Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 44

'Much more[10] here is no comparison.'

'And the people of towns and cities bear in India but a small proportion to the people of the village communities?'

'I should think a very small proportion indeed.'

'Then you think that in the ma.s.s of the population of India out of our courts, and in their own circles, the first cla.s.s, or those who speak truth, whether they have the Koran or Ganges water in their hands or not, would be found more numerous than the other two?'

'Certainly I do; if they were always to be questioned before their neighbours or elders, or so that they could feel that their neighbours and elders would know what they say.'

This man is a very worthy and learned Muhammadan, who has read all the works on medicine to be found in Persian and Arabia; gives up his time from sunrise in the morning till nine, to the indigent sick of the town, whom he supplies gratuitously with his advice and medicines, that cost him thirty rupees a month, out of about one hundred and twenty that he can make by his labours all the rest of the day.

There can be no doubt that, even in England, the fear of the odium of society, which is sure to follow the man who has perjured himself, acts more powerfully in making men tell the truth, when they have the Bible in their hands before a competent and public tribunal, and with a strong worldly motive to tell a lie, than the fear of punishment by the Deity in the next world for having 'taken his name in vain' in this. Christians, as well as other people, are too apt to think that there is yet abundance of time to appease the Deity by repentance and reformation; but they know that they cannot escape the odium of society, with a free press and high tone of moral and religions feeling, like those of England, if they deliberately perjure themselves in open court, whose proceedings are watched with so much jealousy. They learn to dread the name of 'perjured villain' or 'perjured wretch', which would embitter the rest of their lives, and perhaps the lives of their children.[11]

In a society much advanced in arts and the refinements of life, temptations to falsehood become very great, and require strong checks from law, religion, or moral feeling. Religion is seldom of itself found sufficient; for, though men cannot hope to conceal their transgressions from the Deity, they can, as I have stated, always hope in time to appease Him. Penal laws are not alone sufficient, for men can always hope to conceal their trespa.s.ses from those who are appointed to administer them, or at least to prevent their getting that measure of judicial proof required for their conviction; the dread of the indignation of their circle of society is everywhere the more efficient of the three checks; and this check will generally be found most to prevail where the community is left most to self- government--hence the proverb, 'There is honour among thieves'. A gang of robbers, who are outlaws, are, of course, left to govern themselves; and, unless these could rely on each other's veracity and honour in their relations with each other, they could do nothing. If Governments were to leave no degree of self-government to the communities of which the society is composed, this moral check would really cease--the law would undertake to secure every right, and enforce every duty; and men would cease to depend upon each other's good opinion and good feelings.[12]

There is perhaps no part of the world where the communities of which the society is composed have been left so much to self-government as in India. There has seldom been any idea of a reciprocity of duties and rights between the governing and the governed; the sovereign who has possession feels that he has a right to levy certain taxes from the land for the maintenance of the public establishments, which he requires to keep down rebellion against his rule, and to defend his dominions against all who may wish to intrude and seize upon them; and to a.s.sist him in acquiring the dominions of other princes when favourable opportunities offer; but he has no idea of a reciprocal duty towards those from whom he draws his revenues. The peasantry from whom the prince draws his revenues feel that they are bound to pay that revenue; that, if they do not pay it, he will, with his strong arm, turn them out and give to others their possessions--but they have no idea of any right on their part to any return from him.

The village communities were everywhere left almost entirely to self- government; and the virtues of truth and honesty, in all their relations with each other, were indispensably necessary to enable them to govern themselves.[13] A common interest often united a good many village communities in a bond of union, and established a kind of brotherhood over extensive tracts of richly cultivated land. Self- interest required that they should unite to defend themselves against attacks with which they were threatened at every returning harvest in a country where every prince was a robber upon a scale more or less large according to his means, and took the field to rob while the lands were covered with the ripe crops upon which his troops might subsist; and where every man who practised robbery with open violence followed what he called an '_imperial_ trade' (padshahi kam)--the only trade worthy the character of a gentleman. The same interest required that they should unite in deceiving their own prince, and all his officers, great and small, as to the real resources of their estates; because they all knew that the prince would admit of no other limits to his exactions than their abilities to pay at the harvest. Though, in their relations with each other, all these village communities spoke as much truth as those of any other communities in the world; still, in their relation with the Government, they told as many lies;--for falsehood, in the one set of relations, would have incurred the odium of the whole of their circles of society--truth, in the other, would often have involved the same penalty. If a man had told a lie to _cheat_ his neighbour, he would have become an object of hatred and contempt--if he told a lie to _save_ his neighbour's fields from an increase of rent or tax, he would have become an object of esteem and respect.[14] If the Government officers were asked whether there was any truth to be found among such communities, they would say, _No, that the truth was not in them_; because they would not cut each other's throats by telling them the real value of each other's fields.

