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"which" should not be a who," an "is" an "are," and objected to a simile as too florid or too poor, then the civil blood would rise; but who could resist Mr. DeSouza's big books, which were brought to the charge? It was no good; alterations must be made, and that too in the face of the whole court.

Delhi, as Deputy Commissioner. He had, from his abilities and application, risen rapidly, and held a well-merited position in the opinion of Government; but his social qualities had not improved, he had lived much in the jungles, as it is styled, and had become indifferent to society, except as enjoyable in the free interchance of thought between a few choice friends. When the news of the fatal 11th of May 1857 reached DeLaré, he met the storm with perfect coolness, and made all his arrangements with admirable presence of mind. In his attempts to make a stand, and weather the storm, he was ably seconded by his Christian subordinates. Amongst them, his head clerk was particularly active. As soon as he heard of the news, he buckled on a long sword, loaded his pistols, stuck them into his belt, slung his rifle over his shoulder, lit a cigar, put on his wideawake hat, and walked over to DeLaré's house, whistling an opera air.

Mr. DeSouza was a country-born-a half-caste. He had been bred in a camp, and, up to the age of eighteen, could neither read nor write. He possessed abilities and resolution, and by the time we meet with him for the first time, at the age of thirty-two, he was a well-educated man-self-taught, it is true, but this was creditable to his industry and zeal.

Mr. DeSouza first served in the Company's artillery as a bugler, and was present during the battles of the first and second Sikh wars. He then left the army, and served as a writer in various offices. He was fairly read in general history, and English poetry; possessed an accurate knowledge of geography, and had enthusiastically devoted himself to botany, even in the burning plains of India. He was an excellent accountant, a good rider, and a dead shot. He was dainty about the master under whom he served-" It put his blood into a ferment," he used to say, "to copy out the rubbish written by some of his superiors." To a civilian of the old school, all liver and no brains, he would have been as bad as a fit of apoplexy-as much dreaded as cholera. When Mr. DeSouza brought an ill-written rough copy to Mr. Lushington, and asked him whether

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Mr. DeSouza was lean, lanky-hardly an ounce of flesh on his bones,-and spoke with a voice which appeared to have succumbed to a succession of colds and sore-throats.

"Well, Captain DeLaré, here I am !" said Mr. DeSouza.

"Glad to see you," said Captain DeLaré.

At Captain DeLaré's request, Mr. DeSouza seated himself, and appeared quite comfortable and happy.

"How long shall we be able to hang on, Sir ?" asked Mr. DeSouza. "Not long, I am afraid !" said Captain DeLaré.

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Well, then, I'll give my nag an extra feed of corn," said Mr. DeSouza.

Mr. DeSouza's nag had hardly finished its corn, when it became evident that a bolt must be made. Captain DeLaré, attended by his head clerk, his covenanted assistant Mr. Currie, and a trusty Native horsemen, left his station for Agra, amidst a shower of bullets and stones, poured on the party by the well-wishers of the Company's Government. The compliment was immediately returned, and several rebels bit the dust. The party moved on. Mr. DeSouza lit his cigar, and remarked-" Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit !"

*

Three years had passed since Captain DeLaré had quitted his station, when we find him again quietly seated in his bungalow. He had escaped, had suffered much, and had gone through endless adventures.

Mr. DeSouza brought him the Government Gazette, in which the names of those officers who had distinguished themselves during the rebellion were mentioned. He searched in vain for DeLaré's name.

"Can't find it, Sir !"
"Not find what ?"

"Your name, Sir !"

Captain DeLaré felt that cold chill

come over him which only those candescribe who have felt it. His simple reply was "Read Napier's Life, Mr. DeSouza-and take a glass of wine!"

A few days afterwards, Mr. DeSouza noted, amongst the public letters, one from the Secretary to the Punjab Government; it ran thus:~" I regret that your name should not have appeared in the Gazette announcing the rewards bestowed on officers who dis

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tinguished themselves during the rebelThe simple truth is, that owing to a clerical error, the name of Popkins was inserted for that of DeLaré." Alas! Popkins is now a—C.B. !

