the goats, and keeping the starving babies alive with milk. It was a
simple idea, and the man to whom it occurred worked himself to death's
door, which was no more than another simple idea of what was due from
him to the district and to his superior officer.

The wrong kind of simplicity is illustrated in a story from _Life's
Handicap_. It is called _The Head of the District_, and it has to do
with a simple idea which occurred to the Viceroy. A Deputy
Commissioner who understood the lawless Khusru Kheyel and had put into
them the fear of English law had died and a successor had to be
appointed. The man for the post was a certain Tallentire who had
worked with the late head of the district and knew the tribe with whom
he had to deal. But the Viceroy had a Principle. He wished to educate
the natives in self-government; and here was an opportunity--a vacant
post of responsibility and a native candidate to fill it.


"There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had
won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open
competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the
world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all,
sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He
had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if
the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr Grish Chunder Dé, M.A. In
short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on
principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? The district in
South-Eastern Bengal might with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to
a younger civilian of Mr G. C. Dé's nationality (who had written a
remarkably clever pamphlet on the political value of sympathy in
administration); and Mr G. C. Dé could be transferred northward. As