If the peasantry were asked, they would say there was plenty of truth to be found everywhere except among a few scoundrels, who, to curry favour with the Government officers, betrayed their trust, and told the value of their neighbours' fields. In their ideas, he might as well have gone off, and brought down the common enemy upon them in the shape of some princely robber of the neighbourhood.

Locke says: 'Outlaws themselves keep faith and rules of justice one with another--they practise them as rules of convenience within their own communities; but it is impossible to conceive that they embrace justice as a practical principle who act fairly with their fellow highwaymen, and at the same time plunder or kill the next honest man they meet.' (Vol. i, p. 37.) In India, the difference between the army of a prince and the gang of a robber was, in the general estimation of the people, only in _degree_--they were both driving an _imperial trade_, a 'padshahi kam'. Both took the auspices, and set out on their expedition after the Dasahra, when the autumn crops were ripening; and both thought the Deity propitiated as soon as they found the omens favourable;[15] one attacked palaces and capitals, the other villages and merchants' storerooms. The members of the army of the prince thought as little of the justice or injustice of his cause as those of the gang of the robber; the people of his capital hailed the return of the victorious prince who had contributed so much to their wealth, to his booty, and to their self-love by his victory. The village community received back the robber and his gang with the same feelings: by their skill and daring they had come back loaded with wealth, which they were always disposed to spend liberally with their neighbours. There was no more of truth in the prince and his army in their relations with the princes and people of neighbouring princ.i.p.alities, than in the robber and his gang in their relations with the people robbed. The prince flatters the self-love of his army and his people; the robber flatters that of his gang and his village--the question is only in degree; the persons whose self- love is flattered are blind to the injustice and cruelty of the attack--the prince is the idol of a people, the robber the idol of a gang. Was ever robber more atrocious in his attacks upon a merchant or a village than Louis XIV of France in his attacks upon the Palatine and Palatinate of the Rhine? How many thousand similar instances might be quoted of princes idolized by their people for deeds equally atrocious in their relations with other people? What nation or sovereign ever found fault with their amba.s.sadors for telling lies to the kings, courts, and people of other countries?[16]

Rome, during the whole period of her history, was a mere den of execrable thieves, whose feelings were systematically brutalized by the most revolting spectacles, that they might have none of those sympathies with suffering humanity, none of those 'compunctious visitings of conscience', which might be found prejudicial to the interests of the gang, and beneficial to the rest of mankind. Take, for example, the conduct of this atrocious gang under Aemilius Paulus, against Epirus and Greece generally after the defeat of Perseus, all under the deliberate decrees of the senate: take that of this gang under his son Scipio the younger, against Carthage and Numantia; under Cato, at Cyprus--all in the same manner under the _deliberate decrees of the senate_. Take indeed the whole of her history as a republic, and we find it that of the most atrocious band of robbers that was ever a.s.sociated against the rest of their species. In her relations with the rest of mankind Rome was collectively devoid of truth; and her citizens, who were sent to govern conquered countries, were no less devoid of truth individually--they cared nothing whatever for the feelings or the opinions of the people governed; in their dealings with them, truth and honour were entirely disregarded. The only people whose favourable opinion they had any desire to cultivate were the members of the great gang; and the most effectual mode of conciliating them was to plunder the people of conquered countries, and distribute the fruits among them in presents of one kind or another. Can any man read without shuddering that it was the practice among this atrocious gang to have all the mult.i.tude of unhappy prisoners of both s.e.xes, and of all ranks and ages,--who annually graced the triumphs of their generals, taken off and murdered just at the moment when these generals reached the Capitol, amid the shouts of the mult.i.tude, that their joys might be augmented by the sight or consciousness of the sufferings of others? (See Hooke's _Roman History_, vol. iii, p. 488; vol. iv, p. 541.) 'It was the custom that, when the triumphant conqueror tumed his chariot towards the Capitol, he commanded the captives to be led to prison, and there put to death, that so the glory of the victor and the miseries of the vanquished might be in the same moment at the utmost.' How many millions of the most innocent and amiable of their species must have been offered up as human sacrifices to the triumphs of the leaders of this great gang!

