dahs and spears. 
 
 Here and there we catch a glimpse of 
 the stormy old times, now little more than 
 memories. 
 
 Tradition tells of the great indigo -planter 
 who employed large bands of devoted fol- 
 lowers, and was so well served that he, a 
 private person, was able to pass a sentence 
 of twenty-five years' imprisonment, and carry 
 it out, in spite of the law. It is now many 
 years since his factories, whose ruins may 
 still be seen, were stormed and destroyed by 
 the peasantry. There is a story of another 
 landlord, who, when settling his rents with 
 his Mussulman tenantry, had a basketful of 
 their beards brought in every day till the 
 tenants agreed to his terms. They tell of a
 
 CAUSES OF STRIFE. 247 
 
 rajah whose tenants, in British territory, de- 
 clared that his rent-collector had defrauded 
 them by taking their rents without giving 
 
 / o o o 
 
 receipts, and again suing them in the civil 
 court for the same rents. The tenants made 
 a league, drove off the rajah's servants, the 
 process peons of the courts, and the police, 
 issued a no-rent manifesto, and even invaded 
 the rajah's independent territory, destroying 
 a small fort, and retiring with the plunder. 
 
 The causes of strife varied from district to 
 district. 
 
 The tension and strain in the closely-packed, 
 over-crowded populations of Behar, where men 
 were struggling for land, were very different 
 from the conditions in the thinly - settled 
 tracts of the eastern, northern, and south- 
 western jungles, where land was lying wait- 
 ing for men to cultivate it. Here landlords 
 crushed tenants; there tenants defied land- 
 lords to exercise their rights. Sometimes race 
 pressed upon race ; sometimes the middleman
 
 248 QUARRELS. 
 
 squeezed in between landlord and tenant, or 
 the money-lender sucked them dry, or, wax- 
 ing fat with prosperity, men grew proud and 
 fought for glory or jealousy. But seldom was 
 there peace. 
 
 Fifty years ago, with few roads, slow com- 
 munications, a scanty staff of Government 
 officers, absence of capital, and little or no 
 trade, the great landlord was a king in fact, 
 whose writ ran, whatever might be the theory, 
 before that of the Crown. He controlled the 
 police, and held all the local forces in his 
 hands. Except in a very few small areas 
 to which his authority did not reach, he was 
 king in his estate, and the local people were 
 his subjects, though not always very orderly 
 and obedient subjects. 
 
 By gradual advances the law has strength- 
 ened its influence, and brought check after 
 check to bear on the exercise of physical force 
 by subjects. 
 
 Great and constant efforts were made to
 
 POLICE MORALITY. 249 
 
 induce the people to come to the law courts, 
 instead of resorting to physical force, or the 
 cutcherry of the zemindar. This is one secret 
 of the notorious and somewhat scandalous 
 tenderness shown by our courts to false wit- 
 nesses and perjury. Harshness, it was feared, 
 would frighten people away altogether. 
 
 The police were weak in numbers and of 
 doubtful reputation. A story I was once 
 told by an old indigo-planter is a fair illus- 
 tration of what was thought of them. A 
 friend of his had a case which the inspector, 
 or Darogah, as he was called, came to in- 
 vestigate. When the inquiry was over, the 
 Darogah produced three draft reports, the 
 first of which he said he would send on for 
 500 rupees, the second for 50, and the third 
 without charge. As the first was likely to be 
 the cheapest in the end, the 500 rupees were 
 paid. In the great quarrels, the Darogah often 
 used his influence on one side or the other, 
 or was paid heavily by both to be neutral.
 
 250 QUARRELS. 
 
 The old police were reorganised and strength- 
 ened over thirty years ago. The courts, too, 
 have been greatly increased in number and 
 strength. 
 
 An important step towards peace was the 
 Revenue Survey, which, by fixing the bound- 
 aries and recording the ownership of land, 
 made it less profitable to fight over these 
 matters. 
 
 Then there was the Arms Act, restricting 
 the use of arms, and compelling those who 
 had them to take out licences. 
 
 Then the criminal law made a landlord 
 amenable for a riot committed in his interests. 
 Before that, he had been able to sit safely 
 at home, and send out his retainers to run 
 all the risks. He was also now compelled 
 to deposit lists of his retainers with the 
 magistrate. 
 
 Again, the laws of procedure enabled a 
 magistrate to award possession of disputed 
 land to one of two disputants, and to bind
 
 THE ADVANCING REIGN OF LAW. 251 
 
 over persons who were likely to break the 
 peace. 
 
 Courts were multiplied. I know of two 
 cases in one part of the country where new 
 headquarters of magistrates were established 
 the one to restrain an unruly peasantry, 
 the other to keep in order a truculent family 
 of landlords. 
 
 Police stations were established wherever 
 the condition of things seemed to require it, 
 and special police were quartered in disturbed 
 neighbourhoods at the cost of the inhabitants. 
 
 In fine, the Government and its officers 
 came to have more to say, and the law was 
 more difficult to defy. 
 
 Breaches of the peace, violence, and riots 
 have not ceased to occur, but they are now 
 less numerous and on a smaller scale. Whether 
 this improvement is permanent or not is doubt- 
 ful. The peace is kept, not because to keep it 
 is natural, but by the constant use of watch- 
 fulness, and application of moderate but ample
 
 252 QUARRELS. 
 
 and resistless force where and when needed for 
 its preservation. On the Assam frontier, in 
 the hills and forests overhanging Orissa, in 
 the ancient state of Manipore, among the 
 religious fanatics of the Ganges valley, and 
 in the streets of our great towns, we have 
 from time to time warnings by disturbances 
 to be on our guard, and that there are forces 
 ready to break loose if they get the chance. 
 
 To keep those forces weak and under con- 
 trol, two means must be used. The first is 
 good government, by which great grievances 
 will not be allowed to spring up ; and the 
 second is strength used to put down any 
 defiance. To the froward we must be fro- 
 ward. If the master displays weakness he 
 will be sprung upon and rent. There is one 
 quality which is general among the people of 
 Bengal. If they are strong, they show no 
 mercy. If they get an enemy down, woe to 
 him ! There is nothing they respect like 
 power not even justice or kindness. "Of
 
 THE HAKIM AND THE RAJAH. 253 
 
 all the hakims that have been in this place," 
 a man was asked, " who was the greatest ? " 
 " There have been many great hakims here," 
 was the answer, " but the greatest of all was 
 
 P Sahib." "And what did P Sahib 
 
 do more than all other hakims ? " he was 
 asked. " He put a rajah in prison," was the 
 reply. " But other hakims have put rajahs 
 in prison, when they deserved it," was ob- 
 jected. " Ah ! but this one did not deserve 
 it." They have not yet got beyond that 
 stage of civilisation in which power is the 
 cardinal necessity for a ruler ; and we must 
 not forget this, because our own power is 
 being used more in the interests of our sub- 
 jects than has been the rule among our pre- 
 decessors. We may not draw cheques so 
 frequently, but we must not part with or 
 reduce our balance at the bank. 
 
 Coming now to more recent times, I should 
 attribute any difference between the present 
 day and those more remote to two main
 
 254 QUARRELS. 
 
 causes one being the success of the efforts 
 made by the British Government to increase 
 the influence of its law courts ; and the other, 
 the growth of trade, with its accompaniments, 
 easy communication, education, and diffused 
 wealth. We must not run away with the 
 notion that these two influences have reached 
 the same position, or have the same effect in 
 India, as the corresponding influences in Eng- 
 land. Blind and feeble are the eye and hand 
 of the law ; small and trickling the streams 
 of commerce in India judged by the English 
 standard, and that in India is looked upon as 
 wealth which in England would be despised as 
 poverty. 
 
 Still progress has been made, and has modi- 
 fied, whether for the better or not, the old 
 methods of quarrelling. Progress has been 
 greatest at the centres of trade and communi- 
 cations, where are the seats of authority, and 
 where dwell most of those who think, speak, 
 and write. Naturally, therefore, there is a
 
 ISOLATED COMMUNITIES. 255 
 
 tendency to exaggerate the amount of pro- 
 gress actually made. 
 
 One who is a member, as a dweller in a 
 large town is, of a compact, well -protected, 
 and closely - governed community, is apt to 
 think little of the vast and monotonous ex- 
 panses, overspread with thousands and thou- 
 sands of small communities detached from 
 one another, isolated from the central au- 
 thorities, each a little world to itself. He 
 is apt to give the people in them about as 
 much thought as the human inhabitant of 
 the village gives to the animals in the 
 jungle near which he lives, or the fish in 
 the river that flows by his house. When 
 they occasionally put out their snout and 
 become visible for a moment, his eye may 
 be caught, but he seldom follows them in im- 
 agination back into their haunts, or pictures 
 to himself their anxieties, difficulties, perils, 
 or escapes, their stratagems, their friends or 
 their foes. If he does, then he peoples their
 
 256 QUARRELS. 
 
 wilds with the institutions and characters 
 familiar to him, as Uncle Remus did when 
 he dubbed the bear a judge. 
 
 Towards this world, with which, peopled 
 by Hodge in his millions, the reader has 
 been made acquainted, have approached the 
 law courts and police ; the railway, the post- 
 office, the telegraph, and the school. Hodge 
 and those he has to do with must give heed 
 to those new factors, and does his best to 
 understand what they mean. 
 
 Passing by all of these modern influences 
 except the law courts and police, we have 
 now to consider how a quarrel is carried on 
 within their " sphere of influence." This ex- 
 pression seems to me a very good way of 
 describing the relation of the people to the 
 law courts. Their hold is the strong but 
 loose hold of the British in the regions of 
 Central Africa, rather than the tighter and 
 more certain grip of the Government in Eng- 
 land.
 
 MURDER. 257 
 
 The primitive method of quarrelling is the 
 crime of Cain the taking of human life. 
 In a country like India, where for countless 
 ages human beings have swarmed in their 
 millions, the life of a man is not the thing 
 of importance that it has been for many 
 centuries past in England. In India import- 
 ance has always, in the native mind, been 
 attached to the lives of Bramins and men 
 of the higher castes, but not to common 
 clay. A man does not seem to value even 
 his own life as much, or to struggle for it 
 with the same determination, in India as in 
 England. He who has taken life in that 
 country is seldom troubled with the remorse 
 of Eugene Aram or Jonas Chuzzlewit. Two 
 things only he believes he has to fear 
 the vengeance of the victim's relatives, and 
 the leaden-footed pursuit of the law. 
 
