"who could not speak truth if they "would." Last month, at Mofussilpore, I witnessed a case which came before Benson, and which he referred to Tom. A shopkeeper complained that, as he was walking across the street, one of his neighbours fell on him, knocked him down with a cudgel, and, as he lay insensible on the ground, robbed him of thirteen rupees. He produced seven witnesses, who confirmed circumstantially his whole statement. It eventually turned out that the prisoner struck the prosecutor on the back with a light switch, and that the rupees and the insensibility were an episode which had no foundation in fact. The pro

ceedings in a case where natives are concerned always remind me of the scene at a public school, when a disputed point occurs during an interesting match. Last winter, I witnessed a game of football at Harrow between two boarding-houses, in which twelve boys of known probity (that is to say, the eleven players and their umpire), swore that the ball had blown midway through the base; while twelve other boys, of equally known probity, swore that it had touched one of the poles. What would Paley say to this? Which of these two pre-judications would he find himself unable to resist?

Mildred, my Mofussil friend, who has lived for twenty years in constant communication with the people of the country, at times seeing none but black faces for six months on end, has a very low opinion of native evidence. He is a credible authority on this point, inasmuch as he is a real friend of the Hindoo, and is adored by the population of the neighbourhood. Ryots, who have a suit in court, are very importunate to have him called as a witness in their

favour. A man lately entreated the magistrate to summon my friend to testify to his character. On being asked whether he had ground for believ ing that Mildred knew anything about him, he replied that the Sahib had once fined him ten rupees for cattle stealing! When Mildred was a very young man, he bought a village from a zeminadar,

who sold it cheap, because the inhabitants had for some years past refused to pay a pice of rent. As the new proprietor was well aware that his tenants enjoyed a very evil reputation for theft, dacoity, and manslaughter, he called his friends and neighbours together, and rode over with some force to collect the arrears. It happened that cholera was rife in the village; so the party encamped for the night on a spot about a mile distant. Late in the evening, the head man, accompanied by six or seven others, came to Mildred, and told him that, unless he cleared off in the course of the morrow, they would bring the corpse of a ryot who had died of the epidemic, cut the throat, throw it into the camp, and go in a body to the magistrate, to accuse the Sahibs of a murder!

On another occasion, Mildred, in company with two planters of his acquaintance, drove over to visit a friend, who lived at a considerable distance from the station. They had given him no previous intimation to expect them, but people in India can be hospitable on very short notice, and he soon set before them curry, and fowls, and beer, and cheroots. As they were chatting over their tobacco, after a jolly tiffin, they heard the howl of a jackal in the vicinity of the bungalow, and it was proposed to sally forth and have a shot at him. The firearms in a planter's house are always in condition for immediate use; so the host loaded a rifle, and went out with one of his guests, while Mildred and the other remained among the soda-water bottles. After some time a shot was heard, and soon after the pair returned, pale and agitated. The master of the house said, "Mildred, I believe I have shot a man, but we did not dare to go and look." It appears they could not find the jackal; so, in the wantonness of men who were full of meat, and drink, and smoke, they took a shot at a sheep which was feeding about a furlong off. As the gun was fired, a man sprang up out of the grass behind the animal, and dropped again before he was well on his feet. Mildred

went to the spot, and found a peasant stone dead, with a ball through the heart. Now for the sequel. The relations of the poor fellow prosecuted the planter for murder, and more-that he had tied the deceased to a tree, beaten him cruelly, outraged him in the most foul manner, and finally put him out of his misery by deliberately firing at him from the distance of a few yards. This vindictive wicked lie was supported in every particular by a number of the villagers. The presence of his three countrymen, a happy chance, and nothing more, alone saved the prisoner from condemnation. "From that day "forward" (such was the conclusion which Mildred drew from the circumstance) "I resolved, if ever I was on a "jury, never to convict a European of a capital crime, on native testimony." I endeavoured to show him that his resolution was illogical, and that the consequences of it would be most disastrous; that, if we rejected the evidence of Hindoos when the life of an Englishman was in question, we must refuse to admit it on any other occasion whatsoever; the result of which would be that, instead of providing the people of India with justice of superior quality to that dealt out by their own countrymen, we should banish law and order from the land, until an insulted Providence sent us about our business. He was not convinced.

