It is a fact that many of the Political Agents in 1879 were officers who had served in Madras Cavalry Regiments, the Central India Horse and other corps, but it is also a fact that many of the most successful administrators India has ever seen have been Soldier-Politicals.
Colonel Henderson, so pleasantly cited by Aberigh-Mackay, and happily still alive, was himself a Madras Cavalry Officer, who served as Under-Secretary to the Foreign Department of the Government of India, as Resident in Kashmir and latterly in Mysore, and Superintendent of operations for the suppression of Thagi and Dakaiti.
Our late King"s visit to India as Prince of Wales in 1875-6 owed a good deal of its success to Colonel Henderson, who was special officer in attendance, and his services in connection therewith were recognized by a Companionship of the order of the Star of India. It may also be mentioned here that Aberigh-Mackay became his Brother-in-law in October, 1873.
No. 9
WITH THE COLLECTOR
In this sketch, warm with local colour, the real pivot of the great official wheel of Indian administration, "the Collector," is drawn with the exactness due to his importance. Withal very lifelike and picturesque in many of its touches.
Thirty years have of course made great changes in many of the details of life in the districts of an Indian Province, now as a rule connected up by lines of railway. Improved leave rules and many other causes have rendered intercourse with the home country much easier.
Whether or no this far easier intercourse is altogether an advantage to the rulers and the ruled is what is termed a "burning question" at the present moment. In a word, that improved communications have not correspondingly increased our sympathy with a new birth in intellect, social life, and the affairs of state, all of which are mainly the results of British rule.
The functions of a Collector, sketched by Ali Baba in an entertaining medley, have increased enormously of late years, and the position is now said to be less desirable than of old, when it was amusingly said of every member of civilian society, that the verb "to collect" was conjugated thus: "I am a collector, you are a collector, he should be a collector, they will be collectors," and so on, _ad infinitum_.
NOS. 10, 20 AND 35
BABY IN PARTIBUS
This sketch, which may well be termed a beautiful lament over poor Baby, has brought back vividly to many a one touching recollections: a picture in fact which appealed, and continues to appeal, to an audience infinitely wider than that of Anglo-India. The same may be said of the sketches "The Gra.s.s-Widow," p. 139; "Mem-Sahib," p. 157, by many considered the best sketch of all; and "Sahib," p. 181. All of them full of that pathos and tenderness akin to, but yet differing widely from, the bantering style of the others, which are also full of allusions and covert references to individuals and affairs of the Anglo-India of thirty years ago.
In "Sahib," however, there are traits of character and other touches taken from the life of one who was--among many other features--a "merry Collector," not yet forgotten by a rapidly decreasing circle of contemporaries. While time and ameliorated conditions have changed the "loathsome Indian cemetery" into something of a garden in which Ali Baba our friend in common would have rejoiced.
No. 11
THE RED CHUPRa.s.sIE
Alas! the Red Chupra.s.sie is still a rift in the lute of Indian administration; a reform in Chupra.s.sies would doubtless be more beneficial to India than any wonder-working _nostrum_--such as Advisory Councils or extended Legislative Councils.
The cry for reform in Chupra.s.sies, or in other words the underlings of many Departments, is a very old one. Ali Baba"s denunciation of the "Red Chupra.s.sie" powerfully expands that one by Sir Alfred Lyall, where in his poem of _The Old Pindaree_, written in 1866, the "belted knave" is a.s.sociated with the "hungry retainers" and others forming the camp establishment of an official on tour.
Ali Baba"s practice of adequate payment, which he states--in a spirit of banter--to be potent to remove temptation to bribery and corruption, has received attention in connection with recent ameliorations of the terms of subordinate service in India, and it is believed has met with a certain amount of success.
The well-meant but not altogether satisfactory trial of the Gaikwar of Baroda, by a mixed tribunal of Indian n.o.bles and highly placed British officials, which took place during Lord Northbrook"s viceroyalty, is alluded to in the conclusion of the article; in which the Anglo-Indian soubriquet for a subservient person--Joe Hookham, literally _jaisa hukam_ = as may be ordered--is also introduced.
No. 12
THE PLANTER
It is now upwards of thirty years since this genial picture of a veritable "Farmer Prince" was painted--in bold and broad outline, of course. The years that have pa.s.sed bringing in their train many altered conditions, the most important of all, perhaps, being the replacing of a natural vegetable dye such as indigo by chemically produced subst.i.tutes.
Probably in a few more years the still remaining features of the Bengal indigo planter"s off duty life as depicted by Ali Baba will have quite disappeared, unless the subst.i.tution of sugar planting for that of indigo now receiving considerable attention in various Bengal, and more particularly Tirhoot, districts prove a success.
Anyway, the Macdonalds, the Beggs, and the Thomases, names now, as formerly, prominently identified with the great indigo industry, have been a.s.sured of continual remembrance. So prominent, in fact, has the Scotch element among planting families always been that it is said that if any one present at a race, polo, or Christmas week gathering were to shout out "Mac!" from the verandah of the Tirhoot Club, every face in the crowd would be simultaneously turned towards the speaker.
The bantering allusion to "Mr. Caird and _The Nineteenth Century_,"
applies to that great authority on many and very varied agricultural subjects, the late Sir James Caird, who died in 1892. In 1878-79 he was deputed to India by the Secretary of State as a member of the Indian Famine Commission called into being by the Strachey Brothers; the general impressions then formed by a six months" tour through India being embodied in the series of articles, ent.i.tled "Notes by the Way in India; the Land and the People," which appeared from July to October, 1879, in _The Nineteenth Century_ magazine, thereafter in book form in 1883, and in an augmented form as a third edition in 1884.
For a detailed account of a Bengal indigo planter"s life, mainly confined, however, to the processes and surroundings of planting and manufacture, there is no more valuable record than the late Colesworthy Grant"s well ill.u.s.trated book, "Rural Life in Bengal,"
which was published in 1860. In that work may be found a drawing of "Mulnath House," a glorified ill.u.s.tration of the fast disappearing surroundings of a Lower Bengal planter"s residence.
No. 13
THE EURASIAN
In November, 1879, when this "Study in chiaro-oscuro" was published, renewed attention was being directed to the Eurasian community in India, mainly by the discussions in all circles aroused by the publication of the late Archdeacon Baly"s Bengal Social Science a.s.sociation Paper of May in the same year, which dealt with the employment, _inter alia_, of Europeans of mixed parentage in India; a question which still engages the anxious consideration of many Indian statesmen. Ali Baba"s "Study" is not an ill-natured summary of the widespread discussions of 1879, but indeed as far back as 1843, the late John Mawson in his paper, "The Eurasian Belle," which first appeared in the Calcutta newspaper, _The Bengal Hurkaru_, had approached the social and domestic side of the question, and to some extent may be said to have antic.i.p.ated Ali Baba.
NOS. 14 AND 17
THE VILLAGER AND THE SHIKARRY
Both of these sketches are examples of what maybe termed Ali Baba"s contemplative mood, the villager"s life being revealed to us in all its pathos and interest, otherwise than through an atmosphere of statistics and reports--the daily life of probably two hundred million of the inhabitants of India.
Aberigh-Mackay early showed in his book "A Manual of Indian Sport,"
which, in addition to collecting in small compa.s.s lessons taught by many a noted Indian hunter, contains a great deal of original matter useful to every would-be sportsman, that he was well fitted to depict "The Shikarry" in correct and graphic manner and from actual personal knowledge.