 Although the law does occasionally catch 
 up transgressors in this direction, still, ex- 
 cept when the friends of the victim are in- 
 
 R
 
 258 QUARRELS. 
 
 fluential, determined, and prompt, and the 
 taker of his life is neither himself powerful 
 nor under powerful protection, there is not 
 often even a serious pursuit, nor does the bare 
 fact always come to the knowledge of the 
 authorities. There are no local magistrates ; 
 no coroners to hold inquests, or juries to 
 check proceedings ; no doctors to certify the 
 cause of death. The heat of the climate 
 renders necessary prompt disposal of the 
 dead, usually by fire. Cholera and snake- 
 bite are convenient causes to assign for any 
 sudden death. Dead bodies of persons who 
 are said to have been murdered are taken 
 to the one qualified medical man in the 
 district the Government surgeon generally 
 in a state of decomposition, and he examines 
 them in order to detect the cause of death. 
 But in so few cases do the bodies reach the 
 surgeon that his post - mortem examination 
 is probably of more value as a protection 
 against false accusations than as a means
 
 POISON. 259 
 
 of bringing to light the guilt of actual crim- 
 inals. 
 
 In addition to the ordinary weapons that 
 naturally lend themselves to the lust for 
 taking life the deadly weapon, the common 
 household instrument, the club or stone is 
 poison. In India there are no chemists' 
 shops with diplomas, labels, registers, and 
 certificates. Arsenic is kept in most houses, 
 and can be bought in all bazars, while many 
 kinds of deadly drugs are to be had for the 
 gathering in the jungles and waste land 
 that are near every village. 
 
 To give as vivid a picture in brief as I can 
 of the varieties of death inflicted and the 
 motives that lead up to the tragedy, I will 
 endeavour to call up a few of the hundreds 
 of cases that have come within my own 
 experience, and present them to the reader. 
 
 I see on the side of the village lane three 
 small huts round a tiny courtyard a square 
 of 2 or 3 yards. The huts are inhabited
 
 260 QUARRELS. 
 
 by three brothers, each with his wife and 
 family. One of them, the worker of the 
 family, has long grumbled because his 
 brothers will not help him to plough, sow, 
 and weed their common fields, and has at 
 length enraged his eldest brother, the idler, 
 by threatening to separate, and even go to 
 law. Day by day the wrangling is renewed, 
 till one night the eldest, after much brooding, 
 silences his brother and prevents the lawsuit, 
 by cutting him up with an adze as he lies 
 asleep in the open verandah. 
 
 I see in Eastern Bengal a flat expanse of 
 rice-fields laid out in small squares, which are 
 separated by little mud-ridges covered with 
 grass. One morning Jan Mahamad goes out 
 and finds that his neighbour, Ahmad Ali, 
 has pared away the turf on his own side of 
 the boundary ridge. This has by ever so 
 little moved the centre of the ridge towards 
 Jan Mahamad's field, and so enlarged Ahmad 
 Ali's, whereon arises a controversy, which does
 
 ANGKY PASSIONS. 261 
 
 not end till Ahmad All's lifeless body is found 
 one day in his field, the head split open with 
 a hoe. 
 
 Again, the country is parched with drought, 
 and there is a pond, a precious reservoir con- 
 taining the last few drops of water with which 
 may be saved a small part of the perishing 
 crops. Jealously has this been guarded, and 
 carefully has the share of each been appor- 
 tioned. But Nobin Mondle, who is on the 
 watch, catches Ali Bux in the act of drawing 
 off water out of his turn. He seizes the hoe 
 with which Ali Bux is clearing the channel, 
 and drives him off. Ali Bux, furious at being 
 balked, steals that night into Nobin's house, 
 and cuts him up with a chopper on his bed. 
 Nobin's wife, who is sleeping just inside the 
 open door, wakes up and sees this going on in 
 the verandah outside by the clear moonlight. 
 
 I see a Sonthal march up to the house of 
 a British magistrate with a bundle under his 
 mantle. He throws down the contents a
 
 262 QUARRELS. 
 
 human head and says, "I found a man 
 assaulting my wife, and cut off his head. 
 Here it is. Do with me what you will." 
 
 I see going on in a Mahomedan village of 
 Eastern Bengal a grave consultation among 
 heads of families. They are discussing the 
 conduct of a dissipated young man who is a 
 trouble and a danger to the peace of their 
 households. It is not a matter that they care 
 should go into the publicity of the courts. 
 He is condemned, and a few nights later is 
 waylaid, while prowling as usual, on a lonely 
 roadside where the bamboos are massed thick 
 overhead, and taken into the jungle. There 
 he is held down by some, while others pound 
 him to death by driving their elbows into his 
 body. In Eastern Bengal they generally use 
 this way of beating and murdering. It can 
 break the bones, yet leaves no mark. 
 
 I see a consultation of substantial peasants 
 in a Midnapore village. Among the Hindoos 
 it is the custom to cast out the dead bodies of
 
 THE CATTLE-POISONER. 263 
 
 cattle in a place where they are first stripped 
 of their hides by the local moochi, or worker 
 in leather, and then disposed of by jackals 
 and vultures. The moochi in this village has 
 been artificially adding to his tale of hides by 
 poisoning the village cattle. This practice 
 reached such a pitch in one district I knew, 
 that a general order was issued to slash the 
 hides of all cattle that died, and by making 
 them useless remove the motive for poisoning 
 the cattle. Twice has the man been caught 
 arid sent up for trial, but both times he came 
 back triumphant, acquitted. The neighbours 
 remonstrated, but he would not leave off his 
 bad practices. The consultation is now being 
 held as to whether there is any further 
 remedy. There is. They catch the man and 
 lynch him. I was the magistrate before 
 whom these men were brought up charged 
 with his murder, and this was the story which 
 they told, simply. " What were we to do ? " 
 they said. " We could not see our cattle
 
 264 QUARRELS. 
 
 being poisoned day by day. We tried to get 
 him to leave off, but lie would not heed us. 
 We asked the law courts for help, and they 
 would not give it. We had to kill him." 
 Their powerful statement of their dilemma 
 affected me more almost than anything in my 
 experience, and has impressed me strongly 
 with the feeling that, if Judge Lynch is to be 
 kept out of the field, Judge Law must do his 
 duty. These poor men were sent for trial to 
 the sessions, and I rather think they were 
 hanged ; but I pitied them with all my 
 heart. 
 
 I see a household of Sonthals. The Son- 
 thals believe in witchcraft, and attribute sick- 
 ness to its spells. There are two households, 
 that of the elder wife and that of the younger, 
 in both of which there are married sons. The 
 father lives with the younger wife, who is, as 
 usual, his favourite. In the house of the elder 
 wife there is mourning, for her son has just 
 lost his little child by death. He sends his
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 265 
 
 younger brother to summon his stepmother 
 from her house, which is about 50 yards away. 
 She comes weeping aloud in response to the 
 cries and wails of the household, and is met at 
 the door by her stepson, who knocks her down 
 and beats her to death with a heavy club. 
 Then he rushes off after his own father, who 
 flees through house after house, and at last 
 finds refuge in a field of standing crop. When 
 put on his trial the son said : " Of course I 
 killed her. She ate up my child by witch- 
 craft, and it was not the first." His father had 
 taken her side. 
 
 Another Sonthal I remember. He lives 
 with his father and four children. Three of 
 his children die, and he and his father go to the 
 witch-doctor to find out why, or rather who, 
 it was. The witch-doctor says his next-door 
 neighbour has a demon in the house, which is 
 doing all the mischief. They return, and a 
 village assembly is called, before which the 
 neighbour is solemnly warned to take better
 
 266 QUARRELS. 
 
 care of his demon. Of course he denies that 
 he has such an inmate. Soon after, the father 
 and the remaining child die, and the man, 
 bereft of all, is fully persuaded that it is all 
 owing to his neighbour's demon. He feels his 
 duty clear. At a ceremonial feast in a house 
 in the village, at which the culprit is a guest, 
 he is helping to distribute the food, and takes 
 his neighbour's portion to him. On the way 
 he puts poison in it. Being on his trial for 
 this, he said, " Of course I did it. I don't see 
 how I could have helped." 
 
 I remember one remarkable instance of an 
 attempt which failed. It was a man who 
 sneaked into a neighbour's courtyard to put 
 poison in the water-pots. He was surrounded 
 by the dogs of the house, which not only kept 
 him from reaching the water -pots, but also 
 prevented him from getting away till he was 
 caught with the poison by him. I have 
 thought better of pariah dogs ever since I 
 heard of this.
 
 SUICIDE OF YOUNG WIVES. 267 
 
 These care a few all facts illustrations of 
 what goes on all over Bengal. The number 
 and variety are very great, and the few 
 specimens here given can convey but a 
 dim notion of the tragedies, unrecorded yet 
 often exciting and dramatic, which are being 
 enacted. 
 
 The more commonplace methods of carrying 
 on a quarrel need less detailed notice. Per- 
 haps the most curious is that adopted chiefly 
 by young women, introduced too early in life 
 to the cares of the family, who, to be revenged 
 on the husband, mother-in-law, or elder wife, 
 rush off after a scolding-match and drown or 
 hang themselves. 
 
 A characteristic method of quarrelling is the 
 social method. There is not much need of 
 explaining in these days what the " boycott " 
 means. When lie has been sent into Coventry, 
 a native cannot get any one to eat with 
 him, shave him, wash his clothes, or conduct 
 his family worship. His children cannot
 
 268 QUARRELS. 
 
 get husbands or wives. He is left severely 
 alone. 
 
 This is the penalty inflicted by the caste on 
 one who has been denounced to it for a fault, 
 and has failed to clear himself. Used in a 
 legitimate way, it is the instrument by which 
 caste discipline is maintained. The usual way 
 in which it is received is by making submis- 
 sion, giving up the practice condemned, and 
 paying a fine or giving a feast, as custom re- 
 quires. Sometimes, however whether from 
 contumacy, or from conscious innocence, or 
 from the knowledge that the real motive of 
 the punishment is not the good of the com- 
 munity but the gratification of private spite 
 or ambition submission is withheld. In a 
 system where the "boss" has his place, there 
 is a tendency to substitute his will for the 
 lawful customs of the caste or society, and to 
 punish with its penalties disobedience of that 
 will. Most disputes either begin with or pass 
 into the stage of the caste, the " boss " seek-
 
 CASTE FACTIONS. 269 
 
 ing to use his majority for putting down his 
 own or his followers' enemies, and the opposite 
 party supporting them. If the quarrel lasts 
 long enough, and the sides are both influen- 
 tial enough, the caste splits up, and the oppo- 
 sition comes to have its own organisation, as, 
 to compare small things with great, the Liberal 
 Unionists have done in England. Each has 
 its priest, barber, washerman, and is complete 
 in itself. Splits of this kind will last some- 
 times for a generation, and enmity will be 
 active. If the disputants are great men, there 
 are many whose interest it is to keep the 
 quarrel alive, and that for two reasons. The 
 first of these is that a powerful family, if 
 united, is able to oppress its neighbours, 
 whereas, if it is divided, the members are 
 fully occupied with their family quarrel, and 
 both sides try to gain strength by courting 
 popularity. 
 
