the stalls; the London Press in the gallery; the East Indian
Association, Exeter Hall, Professor Fawcett, Mr. Hyndman, and the
criminal classes generally, in the pit; while those naughty little
Scotch boys, the shock-headed Duke and Monty Duff, who once tried to
turn down the lights, pervade the house with a policeman on their
horizon. As we enter the theatre a dozen chiefs are dancing in the
ballet to express their joy at the termination of the Afghan War. The
political _choreutæ_ are clapping their hands, encouraging them by
name and pointing them out to the gallery.

The government of a native state by clerks and chuprassies, with a
beautiful _fainéant_ Political Agent for Sundays and Hindu festivals,
is, I am told, a thing of the past. Colonel Henderson, the imperial
"Peeler," tells me so, and he ought to know, for he is a kind of
demi-official superintendent of Thugs and Agents. Nowadays, my
informant assures me, the Political Agents undergo a regular training
in a Madras Cavalry Regiment or in the Central India Horse, or on the
Viceroy's Staff, and if they have to take charge of a Mahratta State
they are obliged to pass an examination in classical Persian poetry.
This is as it ought to be. The intricacies of Oriental intrigue and
the manifold complication of tenure and revenue that entangle
administrative procedure in the protected principalities, will unravel
themselves in presence of men who have enjoyed such advantages.

When I first came out to this country I was placed in charge of three
degrees of latitude and eight of longitude in Rajputana that I might
learn the language. The soil was sandy, the tenure feudal
(_zabardast_,[I] as we call it in India), and the Raja a lunatic by
nature and a dipsomaniac by education. He had been educated by his
grandmamma and the hereditary Minister. I found that his grandmamma