The women were almost as brutalized as the men; lovers met to talk 'soft nonsense', at exhibitions of gladiators. Valeria, the daughter and sister of two of the first men in Rome, was beautiful, gay, and lively, and of unblemished reputation. Having been divorced from her husband, she and the monster Sylla made love to each other at one of these exhibitions of gladiators, and were soon after married. Gibbon, in speaking of the lies which Severus told his two compet.i.tors in the contest for empire, says, 'Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity of public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of meanness than when they are found in the intercourse of private life. In the latter, they discover a want of courage; in the other, only a defect of power; and, as it is impossible for the most able statesmen to subdue millions of followers and enemies by their own personal strength, the world, under the name of _policy_, seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of craft and dissimulation.'[17]

But the weak in society are often obliged to defend themselves against the strong by the same weapons; and the world grants them the same liberal indulgence. Men advocate the use of the ballot in elections that the weak may defend themselves and the free inst.i.tutions of the country, by dissimulation, against the strong who would oppress them.[18] The circ.u.mstances under which falsehood and insincerity are tolerated by the community in the best societies of modern days are very numerous; and the worst society of modern days in the civilized world, when slavery does not prevail, is immeasurably superior to the best in ancient days, or in the Middle Ages. Do we not every day hear men and women, in what are called the best societies, declaring to one individual or one set of acquaintances that the pity, the sympathy, the love, or the admiration they have been expressing for others is, in reality, all feigned to soothe or please? As long as the motive is not base, men do not spurn the falsehood as such. How much of untruth is tolerated in the best circles of the most civilized nations, in the relations between electors to corporate and legislative bodies and the candidates for election? between nominators to offices under Government and the candidates for nomination? between lawyers and clients, vendors and purchasers? (particularly of horses), between the recruiting sergeant and the young recruit, whom he has found a little angry with his widowed mother, whom he makes him kill by false pictures of what a soldier may hope for in the 'bellaque matribus detestata' to which he invites him?[19]

There is, I believe, no cla.s.s of men in India from whom it is more difficult to get the true statement of a case pending before a court than the sepoys of our native regiments; and yet there are, I believe, no people in the world from whom it is more easy to get it in their own village communities, where they state it before their relations, elders, and neighbours, whose esteem is necessary to their happiness, and can be obtained only by adherence to truth. Every case that comes before a regimental court involves, or is supposed to involve, the interest or feelings of some one or other of their companions; and the question which the deponent asks himself is-not what religion, public justice, the interests of discipline and order, or the wishes of his officers require, or what would appear manly and honourable before the elders of his own little village, but what will secure the esteem, and what will excite the hatred, of his comrades.

This will often be downright, deliberate falsehood, sworn upon the Koran or the Ganges water before his officers.

Many a brave sepoy have I seen faint away from the agitated state of his feelings, under the dread of the Deity if he told lies with the Ganges water in his hands, and of his companions if he told the truth, and caused them to be punished. Every question becomes a party question, and the 'point of honour' requires that every witness shall tell as many lies about it as possible.[20] When I go into a village, and talk with the people in any part of India, I know that I shall get the truth out of them on all subjects as long as I can satisfy them that I am not come on the part of the Government to inquire into the value of their fields with a view to new impositions, and this I can always do; but, when I go among the sepoys to ask about anything, I feel pretty sure that I have little chance of getting at the truth; they will take the alarm and try to deceive me, lest what I learn should be brought up at some future day against them or their comrades. The Duke of Wellington says, speaking of the English soldiers: 'It is most difficult to convict a prisoner before a regimental court-martial, for, I am sorry to say, that soldiers have little regard to the oath administered to them; and the officers who are sworn well and truly to try and determine _according to the evidence_, the matter before them, have too much regard to the strict _letter_ of that administered to them.' Again: 'The witnesses being in almost every instance common soldiers, whose conduct this tribunal was inst.i.tuted to control, the consequence is that perjury is almost as common an offence as drunkenness and plunder, &c.'[21]

In the ordinary civil tribunals of Europe and America a man commonly feels that, though he is removed far from the immediate presence of those whose esteem is necessary for him, their eyes are still upon him, because the statements he may give will find their way to them through the medium of the press. This he does not feel in the civil courts of India, nor in the military courts of Europe, or of any other part of the world, and the man who judges of the veracity of a whole people from the specimens he may witness in such courts, cannot judge soundly.