Popkins' wife is a first-cousin of the Military Secretary to the Punjab Government; and Popkins never indulges in pegs, has no brains, and was so cautious during the mutiny that he never saw a shot fired.

DeLaré ǹow determined to take leave for six months to Cashmere-he was

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THE office of Secretary to the Lahore Government was on the 18th of May 1860 filled by Mr. Green Poppy,-a Wala, or, in others words, a Competitioner. He had reached India at the moment when her fortunes were ebbing -during 1857. He was one of those

fairly disgusted. His leave was granted, choice pieces of humanity which Bri

and he set off for this land of promise in the month of May 1860.

And now as to DeLaré's grandmother, "The Pearl." His connection with her made him cousin to Bismillah. Not that he had ever heard of Bismillah; but it was known in the palace that the Feringhee who ruled the district of Shahpoor had the blood of a Timour in his veins. This circumstance was one of the many secrets known to Indad Ali.

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This

Captain DeLaré had, however, met Bismillah. A crowd of fugitives was leaving the city of Delhi after the 14th September 1857, and a Sikh soldier had laid violent hands on a young Mahomedan girl of extreme beautymere child,-whilst others fled. child turned round like a young tigress, and said to the soldier-“Touch me at your peril!" The Sikh soldier was drawing the trigger of his musket when a bullet from DeLaré's revolver put an end to the monster. DeLaré passed on, and almost forgot the incident. Not so Bismillah she remembered DeLaré's face, and trembled when she thought that she owed her life to a Christian; she knew not the sympathy of bloodhow, unknown to ourselves, it draws

tannia, in anguish, had torn from her own breast, and placed on that of her sable daughter Hindoostan. Poppy had arrived in India late in the day: he viewed the Pagoda Tree with horror-it was dried up and withered !— that pleasant tree, under which civilians and military men used to collect in the cool of the morning, drink coffee, and return home to order-curricles to the door. All that Poppy can now do-and he has been directed to devote his spare hours to the duty-is to engrave, with one of those sharp knives sent up by the Superintendent of Stationery at Calcutta at an immense cost, on the trunk of the old pagoda tree

ARMS BILL. INCOME TAX.

LICENSE TAX.

PAPER CURRENCY.

Cut by GREEN POPPY, Esq.,

Bengal Civil Service,

SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PUNJAB.

N.B. A Competitioner of the Year 1857, who rose to his present honorable post by his-Merits.

If you meet an Englishman wandering about the country in India in the morning, looking like an office-man, he is sure to be a competitioner. No one appears to claim him he is too learned for the old style of civilians, and too

seedy for the royals to associate with. If you want a pleasant travelling friend, never choose a Wala,-he is like a lady with a butterfly-net in her hand, always ready to capture a poor flutterer when he fancies that his bright morning of existence will last a long time; a Wala has you in his toils before you can look round. He is always prowling about the bazars of India, like Socrates at Athens, and nothing pleases him better than to have upset and destroyed the theories of a sudder judge before breakfast. Would that he could clear off all old judges-he would then indeed confer a benefit on society but a Wala is bold with measures, and rather timid with menhe hardly knows his place.

Mr. Poppy was one day asked to dine at the mess of the 79th highlanders. He begged to be excused, on the plea that " only gentlemen were accustomed to go to the mess." Since Mr. Poppy has become Secretary, he tries to joke off the matter, by saying, "You know I have a Mrs. Poppy, [with red hair,] and only bachelors should, I am told, go to mess !" We fear Mr. Poppy has been guilty of a quibble; but then he is a competition man, and they do strange things.

The competition man does not belong to any party in India: as the timid Hindoo stands at the court-house door on one leg, with a straw in his mouth, and pleads for justice, so the competitioner is beginning to wail over his desolate lot, and pathetically styles himself a 66 pelican in the wilderness"! There is a fine strong fellow, who will soon give this pelican a good rap on the head, and send him to the right about pretty sharp-the English bar.

