neighbourhood of Meerut give out that the Sahib has
been notoriously mad for several years past. Let us
hope, however, that the Lieutenant-Governor will not
heed such insinuations, but after complimenting the
magistrate on his vigour and his zeal, appoint him to
the first judgeship that may become vacant. No less
than six hundred persons are, by this fire, rendered
homeless beggars. But what of that? Must justice
be obstructed?

"It remains for us to add, that the escaped convict
of whom the magistrate was in search, has been in
Oude for the past month, and that no notice of this
affair will appear in any of the papers printed in
English and edited by the Sahib Logue. Those
gentlemen are far too modest to make known the
manifest blessings which arise out of British rule in
India."

For upwards of a year and a half the
native paper went on filching news, and writing
in the above strain; at length the conductor of
the Meerut journal was furnished with some
information which led to his discharging his
employees, the head pressman and the
moonshee, and breaking up their journal, the
Jam-i-Jumsheed. And more than this was done.
The danger of permitting native newspapers
to be published without any sort of supervision
was elaborately, and from time to time,
dwelt upon by the English editor; and at
length the government was moved to call for
a return of the journals printed in the
Hindoostanee language in the upper provinces of
India, and for an account of the number of
copies that each issued. With this return and
account the government was well satisfied
first, because the aggregate circulation was
so ridiculously small (comparatively), that it
was quite clear that the native press had no
power or influence; and, secondly, that the
tone of the best conducted and most respectable
journals of the native press were loud
in their praises of British rule, and firm
supporters of the Government. It was
overlooked, with reference to the first point, that
in no country, and in India especially, is the
actual circulation of a newspaper any criterion
of the number of persons acquainted with
its contents, its chief items of intelligence,
and its sentiments on the most important
questions of the day. Let us take for example,
the greatest paper in the world—The Times.
Compare the number of copies that are struck
off daily, with the number of hands into
which that paper passes, the number of eyes
that read it, and the number of ears that
listen to hear it read. As to the second
point, the praise of the Government of India,
it was laughable to hear it mentioned, albeit
the subject was of so serious a character.
That praise was bestowed very much in the
same spirit that Jack Wilkes is said to have
conveyed a serious warning, with a humorous
grin, to an election mob— "I hear that it
is your intention, gentlemen, to take that
person (there! ), who is interrupting me,
place him under that pump, and duck him!
Now if you should do so, no matter how
much it may be for his own good, you will— I
give you this emphatic warning— incur my
most serious displeasure, gentlemen! " They,
the native editors, used to wrap up the most
bitter irony in the most complimentary
phrases; and frequently their allusions, if
viewed abstractedly, were both humorous
and witty. A case in point. The late
lieutenant-governor of the north-western
provinces, a few years ago, presided at an
examination of the students of a Government public
school. Amongst other questions which his
Honour put, to the boys of the first class,
was this: "How does the world go round?"
The head boy, a very intelligent Hindoo, gave
an admirable reply—spoke, as the saying is,
like a book. The editor of a native paper, in
a notice of the examination, predicted that
this boy would come to a bad end, for giving
such an answer to the lieutenant-governor
of the north-west provinces. "He ought"
(said the native editor), "when so questioned
by so potent a ruler, as to the cause of the
world's going round, to have flung science
into the gutter; and having assumed the
most cringing attitude imaginable, he should
have placed his hands together, and then have
responded meekly: 'By your Honour's grace,
favour, and kindness, does this planet revolve
upon its axis.' " This same editor once wrote
a notice of a ball given by the officers of the
Horse Artillery mess at Meerut to the ladies
of the Twenty-Ninth Foot, on the occasion of
that last-mentioned and distinguished
regiment coming to the station. When
translated, literally, to an Englishman this notice
would seem the most flattering account
possible; but, if such Englishman took it in
the sense in which Asiatics understood and
comprehended it, he would, without any sort
of doubt, have admitted that it was the most
extraordinary and ingenious admixture of
satire and obscenity that ever was printed
and published.

The same editor, during the second
Sikh campaign, burlesqued the despatches
of Lord Gough; but so cleverly, that they
were taken by English people, who heard
them translated, as genuine productions.
This was the man who never lost an
opportunity of bringing British rule in India
into disgrace, ridicule, and contempt amongst
his countrymen; and who, eventually, by
producing his writings, and having them
translated literally, succeeded in obtaining
an appointment under the government worth
one hundred and fifty rupees per mensem.
The great article on which his good
fortune was based, was one descriptive of Lord
Dalhousie, on the back of an elephant,
proceeding to a spot appointed as the place of
an interview between his lordship and the
late Maharajah Goolab Singh. Neither the
London nor the Paris Charivari ever surpassed
this squib, so far as its spirit of ridicule was
concerned, while in point of mischief, those
European journals of fun would never have
dreamed of going the lengths of the Asiatic