 The second reason is that, when a quarrel 
 is going on, there is a great deal of expen-
 
 270 QUARRELS. 
 
 diturc that cannot be audited, and affords 
 good pickings to lawyers and servants. If, 
 for instance, large sums are entered in the 
 accounts as disbursed in bribes, the employer 
 has to take the word of his agent that it 
 was actually paid. 
 
 The disputes of the great, especially be- 
 tween near relations, last long, spread wide, 
 and are fought out with great determination. 
 I know of one celebrated faction dispute 
 between brothers, two prominent members 
 of society, whrch lasted thirty years. The 
 brothers lived within sight of each other, 
 but never spoke or had any intercourse, and 
 the multitude of hostile acts done on both 
 sides was beyond count. The disputes of 
 the poorer classes do not spread so far or last 
 so long, as there is not the same interest for 
 outsiders in fanning them, but even they 
 often last for years. 
 
 While a social dispute is going on, a 
 continuous effort is being made by bribes,
 
 MISCHIEVOUS ACTS. 27 1 
 
 entertainments, promises, threats, and even 
 violence, to detach people from one faction 
 and add them to the other. 
 
 Of minor methods of annoyance, the fol- 
 lowing are some : Setting fire to the house ; 
 driving cattle through the crops ; letting 
 loose and pounding a man's cattle ; destroy- 
 ing crops ; throwing stones or filth into the 
 homestead ; using bad language in hearing of 
 the women ; insulting the women on the way 
 to the well or the bathing-ghaut ; insolence to 
 and assaults on the men ; sending round 
 defamatory rumours against the character of 
 a family ; if the quarrel is about land, taking 
 forcible possession of it. 
 
 It may be said that many of these methods 
 of annoyance are in use in our own country. 
 Here, however, whole communities co-operate 
 to do these things, get them done, and screen 
 the perpetrators. 
 
 Many of these acts are punishable by law, 
 and up to this time no mention has been
 
 272 QUARRELS. 
 
 made of the law and police. We have now 
 to examine to what extent these have influ- 
 enced the quarrels of the people. 
 
 In a district where there are strong men 
 of influence, little trouble is given to the 
 law courts by the public. If the man of 
 influence is a just man, they care not to go 
 if he be oppressive, they dare not go to 
 court. For in the one case redress is easier 
 to get ; in the other, it is only to be got 
 elsewhere and otherwise. 
 
 There are two great divisions of the law 
 courts, the civil courts, for deciding matters 
 between private persons ; and the criminal, 
 for deciding quarrels between the State and 
 its subjects. 
 
 In case of a civil dispute, the great object of 
 each side is to drive the opposite side into 
 court as plaintiff, thus gaining the advantage 
 of possession. One of the most important 
 points in a civil suit is that of the burden of 
 proof, which means that if neither side can
 
 LAND DISPUTES. 273 
 
 prove its case, the side on which the burden of 
 proof rests must lose. That side is generally 
 the plaintiff; therefore it is an advantage 
 eagerly sought after to enter the court, not as 
 plaintiff, but as defendant. The questions in 
 which this advantage is of the greatest im- 
 portance are those of right to land ; and 
 naturally, unless a claimant is in possession, 
 he must go into court before he can exercise 
 any right. Long and desperate are often the 
 struggles before either side will admit that 
 it is out of possession. At ploughing - time 
 and at harvest-time strong forces of plough- 
 men or sicklemen, as the case may be, sally 
 forth, attended by guards of clubmen, to 
 plough up the land or reap the crop. The 
 opposite side sally forth to drive them off, if 
 strong enough ; or if not, to stand at a distance 
 and call on the Magistrate, the Company, and 
 the Great Queen to put a stop to this great 
 wrong. Sometimes the controversy does not 
 go beyond words ; but it is often decided, 
 
 s
 
 274 QUARRELS. 
 
 especially on the banks of the Ganges, in 
 Behar, or in its delta, Backergunj or Fureed- 
 pore, not without loss of life, by the weapon 
 of the country the iron-bound club, the spear, 
 or the gun. 
 
 Quarrels about land are on all scales, from 
 the petty squabble for a single field, or a 
 scarcely visible strip on the boundary, to a 
 great struggle involving many thousands of 
 acres. In whatever way possession may be 
 taken, about that quarrels arise, about catch- 
 ing fish ; cutting wood or grass, gathering 
 fruit or leaves ; quarrying or collecting stone 
 or lime, mining ; putting up houses, grazing 
 cattle, mooring boats ; establishing markets. 
 One side tries to do the acts, the other to pre- 
 vent its doing them. When the land is culti- 
 vated, each side brings pressure to bear on the 
 cultivators to pay rent solely to itself. Fight- 
 ing about such matters frequently goes a long 
 way without any one being punished, owing 
 to the dislike felt by the law courts for punish-
 
 LEGAL WARFARE. 275 
 
 ing men who are merely defending their rights, 
 which both sides of course claim to be doing. 
 If it goes too far, however, the magistrate 
 generally steps in and settles the matter by 
 declaring one side or the other to be in pos- 
 session. 
 
 At last the opponents meet in the court, 
 and get to close grips for the final tussle. It 
 has been anticipated and prepared for long 
 beforehand. In the old days the great land- 
 lord had, somewhere on his premises, a manu- 
 factory of forged title-deeds, bonds, and other 
 papers. Stamped paper of all ages was 
 bought and stored, and skilled artificers were 
 employed to imitate handwriting, and give 
 the documents an appearance of age. This 
 trade, as appears from the proceedings of 
 the law courts, is not yet extinct, though 
 the Registration Laws have reduced its 
 dimensions. 
 
 The contending parties in most lawsuits are 
 men of small or moderate means, but a man
 
 276 QUARRELS. 
 
 will usually spend all he has and all he can 
 borrow in fighting his case. 
 
 In the law court, as outside, the long purse 
 gives its owner an immense advantage. It 
 can pay good lawyers ; bribe the confidential 
 servants of the other side to give useful 
 information or papers ; cool their zeal, and 
 get them to make mistakes. It can buy 
 and bring forward witnesses on his own 
 side, and frighten or corrupt those on the 
 other ; and it can forward his business in 
 the court by timely gifts to the various 
 officials about it. When the case has been 
 decided, if he loses he can afford to renew 
 the battle again and again with applications 
 of appeal, for revision or for review, and so 
 wear down his opponents. Those who have 
 more friends than money depend on the work 
 outside the court, frightening away the evi- 
 dence of the opposite side, and marshalling 
 hosts of witnesses on their own. 
 
 After the decree is fairly established, and
 
 LITIGATION A SPORT. 277 
 
 cannot be shaken, comes the difficult task of 
 executing; it. A decree is nothing till it is 
 
 O O 
 
 executed, and that process is delayed by eva- 
 sion, violence, fraud, corruption, and all man- 
 ner of means. The struggle, before it ends, is 
 often one over the costs, which have probably 
 mounted up far above the intrinsic value of 
 the property fought over. England is not the 
 only country where the lawyers get the oyster 
 and their clients the shell. 
 
 But is it not stupid to go on fighting 
 spending much for a comparatively worthless 
 object ? Many people say it is, and laugh at 
 those who do it as foolishly litigious. But 
 many as are the motives for which a lawsuit 
 is entered on, fun is seldom one of them. In 
 Eastern Bengal, indeed, litigation seems to be 
 a popular sport. It is said that many Chit- 
 tagong men, who have made a modest fortune 
 at sea, look out, when the time conies for 
 them to settle down on shore, for a nice 
 piece of land with a good tough lawsuit on
 
 278 QUARRELS. 
 
 it. In Tipperah the youth who has won his 
 first case is as proud as the English lad who 
 has made a hundred runs at cricket. 
 
 In general, however, the mood of the 
 litigant is more serious, as well it may be. 
 He may have been dragged into court, for at 
 least one party is there against his will. A 
 man goes to law, or accepts a challenge, for 
 his own safety and comfort. He has many 
 business relations with many men, and their 
 treatment of him will depend a good deal on 
 how he defends his rights. If men see he 
 will fight resolutely, they leave him alone. 
 " If you wish for peace, be ready for war." 
 Many struggles between determined oppon- 
 ents end in a compromise, and this more 
 especially if they find some one of such rank 
 that it will be no disgrace to do his bidding. 
 Thus the knight of old fought on, and some- 
 times gave up his life unless he found one to 
 whom he could honourably yield his sword. 
 I remember many instances in which I and
 
 CRIMINAL CASES. 279 
 
 others were able to settle old - standing 
 quarrels ; and this is one of the chief, and, 
 when successfully performed, most pleasant 
 duties of British officers in India. 
 
 As for criminal cases, they are fought out 
 more sharply. There is never any question 
 of burden of proof in these, as that is always, 
 in British courts, on the prosecution. One 
 accustomed to British ways will find it hard 
 to realise those of Bengal. 
 
 We are to suppose that the matter is to 
 go to court, and has not been suppressed or 
 hushed up. There is a rush to the police or 
 the magistrate, and a wild mixture of plaus- 
 ible false charges with possibly some that are 
 true. Liberal use is made of " embroidery " 
 twenty men being charged where the real 
 case is against one, and serious charges hung 
 round the neck of the comparatively frivolous 
 fact that is true. Most probably the false 
 accuser gets the start of the true. 
 
 The case gets into the hands of touts, who,
 
 280 QUARRELS. 
 
 to use a figure, are splendid skirmishers and 
 foragers, and skilful in taking advantage of 
 cover. Criminal charges are often made use 
 of purely as a weapon of annoyance against 
 the enemy. Thus if a man's house is burnt 
 down by accident, he promptly takes advan- 
 tage of his misfortune to lay a charge of arson 
 against his enemy, and has ready numerous 
 witnesses who "happened to be out at the 
 time " (midnight), and saw the match applied. 
 Or if he was an unsuccessful suitor for a 
 woman's hand in marriage, he will prosecute 
 her for bigamy when she marries, and have 
 plenty of witnesses who were present when 
 she was previously married to him. 
 
 Or, if some of his people meet with an 
 accidental death, a neighbour is charged with 
 the murder. I remember a family quarrel 
 in which there were a father and two sons 
 the younger favoured, the elder hated. The 
 younger hid away, and the father prosecuted 
 the elder son for the kidnapping and murder
 
 PERJURY. 281 
 
 of his brother. That charge was proved 
 false, and the father was prosecuted for mak- 
 ing it. Soon after, the father, while out on 
 bail, having had a quarrel with the elder 
 son in the fields, fell down in a fit and died. 
 The younger son then prosecuted his elder 
 brother for the murder of their father, and 
 had witnesses to prove that he was clubbed. 
 The evidence of the surgeon showed that to 
 be false ; and a fresh set of witnesses were 
 produced to prove that the father was strang- 
 led by the son, which also the surgeon pro- 
 nounced false. Corsicans are not more vin- 
 dictive. 
 
 I have attempted in the next chapter 
 to give a livelier notion than any general 
 description can, of the infinite variety of 
 intrigue and rascality that goes on in our 
 courts. 
 
