An ingenious argument, which is evidently
having its effect upon the intelligent auditory.

The committee system has been a fertile
source of laughter for years. It was in great
force under the old Company, when officers,
not less than three in number, were selected
to transact garrison business of every description.
At one time they would have to buy elephants
or camels. They might never have seen
an elephant or camel, but so that they agreed
to pass or condemn them the authorities were
satisfied. If a couple of tiles required to be
put on the roof of a barrack, nobody had
authority to give the order but through a committee.
If beer had to be purchased for the
troops, a committee must proceed at five o'clock
in the morning to taste it; and as this process
had frequently to be gone through with a great
many varieties, the result was sometimes rather
scandalous, especially in the case of the younger
officers. But what can be expected from a
"tasting committee " that has to transact its
business before breakfast? These committees
were held for the greatest as well as the most
insignificant objects. Among the latter, I once
heard of a committee upon an old pair of sepoy's
pantaloons.

As for the post-office, the institution is one of
the best-abused of the public establishments,
even in this country. You may guess what
it is in India, where its means are of a rough-and-ready
description, where there are no railways
to speak of, and where the distances to be
traversed are immense. Pictures of the dâk
wallahs sitting by the roadside smoking their
pipes, one with a bag labelled " Express" being
fast asleep, are in great profusion; and the
post-master-general is always represented as
filling up the vans, to the exclusion of the public letters,
with bonnets for his wife and cases of wine for
himself. These are always popular satires, especially
if the official is made to look sufficiently
hideous.

Patronage! Well, you may guess the use
which is made of that subject in a comic publication,
the readers of which are nearly all
composed of members of one service or the other,
desperate for promotion, and comprising some
fifty expectants for every place. Courts-martial!
We know something about those tribunals
in this country, and as " cases " are far more
frequent in India, it may be supposed that there
is more material for ridicule. Hard riding,
generally indulged in by ladies in the Hills, is a
theme that never ends; and the only advantage
to be derived from it, to counterbalance all the
danger to themselves and others which it involves,
is, that it gives the artistic satirists subjects
for very pretty pictures— affording a real
relief from the sour old generals and ugly people
generally, whom Indian artists delight to portray.

Among ihe most elaborate of the illustrations
in the present volume are a pair of " page cuts,"
representing contrasts in Anglo-Indian life,
under the name of " The Old School and the
New."

Each picture contains several classifications.
No. 1, " Domestic," shows us the father of a
family smoking a hookah, and drinking brandy-pauee,
in company with a very unfavourable
specimen of the female sex, who can be neither
a good wife (if she be a wife) nor a good mother;
for the children who are sprawling about are
evidently the reverse of " well brought up."
In contrast to this representation of a home
as it was, we are shown a home as it is. A
lady of high mental acquirements is playing on
the piano, while several visitors stand about in
attitudes of intelligence. There is no refreshment
of any kind to be seen, and the only perceptible
cloud on the happiness of the party is
the appearance of a native clerk in the distance,
who presents to the husband a bond in favour
of the Agra Bank, apparently for payment. But
it may be that this little incident is only intended
to show the flourishing state of the husband's
credit, and not to point an unpleasant moral.
No. 2, " Social," exhibits on the one side a
drunken party of revellers, with bottles in their
hands; on the other, an elegant drawing-room,
where the same persons are seen under the refining
influence of female society, indulging in
a carpet dance. No. 3, "Commercial," shows
us, on the one side, a British merchant in his
shirt-sleeves, just risen from his brandy-pauee to
kick out a native clerk who approaches him with
a bill; on the other, a native merchant is suing
an officer in a military court upon an I O U.
No. 4 is " Professional," and the contrast
here is more decided. The old school is represented
as enforcing discipline on the soldiers by
means of the " cat; " the new, as enforcing
efficiency on the heads of departments by an almost
equally severe system: the commander-in-chief
(Sir Charles Napier) being represented as
a tyrannical schoolmaster keeping his boys to
their tasks by threats of condign punishment.
No. 5, " Recreational," represents, in the first
place, a nautch, at which native dancers are
performing for the amusement of a party of
officers; in the second place, the same officers
are disporting themselves in a more vigorous
manner in a dog-cart, with a tandem.

It will be seen that the new school is not
considered by the satirist to be quite what it
ought to be, but that it is still a considerable
improvement upon the old school. He leads
us to infer, that although the Anglo-Indians
may still be fond of pleasure, it is pleasure of a
purer kind than of yore; and that although they
may incur debts which they can ill afford to pay,
they do not kick the creditor for suggesting
payment.

This slight attempt to forestal " the future
Macaulay" in raking up out-of-the-way materials
in illustration of history, must not be concluded
without a glance at the impersonation of the Indian
Punch as pictured in these pages. As far as
face and figure— that is to say, nose and hump —
are concerned, he bears a strong family likeness
to his English brother; but the Indian Punch
wears a turban, and has otherwise accommodated
himself to "the prejudices of the natives."