Shaikh Sadi, in his _Gulistan_, has the following tale: 'I have heard that a prince commanded the execution of a captive who was brought before him; when the captive, having no hope of life, told the prince that he disgraced his throne. The prince, not understanding him, tumed to one of his ministers and asked him what he had said. "He says," replied the minister, quoting a pa.s.sage from the Koran, "G.o.d loves those who subdue their pa.s.sions, forgive injuries, and do good to his creatures." The prince pitied the poor captive, and countermanded the orders for the execution. Another minister, who owed a spite to the one who first spoke, said, "Nothing but truth should be spoken by such persons as we in the presence of the prince; the captive spoke abusively and insolently, and you have not interpreted his words truly". The prince frowned and said, "His false interpretation pleases me more than thy true one, because his was given for a good, and thine for a malignant, purpose; and wise men have said that 'a peace-making lie is better than a factious or anger exciting truth'."'[22]

He who would too fastidiously condemn this doctrine should think of the ma.s.sacre of Thessalonica, and how much better it would have been for the great Theodosius to have had by his side the peace-making Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, than the anger-exciting Rufinus, when he heard of the offence which that city had committed.[23]

In despotic governments, where lives, characters, and liberties are every moment at the mercy, not only of the prince but of all his public officers from the highest to the lowest, the occasions in which men feel authorized and actually called upon by the common feelings of humanity to tell 'peacemaking lies' occur every day--nay, every hour, every petty officer of government, 'armed with his little brief authority', is a little tyrant surrounded by men whose all depends upon his will, and who dare not tell him the truth--the 'point of honour' in this little circle demands that every one should be prepared to tell him 'peace-making lies'; and the man who does not do so when the occasion seems to call for it, incurs the odium of the whole circle, as one maliciously disposed to speak 'anger-exciting or factions truths'. Poor Cromwell and Anne Boleyn were obliged to talk of _love_ and _duty_ toward their brutal murderer, Henry VIII, and tell 'peace-making lies' on the scaffold to save their poor children from his resentment. European gentlemen in India often, by their violence surround themselves with circles of the same kind, in which the 'point of honour' demands that every member shall be prepared to tell 'peace-making lies', to save the others from the effects of their master's ungovernable pa.s.sions--falsehood is their only safeguard; and, consequently, falsehood ceases to be odious.

Countenanced in the circles of the violent, falsehood soon becomes countenanced in those of the mild and forbearing; their domestics pretend a dread of their anger which they really do not feel; and they gain credit for having the same good excuse among those who have no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the real character of the gentlemen in their domestic relations--all are thought to be more or less _tigerish_ in these relations, particularly _before breakfast_, because some are _known_ to be so.[24]

I have known the native officers of a judge who was really a very mild and worthy man, but who lived a very secluded life, plead as their excuse for all manner of bribery and corruption, that their persons and character were never safe from his violence; and urge that men whose tenure of office was very insecure, and who were every hour in the day exposed to so much indignity, could not possibly be blamed for making the most of their position. The society around believed all this, and blamed, not the native officers, but the judge, or the Government, who placed them in such a situation. Other judges and magistrates have been known to do what this person was merely reported to do, otherwise society would neither have given credit to his officers nor have held them excused for their malpractices.[25] Those European gentlemen who allow their pa.s.sions to get the better of their reason among their domestics do much to lower the character of their countrymen in the estimation of the people; but the high officials who forget what they owe to themselves and the native officers of their courts, when presiding on the bench of justice, do ten thousand times more; and I grieve to say that I have known a few officials of this cla.s.s.

We have in England known many occasions, particularly in the cases of prosecutions by the officers of Government for offences against the State, where little circles of society have made it a 'point of honour' for some individuals to speak untruths, and for others to give verdicts against their consciences; some occasions indeed where those who ventured to speak the truth, or give a verdict according to their conscience, were in danger from the violence of popular resentment. Have we not, unhappily, in England and among our countrymen in all parts of the world, experience of a wide difference between what is exacted from members of particular circles of society by the 'point of honour', and what is held to be strict religions truth by the rest of society? Do we not see gentlemen cheating their tradesmen, while they dare not leave a gambling debt unpaid? The 'point of honour' in the circle to which they belong demands that the one should be paid, because the non-payment would involve a breach of faith in their relations with each other, as in the case of the members of a gang of robbers; but the non-payment of a tradesman's bill involves only a breach of faith in a gentleman's relations with a lower order. At least, some gentlemen do not feel any apprehension of incurring the odium of the circle in which they move by cheating of this kind. In the same manner the roue, or libertine of rank, may often be guilty of all manner of falsehoods and crimes to the females of the cla.s.s below him, without any fear of incurring the odium of either males or females of his own circle; on the contrary, the more crimes he commits of this sort, the more sometimes he may expect to be caressed by males and females of his own order. The man who would not hesitate a moment to destroy the happiness of a family by the seduction of the wife or the daughter, would not dare to leave one shilling of a gambling debt unpaid--the one would bring down upon him the odium of his circle, but the other would not; and the odium of that circle is the only kind of odium he dreads. Appius Claudius apprehended no odium from his own order--the patrician--from the violation of the daughter of Virginius, of the plebeian order; nor did s.e.xtus Tarquinius of the royal order, apprehend any from the violation of Lucretia, of the patrician order--neither would have been punished by their own order, but they were both punished by the injured orders below them.