 A Service poet has aptly described the 
 occupation of the Indian judge as 
 
 " To dive in wells of perjury for truth."
 
 282 QUARRELS. 
 
 It is more like groping in quagmires of 
 perjury for the same. Partly owing to the 
 lenient attitude which, with the hope of 
 drawing people to our courts, the Govern- 
 ment and the Legislature have adopted to- 
 wards perjury; partly because falsehood and 
 fraud are common in the country, the com- 
 mission of perjury in court is not seriously 
 condemned by public opinion. It is rarely 
 punished by the law, because, to punish it 
 in a criminal court, the burden of proof must 
 be discharged, and proof depends on evidence 
 between which and that which is to be 
 proved false there is seldom much to choose. 
 Yet on evidence which is not good enough 
 to prove perjury, heavy and important 
 claims are decided ; and men are condemned 
 to death, transportation, imprisonment, and 
 fine. 
 
 This is the weak point the doubtful good 
 of the law. The courts are beset by hired 
 champions of all grades, from the chivalrous
 
 JUSTICE DEFEATED. 283 
 
 barrister and high - minded pleader, who are 
 rarely let into the secrets of the trickery 
 used, down to the unscrupulous tout, who 
 tutors false witnesses, flings about bribes and 
 threats, and generally docs all the dirty 
 work for his side. Perjury is opposed to 
 perjury ; false charge to false charge ; liand- 
 fuls of dust are thrown in the eyes of Justice, 
 first by one side, then by the other, until 
 she is in danger of becoming blind in reality, 
 and is too often blear-eyed. 
 
 Was it well to withdraw the supremacy 
 from the champions of physical force, and 
 hand it over to those of the tongue and 
 the pen ? Physical force still reigns, for the 
 Government wielded and wields the power 
 which controls other powers. But formerly 
 the great landlords and men of wealth were 
 not much interfered with, and spent their 
 wealth on the maintenance of bravos. Now 
 the power of the State is placed at the dis- 
 posal of the courts, and the courts are swayed
 
 284 QUARRELS. 
 
 by the paid lawyers, witnesses, and other 
 means which the wealth is used to provide 
 instead of the clubmen of old. Let us hope 
 that at least the change is not for the worse. 
 
 Skilled judges of probabilities often mingle 
 physical violence with legal proceedings, as 
 did the litigants who caught their opponent 
 at the back of the court-house and gave 
 him a great thrashing, rightly judging that 
 the court would not believe his story, but 
 would look on it as a trick. 
 
 The whole business is a game of odds and 
 evens, where my constant effort is to guess 
 which of two things you have in your hand, 
 and you are trying to do the same by me. 
 Only two alternatives, and yet an endless 
 mystery. So ends my dream of quarrels.
 
 A DREAM OF LAW COURTS
 
 287 
 
 POSSESSION. 
 
 A DREAM OF LAW COURTS. 
 
 /^iNE hot afternoon in May, about twenty 
 years ago, there was excitement in the 
 village of Fureedpore. It was not the sort 
 of year when people are easily excited, for 
 there had been a good fall of rain, and the 
 people were busied with their ploughing. 
 
 The fact was that Hurbullub Sing, the old 
 hereditary landlord of the village, after a 
 long struggle with debt and difficulties, had 
 at last failed to pay the Government revenue. 
 His title had been put up to auction, and 
 bought for 15,000 rupees on account of a 
 Calcutta merchant, one Rdmchandra Shaw.
 
 288 POSSESSION. 
 
 The collector's bailiff had stuck up a bamboo, 
 and proclaimed by beat of drum the change 
 of ownership, and that all dues to the owner 
 must now be paid to Rdmchandra Shaw. 
 Ramchandra had appointed as his naib or 
 deputy one Ra"m Ratan Rai, a friend of his, 
 who had come to the village and gained the 
 support of Ratikanta Ghose, a well - to - do 
 ryot, whom he appointed local rent-collector. 
 It was now time to make the punnia, and 
 the prospect of this ceremony was the cause 
 of the excitement. Every year the landlord 
 makes his punnia that is, holds a meeting 
 of ryots, and takes from each a small nomi- 
 nal sum, as a sign of acknowledgment that 
 he is landlord. In ordinary times this is a 
 mere formality, but when there is a change 
 of landlords, it becomes a matter of the 
 greatest importance. The new landlord, 
 unless he has been acknowledged as such 
 by the village ryots, has to undertake a 
 tedious and expensive course of litigation
 
 HURBULLUB. 289 
 
 before he can exercise any of the rights he 
 has acquired. There was good hope that 
 the ryots would acquiesce in the change, for 
 they had been on notoriously bad terms 
 with Hurbullub Sing, who had worsted them, 
 both by violence in the village and by fraud 
 and perjury in the courts. His right - hand 
 man in all these battles, both physical and 
 legal, had been one Koylesh, a dalldl or 
 quack lawyer. 
 
 Hurbullub did not intend to give way to 
 Ramchandra without a fight, and had called 
 a meeting of the ryots to discuss the situa- 
 tion. Partly from old habit, partly from 
 curiosity, they obeyed ; and were accordingly 
 assembled in the great open space before his 
 house the only masonry house in the village 
 where, under a venerable banyan-tree, had 
 been held for the last century all the fairs, 
 meetings, and festivals of the village. It 
 w r as a sad meeting-. Hurbullub himself w^as 
 
 O 
 
 bent with care and age, and his face was 
 
 T
 
 290 POSSESSION. 
 
 darkened with gloom. His house cracked 
 and overgrown with weeds corresponded 
 but too well with his ruined fortunes. The 
 instinctive respect of generations did not 
 prevent some of those present from taunting 
 Hurbullub with his oppressive conduct in 
 former times how he had levied contribu- 
 tions ; extorted obedience to his will, pre- 
 venting resort to the law courts, and gen- 
 erally acted the tyrant. He admitted that 
 he had oppressed, but argued that he had 
 taken no more than he needed, when he 
 needed it ; that he had spent it all among 
 the ryots, and that if he prevented them 
 from going to law it was for their own profit, 
 since any man who went to law was pretty 
 sure to be ruined, whether he lost or won. 
 He then warned the ryots that their new 
 landlord would be a very different customer, 
 and would by hook or crook get their rents 
 squeezed up, so that he would take regularly 
 far more than their old landlord had taken,
 
 A MANUFACTURED WOUND. 291 
 
 even including the occasional contributions. 
 When asked why he thought this, he pointed 
 out that Ramchandra was a trader and a 
 stranger, and had paid down 15,000 rupees 
 for the village. He would want a return for 
 this investment, and could not get the return 
 unless he raised the rents. This would end 
 in ruin for all. 
 
 The ryots, being impressed with this argu- 
 ment, were persuaded to have nothing to do 
 with Ramchandra ; and accordingly, when his 
 naib, Ram Ratan, appeared, they joined Hur- 
 bullub in driving the naib and his two peons, 
 or attendants, out of the village. In the 
 scuffle Potit Ghose got wounded on the head. 
 Hurbullub sent for Koylesh, who at once 
 began to organise proceedings. Criminal 
 charges were to be laid against Ram Ratan 
 
 o o 
 
 and his men, and for this purpose Potit's 
 wound was to be utilised. As this founda- 
 tion was not sufficient, it was determined to 
 add to it by manufacturing a wound ; and
 
 292 POSSESSION. 
 
 accordingly Nilu Bagdi, a low-caste drunkard 
 of the village, was hired for a couple of rupees 
 to let himself be wounded for the occasion. 
 Jodu, the ryot appointed to wound him, 
 struck rather harder than he intended, so 
 that Nilu was not only wounded but killed. 
 On seeing this, Koylesh gave a whoop of 
 triumph, since no one cared a straw for the 
 death of a man so low in caste, and straight- 
 way made all the arrangements for laying 
 a charge of murder. The police were sent 
 for, and the body was got ready to go 
 for post - mortem examination by the civil 
 surgeon. Potit also was to lay his charge 
 before the police instead of before the 
 magistrate. 
 
 We turn now to the lodgings of Baykanta 
 Mookerjea, a pleader in Dowlatpore, the 
 magistrate's headquarters, about twenty miles 
 distant from Fureedpore. Here Ramchandra 
 himself, who had come up from Calcutta to 
 see about his new estate, was discussing
 
 A CHARGE OF MURDER. 293 
 
 affairs with Baykanta, who explained to him, 
 much to his chagrin, that it was not at all 
 certain whether the ryots would accept him as 
 their landlord, and unless they did he would 
 have a good deal of trouble and expense 
 before he touched his rents. Ramchandra, 
 who was not inclined to believe that after he 
 had paid for the property there could be any- 
 thing more to pay, began to see that there 
 was something in this view of the case ; for 
 as they were talking, Ram Ratan came in, 
 walking very stiff, to announce that he had 
 been beaten and driven away by the other 
 side. While they were yet discussing what 
 was to be done next, one of Ram Ratan's 
 men rushed in to announce that a charge of 
 murder had been instituted, and the body 
 was being brought in. Baykanta, who was 
 not at all sure whether the charge was true 
 or false, declined at this stage to have any- 
 thing to do with the case, and sent Ram- 
 chandra and his men round to a dalldl or
 
 294 POSSESSION. 
 
 quack lawyer called Sital. Sital, at once 
 coming to the point, urged Ram Ratan to 
 tell him the truth, whether the murder was 
 really committed or not. This was denied so 
 earnestly, that Sital was inclined to believe 
 R<tm Ratan innocent. Sital was, however, 
 far too artful a man to rest satisfied with a 
 true defence, so he at once devised a false 
 one, accepting as many of the facts alleged 
 by the other side as he could. He instructed 
 Ram Ratan to admit that a man had been 
 killed by one of his peons, to allege that it 
 had been done in self-defence, to hide away 
 the peon, and to charge the other side with 
 kidnapping or murdering him. He said that 
 as Ra"m Ratan had already lost much ground 
 by not going straight to the police - station 
 near Fureedpore, he must now lose no time 
 in going to the magistrate. Rdmchandra now 
 did a thing which gave Sital grave offence ; 
 when he gave Sital 100 rupees for expenses 
 he asked for a stamped receipt, and requested
 
 ARREST OF RAM RATAN. 295 
 
 that accounts should be kept, which was not 
 Sital's way of doing business. 
 
 Earn Ratan went direct to the magistrate's 
 court, and there found Mr Smith, the magis- 
 trate, a young Englishman under thirty years 
 of age, sitting at his desk in a hot, stuffy, 
 ill-ventilated room, rank with the odour o 
 a crowd of natives. He had just been going 
 through his correspondence, and, not long 
 before Ram Ratan's arrival, had heard the 
 court sub-inspector read aloud the first in- 
 formation report of the Fureedpore murder 
 case as arranged by Koylesh. 
 