By the most scrupulous care Our officers cannot prevent their names being used for purposes of the grossest corruption. For instance, a native gentleman calls on the magistrate, and then goes straight to the house of some one who has a suit pending, and says: "I sit down in the presence of the Sahib. He has a greater respect for me than for the sub-inspector of police, and loves me better than he loves a lieu tenant and two ensigns in the cantonments, and he will soon love me better than one of the captains. Give me five hundred rupees." And, though the poor fool must know that if he gave away his whole fortune in presents he would not alter a tittle of No. 51.-VOL. IX.

the magistrate's verdict, he pays the money under a hazy conviction that some benefit will ensue. Rich baboos will vie with each other for the post of deputy-treasurer, which is worth fifty or sixty rupees per mensem, and will gladly deposit eighty or a hundred thousand rupees as security for the faithful discharge of the functions. They are attracted, not so much by the honour of being in the service of Government, as by the knowledge that an official position will enable them to drive harder bargains, to obtain higher interest, to oppress their poorer neighbours, and intimidate their equals. And yet every dealer in the town knows that if he was to come to the English authorities, and say: "Baboo Chunder Boss, the deputy-treasurer, told me yesterday that if I refused to let him have my saltpetre at his own price I should repent it," Baboo Chunder Boss would not be deputy-treasurer another twenty-four hours. They know this, but they cannot act upon it. Habit is too strong for reason. Besides, your native positively likes to fee Jacksin-office. During the progress of a Governor through his province, all the rajahs and zemindars who come to pay their respects to the great man are never content unless they pay their rupees to his servants. They would not enjoy their interview thoroughly if they got it gratis. The sirdar-bearer or the head messenger of a member of council makes a wonderfully good thing of his place. Out of his pay of a pound a month he manages to dress well, feed of the best, and maintain a sufficiency of wives and parasites. he hears of a good investment on a small scale he can generally come down with a fat bag of rupees. Surely the fellow's clients and patrons can hardly imagine that he has the ear of his master. Their munificence is dictated by dustoor," or custom, the most powerful of all the motives which actuate the conduct of a native.

If

Dustoor is the breath of a Hindoo's nostrils, the mainspring of his actions, the staple of his conversation. A ryot

P

is never so happy as when he is squatted amidst a circle of neighbours, smoking a mixture in which powdered dung is the most fragrant ingredient, and talking about dustoor. The spirit of conservatism, powerful everywhere except among the conservative leaders in the English House of Commons, is rabid in the East. In European countries men keep up old practices and habits which reason cannot approve because familiarity has rendered them attractive. In India men do things which they know to be absurd, and which they excessively dislike, because custom so - enjoins. An English family, an hour after their usual bedtime, perform an elaborate toilette, and start off to dance and flirt themselves into a state of unnatural wakefulness. The son is routed out from a quiet corner, where he has been employed over a surreptitious cigar, and hounded up to his dressing-room with threats and execrations. A daughter, who is on ordinary occasions a model of piety, rudely tears the kerchief from the face of her sleeping father, and rouses him from sweet visions of middling fair Pernambuco and ditto transfer stock, to the fearful reality of a four hours' lounge in a back drawing-room, sweetened by fine supper-sherry at twentyeight and six. And yet they go forth to the sacrifice a troop of willing victims, proud of the fillet, and in fond expectation that they will enjoy the rite. A shopkeeper or clerk, when club-night comes round, duly pays half-crowns which he can ill afford, and swallows four times as much liquor as he can well digest. But, while he is seated at midnight in the midst of a noisy, boozy company, with an incipient headache and the prospect of a crapulous colic, smoking his fourteenth pipe and sipping his ninth-no, tenth-no, eleventhbrar-r-ry war-r-rer, he is all the time under the impression that he is doing something uncommonly jolly and Bacchanalian. Now this is not the case with the Hindoo. Groaning and repenting, he follows whithersoever dustoor may lead him. This thrifty, temperate race, who deny themselves every pleasure