Our own penal code punished with death the poor man who stole a little food to save his children from starvation, while it left to exult in the caresses of his own order, the wealthy libertine who robbed a father and mother of their only daughter, and consigned her to a life of infamy and misery. The poor victim of man's brutal pa.s.sions and base falsehood suffered inevitable and exquisite punishment, while the laws and usages of society left the man himself untouched. He had nothing to apprehend if the father of his victim happened to be of the lower order, or a minister of the Church of Christ; because his own order would justify his refusing to meet the one in single combat, and the other dared not invite him to it, and the law left no remedy.[26]

Take the two parties in England into which society is politically divided. There is hardly any species of falsehood uttered by the members of the party out of power against the members of the party in power that is not tolerated and even applauded by one party; men state deliberately what they know to be utterly devoid of truth regarding the conduct of their opponent; they basely ascribe to them motives by which they know they were never actuated, merely to deceive the public, and to promote the interests of their party, without the slightest fear of incurring odium by so doing in the minds of any but their political opponents. If a foreigner were to judge of the people of England from the tone of their newspapers, he would say that there was a.s.suredly neither honour, honesty, nor truth to be found among the cla.s.ses which furnished the nation with its ministers and legislators; for a set of miscreants more atrocious than the Whig and Tory ministers and legislators of England were represented to be in these papers never disgraced the society of any nation upon earth.

Happily, all foreigners who read these journals know that in what the members of one party say of those of the other, or are reported to say, there is often but little truth; and that there is still less of truth in what the editors and correspondents of the ultra journals of one party write about the characters, conduct, and sentiments of the members of the other.

There is one species of untruth to which we English people are particularly p.r.o.ne in India, and, I am a.s.sured, everywhere else. It is this. Young 'miss in her teens', as soon as she finds her female attendants in the wrong, no matter in what way, exclaims, 'It is so like the natives'; and the idea of the same error, vice, or crime, becomes so habitually a.s.sociated in her mind with every native she afterwards sees, that she can no more separate them than she can the idea of ghosts and hobgoblins from darkness and solitude. The young cadet or civilian, as soon as he finds his valet, butler, or groom in the wrong, exclaims, 'It is so like blacky--so like the n.i.g.g.e.rs; they are all alike!' And what could you expect from him? He has been constantly accustomed to the same vicious a.s.sociation of ideas in his native land--if he has been brought up in a family of Tories, he has constantly heard those he most reverenced exclaim, when they have found, or fancied they found, a Whig in the wrong, 'It is so like the Whigs--they are all alike--there is no trusting any of them.' If a Protestant, 'It is so like the Catholics; there is no trusting them in any condition of life.' The members of Whig and Catholic families may say the same, perhaps, of Tories and Protestants. An untravelled Englishman will sometimes say the same of a Frenchman; and the idea of everything that is bad in man will be a.s.sociated in his mind with the image of a Frenchman. If he hears of an act of dishonour by a person of that nation, 'It is so like a Frenchman--they are all alike; there is no honour in them.' A Tory goes to America, predisposed to find in all who live under republican governments every species of vice and crime; and no sooner sees a man or woman misbehave than he exclaims, 'It is so like the Americans--they are all alike; but what could you expect from republicans?' At home, when he considers himself in relation to the members of the parties opposed to him in religion or politics, they are a.s.sociated in his mind with everything that is vicious; abroad, when he considers the people of other countries in relation to his own, if they happen to be Christians, he will find them a.s.sociated in his mind with everything that is good, or everything that is bad, in proportion as their inst.i.tutions happen to conform to those which his party advocates. A Tory will abuse America and Americans, and praise the Austrians. A Whig will, _perhaps_, abuse the Austrians and others who live under paternal or despotic governments, and praise the Americans, who live under inst.i.tutions still more free than his own.