 Ram Ratan, being sworn, now duly gave to 
 the best of his ability the counter-charge as ar- 
 ranged for him by Sital. After a few questions 
 had been asked, however, he was arrested by 
 the magistrate, and sent off to the police, who 
 were already inquiring into the murder case. 
 
 When Ram Ratan and his escort arrived, 
 the sub-inspector of police was arranging the 
 terms on which he should support Hurbullub's
 
 296 POSSESSION. 
 
 side of the case. The bribe was 200 rupees, 
 and it was to be reported that Hurbullub was 
 still at enmity with the ryots, who were now 
 fighting Ramchandra entirely on their own 
 account. Earn Ratan, who had had no time 
 to communicate with his master, was now 
 permitted to do so, and wrote to him im- 
 ploring him to come at once with money 
 to satisfy the sub-inspector. Knowing what 
 he was probably writing, Koylesh sent Ram- 
 chandra an anonymous warning that Ra"m 
 Ratan wanted to decoy him into a remote 
 place where he would probably be robbed and 
 maltreated. 
 
 Both the letters reached Rdmchandra about 
 the same time. The poor merchant was grow- 
 ing very sick of the whole business. When 
 he bought the property he had no idea that 
 he would meet with any difficulties, and now, 
 with the suspicion of ignorance, he was too 
 ready to swallow Koylesh's bait, and to look 
 on Ra"m Ratan's letter as a trap laid for
 
 RAMCHANDRA'S STINGINESS. 297 
 
 himself. He ended by making up his mind 
 to do what must in any case be wrong. He 
 would not go himself, nor would he send 
 the money asked for, but he would send 
 Sital, and let him take another 100 ru- 
 pees. Sital came at his call, and gave him 
 good advice to go himself, or, if he sent 
 an agent, to give sufficient funds. Eam- 
 chandra would not be moved, and finally Sital 
 went with the 100 rupees, convinced that his 
 case was as good as lost. Still, true to his 
 code of honour, he made one desperate effort 
 to gain over the sub-inspector by the offer of 
 a heavy payment, to be made in the future, 
 with a small sum down. The sub-inspector, 
 well knowing that by the time the money 
 became due the case would be out of his 
 hands, scornfully refused the offer. 
 
 Sital's honour was now satisfied, and he felt 
 at liberty to make what he could out of the 
 case, which his employer's stinginess and 
 stupidity had lost.
 
 298 POSSESSION. 
 
 Ram Ratan was indignant with Ramchan- 
 dra. " Of course I was going to make money," 
 he said, " but out of the ryots, not out of 
 my master at least, not so soon." 
 
 "To be sure," said Hurbullub ; "stealing 
 the seed is poor thieving. It is best to sow 
 a]l the seed, and wait and steal the crop." 
 
 There was not one of those assembled who 
 did not despise Ramchandra, and feel indig- 
 nant at so poor-spirited a fighter entering the 
 lists, and Sital's suggestion to involve him as 
 an accused person was unanimously adopted. 
 " Money," said Sital, " will pour when he is 
 in. We are all made men." 
 
 Accordingly next forenoon, while Baykanta, 
 discussing affairs with Rdmchandra, was ex- 
 plaining to the merchant that, having em- 
 ployed Sital to do dirty work, he ought not 
 to be surprised if such a man had unclean 
 hands, the sub-inspector arrived, and arrested 
 Ramchandra on a charge of murder. This 
 was a dreadful blow, all the more dreadful for
 
 RAMCHANDRA IN TROUBLE. 299 
 
 its suddenness. The merchant's notions about 
 money underwent a revolution. Whereas he 
 had grudged every rupee, his one anxiety 
 now seemed to be to devise new ways of 
 spending money for bringing about his ac- 
 quittal. The most expensive counsel were to 
 be engaged, and, in short, nothing spared. 
 
 We now come to the preliminary inquiry 
 by the magistrate, Mr Smith. In the same 
 court stuffier than ever Mr Smith had been 
 sitting for several days listening to the evi- 
 dence of the witnesses, and this was the con- 
 cluding day. A barrister the famous Mr 
 Bullion had been brought up at great ex- 
 pense his fee for the day exceeding the 
 income of Mr Smith for the month ; and be- 
 side him was a string of pleaders and lawyers 
 all engaged with the money of Ramchandra. 
 On the opposite side sat the court sub- in- 
 spector, a small and rather sad-looking man 
 in a very shabby uniform. 
 
 Koylesh's idea of the effect this would have
 
 300 POSSESSION. 
 
 on Mr Smith's mind was a just one. It 
 prejudiced Mr Smith on behalf of the weaker 
 side, and, without intending it, he showed 
 a decided leaning that way. It is difficult 
 to stand upright with a man pushing on 
 one side only, and so Mr Smith unconscious- 
 ly leaned. After the eloquence of the bar- 
 rister had been duly exerted, Mr Smith 
 ended as Koylesh expected he would, in com- 
 mitting Ramchandra and all his people for 
 trial to the Sessions Court. But he would 
 not make the charge one of murder man- 
 slaughter, he thought, was alone established. 
 Koylesh was full of scorn for Sital, who 
 had brought up a barrister and then given 
 him false instructions. Poor Rdmchandra 
 was heart-broken. Like most clients, especi- 
 ally when inexperienced, he had been full 
 of admiration for his counsel's speech, and 
 of confidence that no possible answer could 
 be found. He was therefore prostrated with 
 grief when he found that he was not yet
 
 RAMCHANDRA'S DESPAIR. 301 
 
 free, and vented his anger on his agents, 
 
 ' O O ' 
 
 on the magistrate, on his opponents, and 
 on every one but himself. " The magistrate 
 was bribed," he cried. "No," said Bay- 
 kanta, " though I have known men to give- 
 large subscriptions to hospitals or schools, 
 tanks or roads, that the authorities were in- 
 terested in, and sometimes they had as good 
 an effect as bribes. It is, however, too late 
 for any move of that sort now." 
 
 Then began Kamchandra to see before him 
 a vision of his life to come, and the life 
 that he had lived. He had lived in Cal- 
 cutta at his ease. Kice and milk, sweet- 
 meats and dainties, nautches and drives, 
 and even great dinners the smiles of the 
 
 o 
 
 great, and municipal honours, all these lay 
 behind him. What was before him ? Five 
 years or more of prison life, striped clothing ; 
 hard labour ; regulation rations ; no tobacco ; 
 punishment, perhaps the lash ; nay, even the 
 terrors of the central jail at Alipore, or the
 
 302 POSSESSION. 
 
 horrors, unknown and therefore appalling, 
 of the Andamans. He shuddered at the 
 thought, and was ready now for Koylesh 
 to play upon. 
 
 This Koylesh proceeded to do, secretly 
 abetted by Sital, who still acted as the 
 merchant's adviser. Holding up before Ka"m- 
 chandra the horrid prospect of jail-life, and 
 thrusting it in his eyes every moment that 
 he was inclined to forget it, Koylesh by its 
 means extorted from the unhappy merchant 
 concession after concession, until he was 
 stripped bare of all he had bought and more. 
 He was to remain nominal proprietor of Fur- 
 eedpore, but was to give Hurbullub a perpet- 
 ual lease of the whole, receiving only a little 
 more than the revenue payable to Govern- 
 ment. That revenue was a very small sum, 
 and the whole of the purchase-money, with 
 this exception, went to Hurbullub, who thus, 
 notwithstanding the proverb, both had his 
 cake and ate it. Then he lost all his own
 
 SITAL'S TREACHERY. 303 
 
 expenses, which were very heavy, and was 
 required to pay down 5000 rupees more as 
 costs to the other side. On these conditions 
 it was agreed that the case at the sessions 
 should break down, and Ramchandra go free. 
 There was a neighbouring proprietor who 
 had bid against Rdmchandra at the auction, 
 and was now ready to offer him better terms, 
 but he was not permitted to accept them, 
 and was forced to drive away the man who 
 made the offer. 
 
 Poor Eamchandra went off to weep his 
 eyes out in a quiet corner, and Koylesh and 
 Sital retired to get the deeds drafted, and 
 prepare the case for breaking down. Ram- 
 chandra had found out Sital's treachery ; but 
 far from being ashamed of it, Sital poured 
 ridicule on him for making it necessary by 
 his niggardly conduct. 
 
 So at last the deeds were drafted, signed, 
 and registered, and, as arranged, the case 
 came before the Court of Sessions, and ended
 
 304 POSSESSION. 
 
 in the acquittal of all the accused. Ra"m- 
 chandra could not make out how such a 
 thing could be managed. Hurbullub said he 
 was not very sure, but he generally found that 
 if he desired a man to be ruined or saved by 
 a legal proceeding, he had only to instruct the 
 cunning Koylesh, and the thing was done. 
 
 "All this," he said, "is new-fangled, and I 
 have never been clever enough to understand 
 how it is done. In the days of my youth we 
 used to fight it out with clubs, which I had 
 no difficulty in understanding. Now, how- 
 ever, the Government won't allow that to 
 be done openly, and I have to consult 
 Koylesh before I can do even that without 
 getting into trouble. Instead of clubmen in 
 the field, we now employ lawyers in the court. 
 It costs more, but I must say it is more 
 thorough, ruining at least one side, and some- 
 times both. I don't know how it is managed. 
 It is managed, however, as you have seen for 
 yourself."
 
 THE BITER BIT. 305 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Ramchandra ; " but surely 
 all this is very wrong. People in Calcutta 
 will hardly believe me when I tell them of 
 the violent people, the fraudulent lawyers, 
 and the corrupt police that are to be met with 
 in the Mofussil." 
 
 " Steady there ! " said Hurbullub. " If we 
 are violent and crooked, it is only when we 
 don't get leave to be straight. You, above 
 all men, have no right to say a word, for you 
 came to fight, and cannot complain if you are 
 hit back." 
 
 " I had no intention," said Rdmchandra, 
 "of hurting any one." 
 
 " Oh, a fig for your intentions ! " said Hur- 
 bullub. "You came to turn me out of my 
 ancestral property ; and if you thought that 
 would not hurt, you were a fool." 
 
 "And then," said Potit, "did you not pay 
 15,000 rupees for the village, which you were 
 going to get back by raising our rents ? " 
 
 " Why," said the merchant, " I did not for 
 u
 
 306 POSSESSION. 
 
 a moment think of the villagers' suffering. It 
 was merely an investment, as it might have 
 been in sugar or piece-goods." 
 
 "Fool again/' said Potit, "if you cannot 
 see what must happen to us if your invest- 
 ment turns out well for you." 
 
 " I hope," said Jodu, " that now you have 
 had a taste of our quality, you will let us 
 alone for the future." 
 
 " I would as soon," said the merchant, 
 " handle cobras and scorpions. But I will at 
 least have the satisfaction of showing you up, 
 and your police and lawyers, when I get back 
 to Calcutta. Corruption and fraud shall at 
 least be exposed, and perhaps punished. The 
 High Court shall know the conduct which 
 your magistrates and judges allow to pass 
 unpunished." 
 