and comfort without a sigh, at the command of fashion fling away sums which would keep them and theirs in luxury for a lifetime. To procure these sums they are forced to have recourse to money-lenders, who are the bugbears of Indian social life. A sepoy, whose pay is seven rupees a month, has often been known to sell himself, body, soul, and pension, to a baboo, in order to spend three hundred rupees on a marriage feast. The other day, an ayah, whose wages are those of a London servant-ofall-work, invited a European lady's-maid to a dinner where covers were laid for thirty guests, with champagne and beer à discretion. Mildred told me that native gentlemen frequently came to him to borrow some thousands of pounds on the security of a great slice of their estate. He would say: "My good fellow, I am well aware what you want this loan for; and you are well aware that you will never be able to pay it, and that you will have ruined yourself and your descendants in order, once in a way, to cut a figure in the district. You will gain much more respect by being known to be able to spend all your rents." The zemindar would own the truth of everything my friend stated, shrug his shoulders, and go off muttering something about "dustoor." A few days after, the land would be in the clutches of some harpy from Patna.

A curious instance of the pernicious effect of "dustoor" is afforded by the fortunes of the family of my friend the Maharaja. His ancestors were enormously wealthy, and were, besides, the purest of pure Brahmans, and at the head of the religious community for a hundred miles round. If Lord Fitzwilliam were likewise Archbishop of York, his position in the country would be much that of the old Maharajas of Kishenagur, in the tract which lies along the left bank of the Hooghly. The grandfather of the present man brought himself to the brink of ruin by the most reckless and aimless extravagance. On one occasion he sold the battle-ground of Plassey for two lacs (20,0007.), and expended the pro

ceeds on gold and silver cups, which he scattered broad cast among the mob from the summit of his sacred car during the procession on a solemn feastday. The father received the estate much involved and reduced to very small dimensions. Nevertheless he spent thirty thousand rupees on the marriage of his son. Happily that son had received an English education, and had acquired a taste for English habits and society. He lives freely, keeps open house from year's end to year's end, and is very popular with the residents at the station; and meanwhile he has paid off debts to the tune of seventeen thousand pounds, has cleared the property, and intends to indulge himself in a visit to England next March, as a reward for his sense and forethought. He has much more fun for his money than ever his grandfather had, and yet he manages to eat his chupatty, and have it too. When he had once emancipated himself from the toils of "dustoor," prosperity followed as a natural consequence. Being so very exalted a Brahmin, he may eat and drink in the company of Europeans

without blame or stain. Nay, hundreds and hundreds of natives come to him in the course of the year to have their caste restored for a price. It is the old story. I fancy Pio Nono gets his indulgences uncommon cheap. There are some who say that, if we left India to-morrow, the only traces of our occupation would be the empty beer bottles; just as there are some who say that it is all over with the army since the amalgamation, and who make other affirmations of about equal value with the statement that Balbus is building a wall. Let no one assert that we have ruled, and fought, and panted, and perspired, and permanently settled in vain, as long as we have taught one Maharaja the absurdity of "dustoor." Yours ever,

H. BROUGHTON.

1 It would be a good thing if empty beer bottles were all. Patriotic and intelligent natives bitterly complain that we have deluged the country with full gin bottles. I fear that some day we may have reason to wish for a millstone and a plunge into the depths of the Bay of Bengal.

THOSE Who watch, not without anxiety, the national taste, should be comforted by the great success of this book, and rejoice to hear that a whole edition has been sold off before the public had even seen it, simply on the authority of Mr. Froude's name, and of a very able ante-natal review in the Quarterly.

