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SKETCHES OF SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA. SKETCHES SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA. C. T. BUCKLAND, F. Z S, . FATHER OP THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE IN 1881. LONDON W. H. ALLEN CO., 13 WATEELOO PLACE, PALL MALL. S. W. 1884. 411 ngTiis resemd. LONDON PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. 8. W. PREFACE. THE first two chapters of this book were published more than a year ago in the Army and Navy Magazine, and are reprinted with the kind permission of the proprietors Messrs. W. H. Allen Co. The other chapters were written about the same time, as articles for the same Magazine, but not being sufficiently within the scope of a military and naval periodical, it was resolved to produce them in the present form. The author, in the course of a long career in the Bengal Civil Service, has held nearly all the appoint ments which he has attempted to describe in connection with that service, and he had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the mechanism of Indian government, as seen from Calcutta and the Lower Provinces of Bengal. In his attempt to give a sketch of social life in India, it must be remembered that he is writing chiefly of the Lower Provinces of Bengal. He has endeavoured to avoid anything which might give personal offence, and he would gladly adopt as his VI PBEFAOE. motto, Ridentem diem verum quid vet at It is hoped that this hook may afford some entertainment to those who have been in India, and that it may be of use and interest to those young men who are thinking of devoting themselves to a professional career in India, It only remains to observe that these papers were written before the recent agitation in connection with the Ilbert Bill, but it has not been found necessary toalter anything that had been written as regards either the English residents or the native community, 20, ASEBTOK PLACE, 7fl Mrwry, 1884 CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTEE I. THE VICEROY AND HIS COURT . 1 CHAPTEE n. MEMBERS OF COITNCIL AND LIETJ TENANT-G-OVERNOHS OP BENGAL ... 21 CHAPTEE ni. ENGLISH COLONISTS IN BENGAL 48 CHAPTEE IY. THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE . 57 CHAPTEE V. THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE cont, 108 CHAPTEE VL NATIVE LIJPE IN INDIA . . 139 SKETCHES OF SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA. CHAPTER L THE VICEROY AND HIS COtfBT, THERE are two different classes of people who know very little about India. First there is your old Indian, who fancies that he knows all about the presidency, say Bombay, in which he spent his time, but is as ignorant of the presidencies of Bengal and Madras as he is of China and Japan, Secondly, there is your real rural Englishman, who has had no relations or connections in India, and is, perhaps, still grieving over the untimely fate of some old friend who went out and suddenly died in India. There undoubtedly still exists in many English circles a considerable amount of ignorance and a deep-rooted prejudice against all things Indian. It is possible that this prejudice may be traced back to the ways and manners 1 a SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA. of tie East Indian Nabobs of the last century, whose pompous display of wealth, suspected to have been acquired by dubious practices, was an offence and a scandal to the quiet English country gentleman, and, indeed, to all who did not contrive slyly to make a profit out of the r Nabobs money. The Nabob himself was usually shy and awkward, and almost always irritable and irascible, and remarkable for his peculiar social manners so that it came topass, that a general idea prevailed that the picture presented by the Nabob in England was but a reflection and reproduction of the social manners which he had acquired during his sojourn in the distant East. How far this feeling was correct it is not our present purpose to inquire. The race of Nabobs has come to an end. The pagoda-tree of fabulous memory no longer bears its golden fruit. An enormous change has come over the habits and manners of those Englishmen who now practically colonise India...