This has properly been considered by Locke as a species of madness to which all mankind are more or less subject, and from which hardly any individual can entirely free himself. 'There is', he says, 'scarce a man so free from it, but that if he should always, on all occasions, argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly pa.s.sion, but in the steady, calm course of his life. That which thus captivates their reason, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from common sense will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of. Some independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are, by education, custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in their minds, that they always appear there together, and they can no more separate them in their thoughts than if they were but one idea, and they operate as if they really were so.' (Book II, Chap. 33.)

Perjury had long since ceased to be considered disgraceful, or even discreditable, among the patrician order in Rome before the soldiers ventured to break their oaths of allegiance. Military service had, from the ignorance and selfishness of this order, been rendered extremely odious to free-born Romans; and they frequently mutinied and murdered their generals, though they would not desert, because they had sworn not to do so. To break his oath by deserting the standards of Rome was to incur the hatred and contempt of the great ma.s.s of the people--the soldier dared not hazard this. But patricians of senatorial and consular rank did not hesitate to violate their oaths whenever it promised any advantage to the patrician order collectively or individually, because it excited neither contempt nor indignation in that order. 'They have been false to their generals,'

said Fabius, 'but they have never deceived the G.o.ds. I know they _can_ conquer, and they shall swear to do so.' They swore, and conquered.

Instead of adopting measures to make the duties of a soldier less odious, the patricians tumed their hatred of these duties to account, and at a high price sold an absolution from their oath. While the members of the patrician order bought and sold oaths among themselves merely to deceive the lower orders, they were still respected among the plebeians; but when they began to sell dispensations to the members of this lower order, the latter also, by degrees, ceased to feel any veneration for the oath, and it was no longer deemed disgraceful to desert duties which the higher order made no effort to render less odious.

'That they who draw the breath of life in a court, and pa.s.s all their days in an atmosphere of lies, should have any very sacred regard for truth, is hardly to be expected. They experience such falsehood in all who surround them, that deception, at least suppression of the truth, almost seems necessary for self-defence; and, accordingly, if their speech be not framed upon the theory of the French cardinal, that language was given to man for the better concealment of his thoughts, they at least seem to regard in what they say, not its resemblance to the tact in question, but rather its subserviency to the purpose in view.' (Brougham's _George IV._) 'Yet, let it never be forgotten, that princes are nurtured in falsehood by the atmosphere of lies which envelops their palace; steeled against natural sympathies by the selfish natures of all that surround them; hardened in cruelty, partly indeed by the fears incident to their position, but partly too by the unfeeling creatures, the factions, the unnatural productions of a court whom alone they deal with; trained for tyrants by the prostration which they find in all the minds which they come in contact with; encouraged to domineer by the unresisting medium through which all their steps to power and its abuse are made.' (Brougham's _Carnot_.)

But Lord Brougham is too harsh. Johnson has observed truly enough, 'Honesty is not necessarily greater where elegance is less'; nor does a sense of supreme or despotic power necessarily imply the exercise or abuse of it. Princes have, happily, the same yearning as the peasant after the respect and affection of the circle around them, and the people under them; and they must generally seek it by the same means.

I have mentioned the village communities of India as that cla.s.s of the population among whom truth prevails most; but I believe there is no cla.s.s of men in the world more strictly honourable in their dealings than the mercantile cla.s.ses of India. Under native governments a merchant's books were appealed to as 'holy writ', and the confidence in them has certainly not diminished under our rule.

There have been instances of their being seized by the magistrate, and subjected to the inspection of the officers of his court. No officer of a native government ventured to seize them; the merchant was required to produce them as proof of particular entries, and, while the officers of government did no more, there was no danger of false accounts.

An instance of deliberate fraud or falsehood among native merchants of respectable station in society is extremely rare. Among the many hundreds of bills I have had to take from them for private remittances, I have never had one dishonoured, or the payment upon one delayed beyond the day specified; nor do I recollect ever hearing of one who had. They are so careful not to speculate beyond their means, that an instance of failure is extremely rare among them. No one ever in India hears of families reduced to ruin or distress by the failure of merchants or bankers; though here, as in all other countries advanced in the arts, a vast number of families subsist upon the interest of money employed by them.[27]