 " How do you propose," said the sub-in- 
 spector, " to accuse me of corruption ? " 
 
 " I will do so in the public press," said 
 the merchant.
 
 WHY RAMCHANDRA SAID NOTHING. 307 
 
 " Well," said the sub - inspector, " many 
 people do that, and then one of two things 
 happens. Either my superiors take no notice, 
 in which case it is not worth my while to 
 pay any attention to what you say ; or I 
 am called on to defend my character, in which 
 case it will be my painful duty to prosecute 
 you or sue you for damages in the courts." 
 
 " And let me warn you," said Baykanta, 
 "that I have no superiors to consider; but 
 my character is my means of livelihood, and 
 if I catch you saying a word against it to 
 any one or anywhere, I shall at once institute 
 legal proceedings." 
 
 "And so shall we all we lawyers," said 
 Koylesh. 
 
 " Eemember," said Sital, " that you have 
 disgusted by your stinginess and selfishness 
 all those of your own side, so there is not 
 a soul in the whole country-side who would 
 give evidence for you." 
 
 " And who are you, to expose fraud and
 
 308 POSSESSION. 
 
 corruption ? " said Ra"m Ratan " you who are 
 as deep in them as any of us ? You were 
 ready enough to use them for the ruin of 
 the other side." 
 
 "Oh! oh!" said Riimchandra to himself, 
 "what shall I do ? what shall I do, if I can't 
 even speak my mind ? " 
 
 And that is how Ramchandra the merchant 
 went back to his shop in Calcutta, and did 
 not become a great landlord. 
 
 To those who have no experience of rural 
 India, the above account of the manner in 
 which the law is made to serve local purposes 
 may seem overdrawn. Those who have that 
 experience, however, will probably consider 
 it only a mild and imperfect picture of the 
 reality. Where there is a Hurbullub on 
 either side, the struggle is more equal, longer, 
 and more complicated, as may be guessed. 
 The Calcutta merchant was a stranger, un- 
 skilled in the ways of rural litigation, and 
 made but a short stand.
 
 A PEEP 
 INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY
 
 311 
 
 A PEEP 
 INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 river Ganges, on its eastward course, 
 after passing Patna and Bhaugulpore, 
 and just before it finally enters the delta 
 of Lower Bengal, lias to pass by the northern 
 foot of a range of low hills, which seem to 
 push it off its course, for immediately on 
 passing them it sweeps round to the south. 
 These low hills, which here and there 
 reach a height of 2000 feet, extend south- 
 wards for about 100 miles, and form the 
 nucleus of a revenue district whose area 
 is 5500 square miles, and its population a 
 million and three - quarters, known as the 
 Sonthal Pergunnahs.
 
 312 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 This, though only a single one of the 
 forty-six districts of which the province of 
 Lower Bengal is made up, contains much 
 that deserves notice. There are the sacred 
 Hindoo shrine of Baidyanath, one of the 
 four holy places of Bengal ; the ancient city 
 of Rajmehal, once capital of the province ; 
 the old fort of Teliagurhi, once, in Ma- 
 homedan times, the key between Bengal and 
 Behar, standing on a spur of the hill that 
 plunges straight down into the river Ganges ; 
 and the Murgo Pass, through which, avoid- 
 ing this stronghold, the Mahrattas poured 
 into Bengal. There are everywhere remains 
 of forts, and ancient traditions which tell 
 of the days when chief fought with chief, 
 and violence reigned. Again, there is an 
 interesting mixture of races the Hindoos 
 from the plains of Bengal and Behar, and 
 from the far-away west ; the usual admixture 
 of Mussulmans ; the ancient aboriginal races 
 of the Paharias, living on the hill-tops ; the
 
 A MIXED POPULATION. 313 
 
 Blumyas, Khetowries, and Nats, holding the 
 ground to the west of the hills ; and above 
 all, the Sonthals, whose name the district 
 bears, and who have spread upwards from 
 Orissa and the south, till now they are over- 
 flowing even to the north of the Ganges. 
 
 The purpose of the following pages, how- 
 ever, is to introduce the reader to a very in- 
 teresting experiment in local self-government 
 which was begun a hundred years ago, and 
 entered on its present stage in 1856, the 
 year before the Mutiny. It is an experi- 
 ment in self - government of which the 
 reader is not likely to hear much from the 
 newspapers, which know little of these parts ; 
 or from the Congress, which has little to 
 do with any but high - caste Hindoos ; or 
 from statistical returns or accounts, for it 
 is not one of the various schemes of muni- 
 cipal and district boards which have been 
 established by statute. Yet, from a practi- 
 cal point of view, it is more important, if
 
 314 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 less interesting, than all of these ; just as 
 field cultivation in England is more im- 
 portant than the rich man's hothouse or 
 costly garden. It is a work for everyday 
 use, carried on without much tending, deal- 
 ing with a whole community ; and, like most 
 institutions that succeed, this one has its 
 origin in the nature of the people and the 
 country, rather than in the head of any 
 law-maker, however wise or ingenious. 
 
 It would be tedious to attempt a complete 
 description of the plant that has thus been 
 nursed up in the Sonthal Pergunnahs. Per- 
 haps, however, an idea of it can be given 
 by showing the reader some of its roots in 
 the past, and giving him a peep at it as it 
 grows. 
 
 A hundred years ago, these hills were 
 thickly covered with forest, full of game 
 and beasts of prey. From time immemorial 
 there lived a race of Paharias or highlanders, 
 literally on the hill -tops, and not, like the
 
 CATERANS. 315 
 
 Highlanders of Scotland, in the glens below. 
 Like the old caterans, they would raid the 
 plains, and carry off their spoil of cattle and 
 other goods to their jungle fastnesses. Living 
 by hunting and plunder, they successfully 
 defied all the efforts of the Mahomedan 
 rulers of the land, and of their deputies the 
 great landlords, to subdue them. Accordingly, 
 when the British rule succeeded the Ma- 
 homedan, the Government withdrew this 
 country to the extent of some 1300 square 
 miles from the control of the landlords, took 
 it into its own hands, and deputed officers 
 to civilise and subdue the hillmen. 
 
 One of these officers, Cleveland by name, 
 who died at the early age of twenty-nine, 
 made himself a lasting name by his efforts 
 for the welfare of the hillmen. He found 
 that, far from being an incoherent mass of 
 lawless men, as their enemies described them, 
 the Paharias were strongly organised, each 
 hill - village under its Manjhi or headman,
 
 316 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 and villages again in groups under Sardars 
 or chiefs, and Naibs (Nawab or Nabob is a 
 form of this word) or deputies. He thought 
 it possible to transform them from robbers 
 and hunters perched on the hill-tops into 
 peaceful cultivators of the plains below, and 
 to this end he induced the Government to 
 reserve the plains as a heritage rent-free for 
 all Paharias who would come down, clear, 
 and cultivate. 
 
 To enable them to live meantime, he got 
 stipends for their chiefs, and he utilised the 
 surplus energy of the young men by raising 
 a regiment of paid and disciplined men, who, 
 first as archers, and then as a regular regi- 
 ment armed with muskets, were depended 
 on to keep the peace in the hills. The 
 regiment was known as the Hill Rangers. 
 
 Then he established, or rather strengthened 
 and gave authority to, an assembly of hill 
 chiefs, to whom, instead of to the ordinary 
 courts, was given jurisdiction over all Paharias
 
 CLEVELAND'S SETTLEMENT. 317 
 
 charged with offences against the law. Before 
 
 O O 
 
 this tribunal was held the great trial at 
 Bhaugulpore, mentioned in a former chapter, 
 of 120 men for a raid in which murders were 
 committed and 900 head of cattle were lifted. 
 Some were condemned to death, and many 
 imprisoned. 
 
 What might have happened had Cleveland, 
 with his great personal influence and the 
 deep interest he took in the Paharias, lived 
 to work out his own plans, we cannot tell. 
 Possibly he might have got them down from 
 their hills, to clear and occupy the plains 
 and valleys below. As it is, they never 
 came down, and there are their children 
 still, perched upon the hill - tops, a feeble 
 and waning race. 
 
 For over thirty years the straths and glens 
 below and between the hills were left vacant 
 for the hillmen to enter and take possession, 
 but in vain. A change then came over the 
 policy of the Government.
 
 318 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 From the jungles of the south-west 
 Orissa and Chota Nagpore there had come 
 streaming into the country around swarms 
 upon swarms of Sonthals. The Sonthals, 
 unlike the Paharias, were very industrious, 
 and great clearers of jungle. A Sonthal, 
 when he sees a tree, says, " Here is a tree, 
 let me cut it down," just as a Bengali says 
 when he sees clean water, " Here is clean 
 water, let me steep my jute in it." They 
 were fond of hunting, skilful in the use of 
 the bow, fond of all kinds of fun, and would 
 dance, men and women, all through a moon- 
 light night, to the music of the drum and 
 the flute ; accustomed to eat all kinds of food 
 grain, roots, mushrooms, leaves, fruits and 
 nuts, animals and birds, and even snakes 
 and ants ; great drinkers of beer, which they 
 made of rice ; full of health and energy ; 
 mighty workers in earth, damming streams, 
 and turning the sandy, boulder-strewn beds 
 of torrents into terraced rice -fields; very
 
 THE SONTHALS. 319 
 
 clannish among themselves, defying alike 
 the terrors of wild beasts and of malaria, 
 and turning uninhabited wastes into fields 
 of rice and maize. Such were the Sonthals. 
 
 They were very strongly organised among 
 themselves, being always grouped in villages, 
 each of which had its officials. The village 
 houses stood in a double row along the single 
 lane or kulhi, in which stood the manjhi 
 than or town - hall, an open shed supposed 
 to be inhabited by the village guardian 
 spirits old man Manjhi and old woman 
 Manjhi. 
 
 Chief of the village officials was the Manjhi 
 or headman, generally the original clearer 
 or his representative, and he was the magis- 
 trate, controlled (for the Sonthals were very 
 republican) by a pancliayet or council of 
 five elders. Then there came the Paranuinik 
 or village field-bailiff, who looked after the 
 distribution of the fields ; the Naik or priest, 
 the Jog Manjhi or censor of morals, and the
 
 320 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 Gorait or messenger. Among the duties of 
 the Jog Manjhi is one both comical and 
 useful. When all the rest get drunk, he 
 is bound to remain sober and soothe quarrels. 
 The influence of the 'Jog Manjhi to restore 
 good feeling and prevent violence is said to 
 be often magical, loud voices becoming mild 
 and the raised hand sinking at a word from 
 him. 
 
