well-to-do middle classes of India.

The District Superintendents are men of energy and probity, but after
all they are only mortal. What with accounts, inspections, reports,
forms, and innumerable writings, they cannot exercise a constant
vigilance and personal supervision over every part of their district.
A district may comprise many hundred villages, thousands of
inhabitants, and leagues of intricate and densely peopled country. The
mere physical exertion of riding over his district would be too much
for any man in about a week. The subordinate police are all interested
in keeping up the present system of extortion, and the inspectors and
sub-inspectors, who wink at malpractices, come in for their share of
the spoil. There is little combination among the peasantry. Each
selfishly tries to save his own skin, and they know that if any one
individual were to complain, or to dare to resist, he would have to
bear the brunt of the battle alone. None of his neighbours would stir
a finger to back him; he is too timid and too much in awe of the
official European, and constitutionally too averse to resistance, to
do aught but suffer in silence. No doubt he feels his wrongs most
keenly, and a sullen feeling of hate and wrong is being garnered up,
which may produce results disastrous for the peace and wellbeing of
our empire in the East.

As a case in point, I may mention one instance out of many which came
under my own observation. I had a _moonshee_, or accountant, in one of
my outworks in Purneah. Formerly, when the police had come through the
factory, he had been in the habit of giving them a present and some
food. Under my strict orders, however, that no policemen were to be
allowed near the place unless they came on business, he had
discontinued paying his black mail. This was too glaring an