There is no cla.s.s of men more interested in the stability of our rule in India than this of the respectable merchants; nor is there any upon whom the welfare of our Government and that of the people more depend. Frugal, first upon principle, that they may not in their expenditure encroach upon their capitals, they become so by habit; and when they advance in life they lay out their acc.u.mulated wealth in the formation of those works which shall secure for them, from generation to generation, the blessings of the people of the towns in which they have resided, and those of the country around. It would not be too much to say that one-half of the great works which embellish and enrich the face of India, in tanks, groves, wells, temples, &c., have been formed by this cla.s.s of the people solely with the view of securing the blessings of mankind by contributing to their happiness in solid and permanent works.[28] 'The man who has left behind him great works in temples, bridges, reservoirs, and caravanserais for the public good, does not die,' says Shaikh Sadi,[29] the greatest of Eastern poets, whose works are more read and loved than those of any other uninspired man that has ever written, not excepting our own beloved Shakspeare.[30] He is as much loved and admired by Hindoos as by Muhammadans; and from boyhood to old age he continues the idol of the imaginations of both. The boy of ten, and the old man of seventy, alike delight to read and quote him for the music of his verses, and the beauty of his sentiments, precepts, and imagery.[31]

It was to the cla.s.s last mentioned, whose incomes are derived from the profits of stock invested in manufactures and commerce, that Europe chiefly owed its rise and progress after the downfall of the Roman Empire, and the long night of darkness and desolation which followed it. It was through the means of mercantile industry, and the munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions to which it gave rise, that the enlightened sovereigns of Europe were enabled to curb the licence of the feudal aristocracy, and to give to life, property, and character that security without which society could not possibly advance; and it was through the same means that the people were afterwards enabled to put those limits to the authority of the sovereign, and to secure to themselves that share in the government without which society could not possibly be free or well const.i.tuted. Upon the same foundation may we hope to raise a superstructure of munic.i.p.al corporations and inst.i.tutions in India, such as will give security and dignity to the society; and the sooner we begin upon the work the better.[32]

Notes:

1. Johnson says: 'Mountaineers are thievish because they are poor; and, having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow rich only by robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their neighbours are commonly their enemies; and, having lost that reverence for property by which the order of civil life is preserved, soon consider all as enemies whom they do not reckon as friends, and think themselves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to protect.' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from _A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_.

The observations in the text apply largely to the settled Hindoo villages, as well as to the forest tribes.

2. _Ficus religiosa_ is the Linnaean name for the 'pipal'. Other botanists call it _Urostigma religiosum_. In the original edition the botanical name is erroneously given as _Ficus indicus_. The _Ficus indica_ (_F. Bengalensis_, or _Urostigma B._) is the banyan. A story is current that the traders of a certain town begged the magistrate to remove a pipal-tree which he had planted in the market-place, because, so long as it remained, business could not be conducted.

They knew 'the value of a lie'.

3. The red cotton, or silk-cotton, tree, when in spring covered with its huge magnolia-shaped scarlet blossoms, is one of the most magnificent objects in nature. Its botanical name is _Salmalia malabarica_ (_Bombax malabaric.u.m; B. heptaphyllum_). This is the tree referred to in the text. The white silk-cotton tree (_Eriodendron anfractuosum; Bombax 'pentandrum; Ceiba pentandra; Gossampinus Rumphii_) has a more southern habitat. (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. 'Salmalia' and 'Eriodendron'.)

4. The pipal is usually regarded as sacred only to Vishnu, the Preserver. The _Ficus indica_, or banyan, is sacred to Siva, the Destroyer, and the _Butea frondosa_ (Hind. 'dhak', 'palas', or 'chhyul ') to Brahma, the Creator, or [Greek text].

5. The sacred trees and plants of India are numerous. 'Balfour (Cyclop., 3rd ed., s.v. 'Sacred') enumerates eighty, and the list is by no mean complete. The same author's article, 'Tree', may also be consulted. The minor 'deities' alluded to by the author are the real G.o.ds of popular rural Hinduism. The observations of Mr. William Crooke, probably the best authority on the subject of Indian popular religion, though made with reference to a particular locality, are generally applicable. 'Hinduism certainly shows no signs of weakness, and is practically untouched by Christian and Muhammadan proselytism.

The G.o.ds of the Vedas are as dead as Jupiter, and the Krishna worship only succeeds from its marvellous adaptability to the sensuous and romantic side of the native mind. But it would be too much to say that the creed exercises any real effect on life or morals. With the majority of its devotees it is probably more sympathetic than practical, and ranks with the periodical ablutions in the Ganges and Jumna, and the traditional worship of the local G.o.ds and ghosts, which really impress the rustic. He is enclosed on all sides by a ring of precepts, which attribute luck or ill-luck to certain things or actions. These and the bonds of caste, with its obligations for the performance of marriage, death, and other ceremonies, make up the religions life of the peasant. Nearly every village and hamlet has its local ghost, usually the shrine of a childless man, or one whose funeral rites remained for some reason unperformed. In the expressive popular phrase, he is 'deprived of water' (_aud_). The pious make oblations to his cenotaph twice a year, and propitiate his ghost with offerings of water to allay his thirst in the lower world. The primaeval serpent-worship is perpetuated in the reverence paid to traditional village-snakes. Of the local ghosts some are beneficent.