 The villages, again, were grouped under 
 Purgunaits or district chiefs, who had their 
 assistants, the Des Manjhi or chief constable, 
 and Chakladar or revenue assistant. The 
 Purgunait is the highest in rank among the 
 Sonthals. But with them no single man 
 or group of men is allowed to be master. 
 Before any action is taken, there must al- 
 ways be a dump or session the villagers 
 meeting in session at the manjhi than or 
 town-hall, in the kulhi or lane and with them 
 the kulhi dump is a ceremony of the first 
 importance. For matters of more general
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 321 
 
 importance the Purgunait calls a meeting 
 of all his villages. Once a year all the 
 Sonthals who can get together meet for their 
 great annual hunt. This is in March, when the 
 rice-harvest is over, before cultivation begins, 
 when the sal forest is bare of leaves, and 
 game can be most easily seen and followed. 
 Here matters of general interest are dis- 
 cussed and settled, and here one Sonthal is 
 as good as another, unpopular Purgunaits 
 and Manjhies occasionally coming in for 
 rough treatment. 
 
 To this people, so organised, the Govern- 
 ment threw open the unoccupied valleys and 
 glens of the Paharia reserve, this old-world 
 Oklohama of fifty-five years ago, and there 
 was a rush of adventurous spirits, who 
 quickly, after their manner, formed villages, 
 made clearings, and settled down, with their 
 Purgunaits, Manjhies, and other officers, kulhi 
 dumps, great annual hunts, and all. 
 
 The Sonthals had as who has not ? - 
 x
 
 322 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 their plagues and parasites, which followed 
 and fastened on them. The Hindoo culti- 
 vators from the plains of Bengal and Behar, 
 not bold enough themselves to clear jungle, 
 would follow the Sonthal pioneers, and worry 
 or cheat them out of the land they had 
 reclaimed with so great labour. The money- 
 lender and trader, out of a small debt, would 
 run up against the Sonthal an ever-increasing 
 score for compound interest, which, do what 
 he would, seemed ever to be growing. The 
 rent -collector was always trying to squeeze 
 for his master and for himself more and 
 more out of the hardy but simple toilers who 
 had given the land its value. The myr- 
 midons of the law subordinates of the 
 police and civil courts were ever ready on 
 their own account, or on account of any who 
 would make it worth their while, to use upon 
 the Sonthals the many means of irritation 
 they possessed. 
 
 For protection from this class of men, the
 
 PARASITES AND PLAGUES. 323 
 
 Paliarias had been withdrawn from the ordin- 
 ary law and put under a special jurisdiction ; 
 but a like privilege was not extended to the 
 Sonthals, who suffered accordingly. Their 
 villages were taken out of the control of their 
 Manjhies. and handed over to speculators ; 
 money-lenders settled down in every village, 
 fastened on ryot after ryot, and sucked their 
 blood ; the subordinates of the police and the 
 law courts oppressed and extorted greedily ; 
 and within twenty years of their admission 
 into the reserve the Sonthals, law-abiding 
 and good - natured as they usually were, be- 
 came desperate, and the more spirited formed 
 themselves into robber-gangs. 
 
 Things move leisurely in the public offices. 
 Steps for the removal of the acknowledged 
 grievances of the Sonthals were still under 
 discussion, and even had made some progress 
 towards being actually put in practice, when 
 the Sonthals took the affair into their own 
 hands and rose. Kanoo and Sidoo 3 two
 
 324 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 brothers who claimed to be inspired from 
 heaven, started a hool. The Hool or national 
 rising, like the Jehad of Islam and the 
 Crusade of the middle ages, was a race move- 
 ment, gaining much of its force from other 
 causes, but organised under the banner of 
 religion. 
 
 The Sonthal hool was an uprising against 
 the oppression of the Dikku, and an attempt 
 to throw off his yoke. To the Sonthal there 
 are three main divisions of men, besides the 
 Paharias the Sonthal or " man " proper, the 
 Sahib or European, and the Dikku. The 
 Dikkus are the plainsmen of Bengal and 
 Behar, nearly all Hindoos. With the Sahibs 
 the Sonthals have always been on the best of 
 terms ; but they hated, and still hate, the 
 Dikku, looking on him as a cunning and 
 treacherous enemy, ever on the watch for 
 a chance of outwitting or cheating the sim- 
 ple Sonthal. The Dikku personifies all the 
 plagues, the ousting cultivator, the usurer,
 
 THE "HOOL." 325 
 
 the policeman, the process -server, and the 
 rent-collector parasites all. The Hindoo, on 
 his side, despises the Sonthal as being of no 
 caste, and looks on him like the bees and 
 the oxen of the Roman poet, toiling, not for 
 themselves as one to be smoked out of the 
 fields he has made, or to bear meekly the 
 oppressive yoke of the usurer's bond. The 
 Sonthals rose, not against the English, but 
 
 * O O J 
 
 to free themselves from the meshes of petty 
 tyranny with which the Dikkus or plainsmen 
 were strangling them. 
 
 The first blow was struck at a place called 
 Pachkattia. Mohesh Darogah, combining in 
 himself the offices of policeman and rent- 
 collector, was a man hateful to the Sonthals 
 above even the usurers. Hearing one day 
 from a usurer that the Sonthals had met, and 
 were talking over their grievances, he went 
 with his informant, his Burkandazes (the 
 nearest European equivalent for these worthies 
 is the Spanish alguazil), and a cartload of
 
 326 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 ropes, to the place of meeting at Pachkattia. 
 He asked why they were gathered there. 
 "Never mind," said they. "Disperse at 
 once," said he, "or I will tie you all up." 
 " You had better tie us up, for if you do not, 
 we will kill you," said the Sonthals, and high 
 words passed on both sides. "You a Daro- 
 gah ! " (police inspector) said they. " You 
 extort and oppress. You are no Darogah, 
 but a dacoit." And they ended by falling 
 on the Darogah and the usurer with their 
 fursas (battle-axes) and killing them. The 
 heather was on fire, and the flame of the hool 
 spread. 
 
 Grim were some of the scenes, of which a 
 glimpse is caught through the mist of con- 
 fusion which hid the struggle. A European 
 went out on an elephant, and his two sons 
 on horseback, armed with guns, to fight a party 
 of Sonthals. All three were shot down with 
 arrows. A European family at Sahibgunj, on 
 the Ganges, took boat as the Sonthals ap-
 
 GRIM SCENES. 327 
 
 proached, and, keeping out of reach of the 
 arrows, killed many with their firearms. A 
 native landlord was besieged by the Sonthals 
 in his house, which was set on fire. He took 
 refuge in a tank, where he was killed with 
 arrows, and his body chopped up on a stone 
 into twenty-two pieces, " one for each of his 
 ancestors." The stone on which his body 
 was chopped up still stands at his house 
 door, and his two widows, who took refuge 
 in the jungle, still live, one in the old house, 
 and the other close by. 
 
 As a grim joke, the Sonthals took a usurer 
 who had made himself obnoxious, and chopped 
 off his legs at the knees, crying " Four annas." 
 (The whole rupee is sixteen annas, and this 
 meant that a fourth had been paid.) Then 
 they cut his legs off at the thighs, crying 
 "Eight annas." Then his arms, crying "Twelve 
 annas ; " and last they cut off his head, crying 
 " Farkati !" (quittance in full). 
 
 The impression of this savage joke still
 
 328 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 remains ; for a year or two ago, when a mad 
 Sonthal killed a usurer on the east side of 
 the district, the usurers began pouring out 
 of it at the west side, forty miles away, cry- 
 ing that there was another hool. 
 
 The regiment of Hill Rangers, which had 
 sufficed to keep order among the Paharias, 
 proved too weak to hold down the Sonthals, 
 and was disbanded a year or two later. I 
 saw about forty veterans, pensioners of 
 this regiment, go through their drill after 
 twenty - five years' disuse. The men were 
 nearly all old, many decrepit ; they had 
 but one cap and two tunics among them, 
 and for muskets they had bamboo staves. 
 But they marched with precision, and went 
 through their movements with the machine- 
 like rigidity of the old style. It was a curi- 
 ous glimpse of bygone days, about to vanish 
 for ever, in that little valley among the hills. 
 
 After much outrage and bloodshed, and 
 much suffering on both sides, the rising
 
 VETERANS. 329 
 
 was, with the help of troops brought in 
 from without, at length put clown. These 
 very troops joined next year in the great 
 Mutiny, and had themselves in turn to be 
 crushed. 
 
 After the liool had come to an end, the 
 Government, recognising that it had been 
 brought about mainly through the oppressions 
 exercised by Government servants, withdrew 
 from the control of the ordinary courts of 
 law and system of police the part of the 
 country known ever since as the Sonthal 
 Pergunnahs, and established for this district 
 a system of its own, founded to a great ex- 
 tent on the indigenous organisation of the 
 people, which was utilised to the utmost, un- 
 der European supervision, for the government 
 of the people by themselves. Every village 
 had its head, who was magistrate and police 
 and revenue officer in one. The usurers and 
 traders, instead of being allowed to spread 
 about in agricultural villages, were, especially
 
 330 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 in the Government reserve, gathered into 
 " bazars " or trading villages of their own, 
 each of which had also its Choudhry or 
 mayor, who was manager of all the village 
 business, such as police, sanitation, and so 
 on, and represented the village in its dealings 
 with Government officers. 
 
 It is one of the most important duties of 
 Government officers in the Sonthal Pergun- 
 nahs, almost alone among the districts of 
 Bengal, to look after the headmen of the 
 eleven thousand village areas into which it 
 is divided, taking steps to weed out men who 
 are unfit, or have been guilty of misconduct, 
 and to replace the waste caused by death or 
 dismissal of headmen. Every time a head- 
 man is dismissed, or dies without heirs, his 
 place is supplied by election, and it is an 
 election scene that the reader is now invited 
 to witness. 
 
 I had, in the course of my annual tour, 
 reached the village of Barhait, a bazar or
 
 THE SONTHAL SYSTEM. 331 
 
 trading village containing about 200 houses, 
 and situated some fourteen miles from the 
 railway. It is a great trading centre, and the 
 centre of a Purgunait's circle. The Choudhry 
 had been dismissed for misconduct some years 
 before, and we had never been able to find 
 a fit successor. A proposal had indeed been 
 made to appoint the Purgunait, Boloram, to 
 the post ; but this arrangement was considered 
 unsuitable, as he was chief of the Sonthals 
 in the outside villages, and it was thought 
 
 O ' O 
 
 desirable to have a different man to be chief 
 of the Dikkus of the bazar. 
 
 I thought this would be a good opportunity 
 to fix on the new Choudhry, and accordingly 
 called a meeting of the bazar people at the 
 bungalow. 
 
 The bungalow is a shelter of mud walls 
 and a roof put up and repaired at the Pur- 
 gunait's centre of each circle, to enable Gov- 
 ernment officers to visit it at any time of the 
 year.
 