It is very evident that our civil and our criminal courts in India require immediate reform: nothing can be worse than they are. Let the blow be struck whilst the old civilian is tottering in his chair from the effects of the recent transfer of India to the crown; if allowed to settle down again, he will last for years. If now struck, with vigour, the law courts of India will be reformed; the old judge is like a drowning man with his mouth full of water, and dilated eyes : "Pull me out, Mr. Poppy!-pull me out, Mr. Poppy!"

But no; Mr. Poppy is a man of principle: he places his hand quietly ou Mr. Plowden's head-a bubble or two, and down he goes to the bottom. The English bar will soon tackle Mr. Poppy, and, we feel confident, put him to flight-for he is not a brave man he always proclaims himself an-officeman. The English bar will soon give a good tone to our courts, and establish them on a firm base. India will then know what the law is, and be assured that it will be acted up to.

If European colonisation is to be encouraged,—and we trust it is, for it is quite practicable in certain localities,we must reduce our landed tenures to some degree of certainty. It should be a fact easy to ascertain to whom a certain village really belongs; there should be no doubt on the subject: and yet few collectors can with confidence warrant the title to any land in their districts ! The different modes of procedure which spring up in the courts of Agra, Calcutta, and the Punjab, added to the varied constructions of obscure laws, are daily rearing a pyramid of incongruities. In any knotty point of law, English books are appealed to, it is true; but, as a general rule, the brains of the judge are the measure of the law. How much better it would be to have tried English barristers to perform the functions of judges in the mofussil courts of Bombay, Madras, and Bengal. We could bring forward stunning cases, tried and decided in mofussil courts ; but why should we embitter the last moments of Mr. Plowden, or force him to rise from the water to defend himself? The civilian of India (covenanted), excepting all Walas," is the most difficult fellow in the world to kill; he will always have the last word-Napier tells us so. Old Plowden, brim-full of water, would, if the cry was raised-" The Civil Service in Extremis !" still cry-" Pippins-ippins -pins-ins-s"! like the old woman on the frozen Thames, who lost her head!

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The Punjab Government is a bold Government, all must allow courageous in Sir John Lawrence's time; bold now as ruled by Poppy. The Judicial Commissioner tells us that he was walking by the light of the-moon, in the central jail at Lahore ; he pondered

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Captain Charles Orlando DeLaré found Mr. Green Poppy with a pen in his hand, the end of it closely pressed by his teeth-looking hot, and his eyes inflamed. The paper on which he had been writing was still wet. A letter ran thus:

"To C. POPKINS, Esq., C.B.

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with female delicacy, took the delightful document in her hand, and seeing Popkins' name at the head of it, read it, smiled, and said-"Quite a mistake, Mr. Poppy. I have to-day heard from Sir Marmaduke Popkins, G.C.B., F.R.S. He speaks of your father very kindly, and says that he has advanced him a sum quite sufficient to re-establish his paper-mill, which was burnt down last year." Mrs. Popkins

then tore up the obnoxious letter, smiling kindly on Poppy; and, placing a pen in his hand, said—" Write !"— Telegraphic Message-Urgent.

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"To C. POPKINS, Esq.

"You are appointed Commissioner of Peshawur start at once!"

Poppy wrote in a tremble. Mrs. Popkins folded up the precious paper, wished Poppy good-bye, and seeing DeLaré idle, and a handsome man, she her carriage, and asked him to tiffin at took his arm, walked away with him to

the house at which she was a visitor. DeLaré could not refuse. When seated, Mrs. Popkins said,-"That horrid Poppy!-to use my dear Popkins so

"SIR,-I am directed by the Honorable the badly, a man devoted to his country!

Lieutenant Governor to express his honor's
regret that you should have been guilty of
the outrageous neglect of allowing a party
of fugitives to leave the city without your
knowledge on the 15th May 1860 on that
date your private telegraphic message says-
'All right!' This information has been com-
municated to Government by a most respec-
table Mahomedan gentleman of good family,
named Mirza Mahomed Shah, a resident of

Delhi; he states that the party has proceeded

to Lucknow, for political purposes.

“2.

In consequence of your neglect of duty, you are banished to-Jhung!