It appears that the English literary appetite is not permanently injured by periodic literature, nor even by sensation novels; that, however it may have disported itself (not over-wholesomely) with tiny French kickshaws, wherein unclean beasts are cunningly disguised by sauce piquante, it has still stomach enough left for the good old English pièce de résistance when it appears; and can devour (and we will trust digest)

two very ponderous tomes, with an honest belief that it will feel the better after it.

The truth is, that there is as great a demand as ever in Britain, and, we doubt not, in France, Germany, and America, for honest literary work, faithfully done, founded on fact, and worked out in a truly human and humane spirit.

Founded on fact: whatever may be the faults of this generation, there never was one in the world's history which was so greedy after facts, and especially the facts of the past. It is not quite satisfied with the old answers to the three great human questions, by virtue of asking which a man is a man, and not a hairless gorilla-Whence did we come? Where are we? Whither are

we going? It suspects that, for the last fifty years at least, attention has been too exclusively directed to the last of these three questions, to the exclusion of the two former, which surely must be answered, more or less, ere the third can be solved. It is asking, therefore, more and more earnestly, Whence did we come? It asks of Darwinian speculators, of discoverers of flint arrow-heads and kitchen-middens, of antiquaries, of monk-chroniclers, of historic romancers. Even Eugene Sue and his "Fils de Joel" are welcome, if he can tell anything of the great question, How came we hither? This generation is getting a wholesome philosophical instinct, that only by knowing the past can one guess at the future; that the future is contained in the past, and the child father to the man; that one generation reaps what its forefathers have sown; that Nature in nations, as in all other things, non agit per saltum; that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs.' It has learnt from antiquaries that we are the same people that we were 1,500 years ago; that we brought the germs of our language, our laws, our liberty, with us off the Holstein moors. It has learnt from the High-Church party (and all true Englishmen should gratefully acknowledge that debt) that there was an England before the Reformation; that we had our patriots and our lawyers, our sages and our saints, in the Middle Ages, as well as in the times of Tudors or of Stuarts; and it desires more and more to know what manner of men they were, these ancestors of ours-so unlike us in garb and thought; so like us, it now appears, in heart and spirit. Moreover, men feel-and Heaven grant that they may feel more and more-the awfulness of Britain's greatness-a greatness not so much won as thrust upon herfortuitous, incoherent, and without plan or concentration; spread and dotted dangerously, if not weakly, over the whole world. They themselves are so small and yet their country is so great -they know not how-and she, as a collective whole, seems not to know either; nor how to wield her greatness, save from hand to mouth

"Oppressed

With the burden of an honour
Unto which she was not born."

It is a wholesome frame of mind, that, and a safe one, just because it is a humble one and we will thank every one, from Mr. Bright at home to French and Prussian journalists abroad, who will keep that mind alive in us, and abuse us, and rate us, and tell us that we may be a monstrous incoherence while we fancy ourselves a compact organism; that we may be going on the utterly wrong path, while we think ourselves on the utterly right one; and toppling to ruin, while we fancy ourselves omnipotent. Let them exaggerate our faults and our weaknesses as they will; the public will be only too likely to exaggerate on the opposite and less safe side.

But for this very cause, the public now welcome anything like good English History.

Only, it demands that the history shall be human. The many are no believers in the theories of Mr. Buckle. They do not put themselves in the same category with wheat and potatoes, sparrows and tadpoles, or any other things whose fate is determined by soil, climate, supply of food, and competition of species. They have a strong and wholesome belief that mankind is not an abstraction, but signifies the men and women who have lived or do live, and that the history of England is the history of the men and women of England, not of its soil, plants, and animals. And therefore they crave for a history of the hearts and characters of those same men and women, and not a mere history of statistics, events, principles. They do not deny the value of those latter; but they rationally and fairly ask for them as they occurred in fact. The statistics must be set forth in the weal or woe of the human beings who were the better or the worse for them; the events in the deeds of the men who acted them; the principles in the lives of those who worked them out, fought for them, died for them. The things did not do themselves; men of old did them: and therefore the men