Sometimes they are only mischievous, like Robin Goodfellow, and will milk the cows, and sour the milk, or pull your hair, if you wander about at night in certain well-known uncanny places. A more dangerous demon is heard in the crackling of the dry leaves of the date-tree in the night wind; and some trees are haunted by a vampire, who will drag you up and devour you, if you venture near them in the darkness.' (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. vii. _Supplement_, p.

4.) See also the same author's work _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_, 2nd ed., 2 vols. Constable, 1896.

6. Compare the story of Ramkishan in Chapter 25. Books on anthropology cite many instances of deaths caused by superst.i.tious fears.

7. Arrian, _Indica_, chap. 12: 'The sixth cla.s.s consists of those called "superintendents". They spy out what goes on in country and town, and report everything to the king where the people have a king, and to the magistrates where the people are self-governed, and it is against use and wont for them to give a false report;--but indeed no Indian is accused of lying.' (McCrindle, _Ancient India, as described by Megasthenes and Arrian_, Trubner, 1877, p. 211). Arrian uses the word [Greek text 1]; in the Fragments of Megasthenes quoted by Diodorus and Strabo, the word is [Greek text 2]. The people referred to seem to be the well-known 'news-writers' employed by Oriental sovereigns (_ante_, chapter 33, note 7); a simple explanation missed by McCrindle (op. cit. p. 43, note). The remark about the truthfulness of the Indians appears to be Arrian's addition. It is not in the Fragment of Megasthenes from which Arrian copies, and the falsity of the remark is proved by the statement (ibid., p. 71) that 'a person convicted of bearing false witness suffers mutilation of his extremities'. But in Fragment XXVII from Strabo (op. cit., p. 70) Megasthenes says, 'Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem'; and in Fragment x.x.xIII (ibid., p. 85) he a.s.serts that 'the ablest and moat trustworthy men' are appointed [Greek text 2].

8. Up to the year 1827 'grand larceny', that is to say, stealing to a value exceeding twelve pence, was punishable with death. The Act 7 George IV, cap. 28, abolished the distinction of grand and petty larceny. In 1837, the first year of Queen Victoria's reign, the punishment of death was abolished in the case of between thirty and forty offences. Other statutes have further mitigated the ferocity of the old law.

9. The year was 1652, not 1648 (Tavernier, _Travels_, transl. Ball, vol. i, p. 260, note). The pa.s.sages describing the criminal procedure of Amir Jumla are not very long, and deserve quotation, as giving an accurate account of the administration of penal justice by an able native ruler. 'On the 14th [September] we went to the tent of the Nawab to take leave of him, and to hear what he had to say regarding the goods which we had shown him. But we were told that he was engaged examining a number of criminals, who had been brought to him for immediate punishment. It is the custom in this country not to keep a man in prison; but immediately the accused is taken he is examined and sentence is p.r.o.nounced on him, which is then executed without any delay. If the person whom they have seized is found innocent, he is released at once; and whatever the nature of the case may be, it is promptly concluded. . . . On the 15th, at seven o'clock in the morning, we went to the Nawab, and immediately we were announced he asked us to enter his tent, where he was seated with two of his secretaries by him. . . . The Nawab had the intervals between his toes full of letters, and he also had many between the fingers of his left hand. He drew them sometimes from his feet, sometimes from his hand, and sent his replies through his two secretaries, writing some also himself. . . . While we were with the Nawab he was informed that four prisoners, who were then at the door of the tent, had arrived. He remained more than half an hour without replying, writing continually and making his secretaries write, but at length he suddenly ordered the criminals to be brought in; and after having questioned them, and made them confess with their own mouths the crime of which they were accused, he remained nearly an hour without saying anything, continuing to write and to make his secretaries write, . . . Among these four prisoners who were brought into his presence there was one who had entered a house and slain a mother and her three infants. He was condemned forthwith to have his feet and hands cut off, and to be thrown into a field near the high road to end his days. Another had stolen on the high road, and the Nawab ordered him to have his stomach slit open and to be flung in a drain, I could not ascertain what the others had done, but both their heads were cut off. While all this pa.s.sed the dinner was served, for the Nawab generally eats at ten o'clock, and he made us dine with him.'