 332 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 Picture then the Sahib, in an old suit of blue 
 serge, seated on a chair in the shady veran- 
 dah of the bungalow, with Boloram Purgunait 
 standing by his side, and on the ground out- 
 side the two candidates a Bengali trader and 
 the Momin (a sort of Mahomedan) Poramanik 
 of a neighbouring village with a crowd of 
 about 300 people behind them. Barhait is 
 always a great place for crowds. The sight- 
 seers are sifted from the voters and made to 
 stand back, and the group of about seventy 
 ratepayers who have a voice in the election 
 are bidden to seat themselves in front of the 
 Sahib. They are made to sit down, first, that 
 the air may get in ; then, because standing 
 men have a tendency to edge forward and 
 prevent all but a few from seeing and hearing ; 
 and lastly, because natives can think better 
 when squatting on their heels. So we have 
 the Sahib in the verandah, the Purgunait be- 
 side him ; below, on the ground, the two candi- 
 dates standing, and the group of voters seated ;
 
 AN ELECTION. 333 
 
 and in the background a ring of men, women, 
 and children looking on. Till the sun goes 
 down and the shadows lengthen there will not 
 be room for these last in the shade of the bun- 
 galow ; so for a time yet the sun lights up 
 their swarthy skin, white clothing, and glanc- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 It is then explained by the Sahib that the 
 meeting is called to choose a Choudhry for 
 the village, and that the two candidates who 
 have come forward, the Bengali and the 
 Momin, are before the voters. All who vote 
 for the Bengali are now told to stand. No 
 one moves. Then all who vote for the 
 Momin : still all remain seated. Thinking 
 they may not understand, the Sahib sends 
 the Bengali to one side, and the Momin to 
 the other, and tells all who favour either 
 candidate to go beside him. No one 
 budges all stolid and expressionless. De- 
 termined to get a vote, the Sahib sets the 
 Purgunait in the middle, and says that all on
 
 334 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 one side will count for the Momin, and all on 
 the other for the Bengali. One or two get up 
 and cross over to the side of the Bengali, but 
 very few have moved. The Momin, as the 
 candidate less favoured, is now called on for 
 a speech, and he delivers a vigorous harangue, 
 denouncing the Bengali as a bad character 
 and receiver of stolen property (which there 
 is reason to suspect he is). 
 
 Plainly perceiving that the interest of the 
 voters for either candidate is of the coldest, 
 the Sahib asks if there are no respectable 
 traders in the bazar who would be more ac- 
 ceptable. The names of three men are given, 
 all of whom, however, have been asked to 
 take office, and have refused. Things are at 
 a dead-lock. 
 
 At last up gets one of the voters and says, 
 " The fact is, Sahib, there is only one man 
 who will do for us Boloram Purgunait. 
 His father Shjim was Purgunait and Chou- 
 dhry both, and he is the only man who
 
 THE POPULAR CHOICE. 335 
 
 can keep the peace between us traders and 
 the Sonthals." Now Boloram has not been 
 admitted as a candidate, as he, being chief of 
 the Sonthals, was considered an undesirable 
 man to have as Choudhry of a Dikku bazar. 
 But in this country custom is powerful, so 
 the Sahib says, " If such was your old 
 custom, I am unwilling to break old cus- 
 toms. I will agree to your having Boloram 
 as Choudhry." 
 
 What a change ! The dull faces light up ; 
 the people jump to their feet and press in, 
 their eyes glistening, some with tears ; and 
 they all cry, " Now all will be well ! we have 
 got the right man ! " The two candidates 
 withdraw their claims in favour of the fav- 
 ourite, who gracefully yields to the popular 
 wish. And so the business is settled. The 
 Choudhry has been appointed, and, until he 
 resigns, or breaks the law, or is found to have 
 oppressed the villagers and lost their confi- 
 fidence, he will hold his office. Should any
 
 336 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 of these things happen, there will be another 
 election. 
 
 Is it possible to convey to the mind of the 
 English reader a sense of the meaning and 
 importance of this short and simple proceed- 
 ing, imperfectly understood as it is by most 
 people even in India ? Perhaps it is the sort 
 of thing that will be more readily appreciated 
 in free England. 
 
 The villagers do not get a perfect chief, 
 but at all events they get the best man they 
 can produce. He represents the village to 
 the State and to the outside world has 
 charge and keeps the key, as it were. For 
 this privilege of privacy under a guardian of 
 their own choice, the only condition required 
 by Government of the villagers is that that 
 guardian shall not be a man who, from his 
 
 D 
 
 past conduct or character, is likely to thwart 
 the Government or the law by harbouring 
 thieves or concealing crime, for instance. 
 The knowledge that he holds his office by
 
 PRIVACY FOR THE VILLAGE. 337 
 
 virtue of the confidence placed in him by the 
 State and by the villagers, and may lose the 
 office if he forfeits confidence, is as strong 
 a working check as can be devised on the 
 tendency of all Orientals vested with power 
 to use that power for their own advantage. 
 The presence of this village head in each 
 village has enabled the Government to dis- 
 pense with, or at all events reduce and keep 
 within bounds, that swarm of parasites which 
 follow its rule elsewhere, and are the despair 
 of all zealous rulers the petty police, pro- 
 cess-servers, rent -collectors, and petty law- 
 yers. Had we to deal individually with each 
 of the one and three - quarter millions of 
 people, instead of with the eleven thousand 
 heads of villages, there would be a great 
 many more of these. They are there in 
 such a soil how can they but grow ? but 
 the authority of the village head takes up 
 much of the ground, and so they can be 
 kept within bounds.
 
 338 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 Then, as has been seen, the system is 
 practicable on a large scale, because much 
 of the time and labour of officials is not 
 needed to keep it going. This particular 
 election, the work of a couple of hours in 
 an afternoon, was held over five years ago, 
 and there has been no occasion since that 
 time to revise the choice then made. Such 
 a revision is only necessary on the death 
 or resignation or proved misconduct of the 
 holder of the office. 
 
 Looked at from the point of view of the 
 villagers, the choice of their chief is of the 
 utmost importance. I shall never forget the 
 glisten of the eyes that advanced on me when 
 the right man was at last named. There 
 was no doubt that these men were in earnest, 
 and believed that on this choice depended 
 the happiness or misery of a certain number 
 of households. 
 
 Some may say, " Why, then, give such 
 power to any man ? Why not keep it for
 
 ALWAYS A MASTER. 339 
 
 the State ? " But it is not in the power of 
 the rulers of great provinces, or even dis- 
 tricts, to prevent oppression or give good 
 government, otherwise than by putting power 
 in the hands of the right men, and keeping 
 it out of the hands of the wrong. 
 
 In a village where no chief has been rec- 
 ognised by Government, the privacy it gains 
 by having such a chief is lost, but there is 
 still a master. The master is a fact, whether 
 recognised by the State or not. The question 
 in the Oriental village is not, " Master or no 
 master ? " but " Who is master ? " In villages 
 where no man is recognised by Government, 
 it is generally a resident proprietor, an un- 
 checked despot ; or an absentee proprietor 
 acting through an ill-paid servant, intent on 
 feathering his nest ; or the local usurer, with 
 his hook in the nose of every ryot. If the 
 villagers are independent enough to defy all 
 these powers, there springs up from time to 
 time that institution so familiar in Bengal,
 
 340 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 the dalddali or faction feud, which differs 
 from war only in that it is on a smaller 
 scale, and the injuries done in it are less 
 open. The landlord, the rent - collector, the 
 usurer, the priest, the petty lawyer, the 
 village ruffian, all these furnish materials 
 for a despotism if they agree ; for a severe 
 struggle if they quarrel. There must be a 
 master. 
 
 Herein the election of the kind we have 
 now to do with differs from the English 
 election. The English election is the pro- 
 cess by which free men determine who is 
 to execute their common will ; while the 
 election in the Indian village is held to 
 find out who is master, and whether he is a 
 fit person to be intrusted by Government 
 with its authority. The master is a fact 
 that existed before the election, and would 
 exist if there were no election. 
 
 If the above description was faithful, it 
 will appear that the answer to the ques-
 
 A DELICATE OPERATION. 341 
 
 tion, " Who is master ? " did not lie on the 
 surface. The villagers might easily have 
 elected a man they were afraid of, or cared 
 nothing for, instead of the man they liked 
 best. 
 
 The question whether the man recognised 
 is fit to hold authority from Government, 
 is one that should obviously be left to be 
 answered by a confidential officer of Govern- 
 ment. The standard of excellence need not 
 be high, for the alternative is a sorry one ; 
 but obviously the man should at least be 
 well disposed to the State and the law. 
 
 So long, however, as he is possible from 
 a Government point of view, the recognition 
 of him by the Government will do good by 
 the restraint of his responsibility, and by the 
 lesson taught the villagers that there is a 
 way of escape. Natives of Bengal are victims 
 of oppression, chiefly because of their own 
 nature, and to educate men out of their own 
 nature is at best but a slow process. This
 
 342 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 is not the last, but an early step in the 
 process. 
 
 The difference between having the right 
 man and having the wrong man at the head 
 of a village is great. With the former, things 
 go smoothly and well ; with the latter, there 
 is constant friction. In the Sonthal Pergun- 
 nahs, politics consist for the most part in 
 adjusting and keeping in order this important 
 part of the social mechanism. 
 
 The chief significance, however, of the 
 Sonthal system is that, as its name implies, 
 it is the result of education not of a subject 
 people by a Government, but of a Govern- 
 ment by a subject people. The free instincts 
 and straightforward disposition of the Son- 
 thals could not endure the plagues which the 
 long-suffering patience of their neighbours the 
 Bengalis had caused to be regarded as natural 
 and unavoidable, and they forced the Govern- 
 ment to devise a more reasonable way of man- 
 agement.
 
 EDUCATING THEIR RULERS. 343 
 
 This way has hardly as yet been extended 
 outside the one district, and, even within 
 it, has never been fully developed. By far 
 the greater part of the officials of the pro- 
 vince, with the full sympathy of the great 
 and influential army of clerks, police, lawyers, 
 and usurers, look forward to the coming of 
 the good time when it will be possible to 
 let loose on the Sonthals all the parasites 
 of so-called civilisation which it is the privi- 
 lege of their neighbours to endure. I hope 
 that time will never come. Rather do I 
 look forward to the time when this excellent 
 system shall be extended to the whole pro- 
 vince. Why not ? It is not peculiar to the 
 Sonthals, but was once common, as may it 
 become again ! to all races in the country. 
 This is my earnest hope, because I know 
 no other method of laying a firm foundation 
 for a strong and free fabric of local self- 
 government. I will not venture to predict 
 what shape such a fabric would take. An
 
 344 A PEEP INTO THE SONTHAL COUNTRY. 
 
 architect may do this of the lifeless building 
 he proposes to construct. Of a living or- 
 ganism, however, we can say no more than 
 that, if it is healthy and free, it is likely to 
 adapt itself to the needs of the community 
 and work well. No stronger proof of the 
 spirit it is of can be found than the fact 
 that a community of Hindoos and Mussul- 
 mans chose as their chief a man of the de- 
 spised Sonthal race. Those who know them 
 know what that means. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED 1!V WILLIAM niJkCKWOOD AND SONS.
 
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