"Your obedient Servant, (Signed) "GREEN POPPY, "Secretary Punjab Government." "N.B.-No applications in your behalf from Mrs. Popkins will be attended to."

Our old friend Indad Ali had paid a morning visit to Poppy; hence this

effusion.

When Captain DeLaré was seated, and about to open the sore subject of his C.B.-ship, a fawning chuprassee announced a mem saheb-a madam—an English lady,-in fact, Mrs. Popkins, -a pretty, fair-haired English lady.

Mr. Poppy felt very sick, and tried to conceal his letter with a piece of blotting-paper. Mrs. Popkins at once,

But I know how to deal with a Wala ! -the vulgar creatures: they can never face a lady!"

DeLaré sighed.

"What did you go to Poppy about?" said Mrs. Popkins, kindly.

"About my C. B.-ship," said DeLaré. "Take my advice," said Mrs. Popkins, in a sly tone:-"you will never get on in India without a dear, pretty-wife! Marry! Where would Popkins have been without me ?-at-Jhung!"

Mrs. Popkins burst into tears: the struggle with Mr. Green Poppy had been too much for her, although victorious. But she had forgotten her DeLaré for his. It was returned next pocket handkerchief, she appealed to day, nicely washed, ironed, perfumed, and, must we say, embroidered with"CHARLES ORLANDO DELARE!

NEVER TRUST

TO YOUR POWERS OF ELOQUENCE WITH POPPY,

BUT

MARRY A CLEVER PRETTY WIFE,

AS RECOMMENDED BY ERNESTA SYLVESTER ISABELLA POPKINS."

A Few Words on the Future of India.

We do not profess to be endued with prophetic power, nor do we purpose to attempt apoplectic-we mean apocalyptic-sketches of the doom that foreshadows this devoted country; we simply wish to infer, from the present course of events, what is likely to happen if the same course is pursued to the end, and to look at the future through the glass of the past.

Those who have read the very able article on "The Administration of India" in the November number of Blackwood's Magazine will have formed their own ideas as to the future of India. The deliberate deceit, and what in a man of lower rank would be termed falsehood, of Sir C. Wood, was there unfolded and laid bare with appalling distinctness; and those who looked at the sight with shuddering disgust could augur but ill for a country over which such a man exercises' supreme authority. The description might have been considered exaggerated were it not that Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India (evidently aspiring to the title which Dogberry was so anxious to obtain) has by every subsequent act of his only confirmed the more the unfavourable impression he made on all unbiassed and right-judging men. Having stated, in his place in Parliament, that the rights and privileges of the Indian officers would of course be preserved intact, and expressed a vast amount of indignation at being suspected of wishing to infringe on them, he deliberately consults the law officers of the crown as to whether these rights and privileges could be annulled! He mourns over the deficit in the Indian finances, and out of the tenderness of his heart grants £500,000 to the descendants of a parvenu prince who had ever been the bitterest enemy of the English and their dominion! It is a wonder he did not present Tippoo Saheb's grandsons with a handsome copy of the amusing instrument, representing an English soldier crushed under the paws of a tiger, that their amiable grandfather had constructed for his own entertainment. We would suggest to Sir C. Wood to get made for himself, as a source of amusement in his leisure hours, figures of the same kind, representing the officers of the Indian army crushed under the horrible demon of Interest, and the hideous dragon of the Horse-Guards. No doubt his friends the Mysore princes would assist him with their advice, and enter into the humour of the thing amazingly!

Can psychologists explain to us how it happens that almost every official whom Her Majesty invests with high power in India seems to lose, on assuming his appointment, all sense of truth, honour, and justice? Lord Clyde and the present Commander in Chief of the Bombay army acknowledged to their devoted and fawning admirer the Times' correspondent that they had told at least one lie* ;-may their pious prayer for forgiveness for the same be heard! Sir Hugh Rose deliberately vilified the whole Indian army to gain favour with the home authorities. When he penned his famous, or rather infamous, statement about the want of "feu sacre" in that army, and grounded his statement on the

* Vide p. 93 of this Miscellany.

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