Sketches of social life in India

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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