being respected: the salaries of these gentry
being regarded in the light of black mail which
should exempt the proprietor from further
extortion. Fortunately, however, it is not upon the
chokedars alone that you have to depend. Your
servants live on the premises, and do not betake
themselves to distant homes at night, as in
Calcutta. Some sleep in their huts in the compound,
but several will always be found rolled up in
their rugs in the verandah, and a couple or so
will, if you tell them, repose in an ante-room
inside, in order to be ready for any required
service during the night: the service most likely to
be required of them being the waking up of the
punkah-pullers, who like to go to sleep on duty,
though they had twelve hours for the purpose
before their duty began.

A robbery cannot very well be effected without
the knowledge of some of your servants,
and without a tolerably unanimous agreement
among them not to inform. It is on this
account that one seldom hears of a house being
entered by thieves; for Indian servants are not
so inclined to dishonesty, perhaps, as servants
in Europe. It is true they do not consider
theft so disgraceful as we do, and do consider
the European, to a certain extent, fair prey. It is
true they will pilfer on their own account
individually, and will take stray articles that may not
be in use, on the chance of those articles not
being missed, and therefore, they argue, not being
wanted. They have a kind of conscientious
statute of limitations by which they abide. If
you ask for the thing within a certain time,
they say it is safe in their keeping, and you
have it at once. If you let the time go by,
the thing will have gone somehow, and they
know nothing about it. They restrict
themselves, too, to articles in their respective
departments. Your khitmutgar, for instance,
would not think of taking your boots, and your
bearer would show an equal reticence with
regard to your cooking utensils. Either will
probably try to take your plate, or your money,
if placed under lock and key; but both plate
and money will be generally respected if
committed to their care. You may give hundreds
of rupees to your bearer or khansamah, leaving
him to make all necessary disbursements, and
your money will be accounted for to the last
pice. He will even regard himself in the light
of your banker, and will make payments after
the funds are exhausted: not reminding you until
the settling day arrives that you have overdrawn
your account. He will make a small per-centage
out of most transactions, in all probability, but
this is a dustoor, or custom, generally recognised,
and the money does not come out of your
pocket. Your khausamah receives a similar
allowance upon the price of every article he
supplies to your table. Some of our countrymen
in India are scandalised at this proceeding,
and prevent it as far as they can; but the
system is prevalent more or less in all large
houses at home, so there is no reason to accuse
Indian servants of any peculiar immorality on
this account. This is certain:—your Indian
servant, if he plunders you a little himself, will
not allow anybody else to do so. Your safest
course, therefore, is to place yourself in his
hands.

A regularly organised robbery, if it do take
place in your house, is a very disastrous affair.
Not on account of the property stolen—that is
probably of the least importance in the catalogue
of your annoyances. If you pocket your loss
—as the Irish gentleman said—you simply give
an invitation to anybody who may take a fancy
to your spoons, forks, side-dishes, centre-piece,
jewellery, what not, to come in and help himself
when inclined. You must, for your own protection,
make a demonstration in the matter. The
consequence is, that the native police come and
take every servant out of your house, and keep
them all in prison while the case is investigated.
The investigation occupies days, if not weeks,
and during that time you are utterly lost and
helpless. In the end you are glad to abandon
your prosecution, and take your old servants
back again as if nothing had happened.

But, on the whole, you will meet with less
dishonesty up the country, than in Calcutta;
in neither place will the cares of your
establishment cause you much domestic disquiet if
you use some little care in the selection of your
servants, and know how to manage them when
selected. The art does not need any great
experience to acquire. It consists principally of
regular pay and judiciously kind treatment,
which will be found to go even further in India
than elsewhere.

PETTER, LATCH, AND JARMAN.

"FROM the old country, sir, I guess? Thought
so by your countenance. Your first visit, sir, to
the U-nited States, may I presume?"

The gentleman who put these questions in a
nasal drawling tone that bespoke the New
Englander, had just entered the saloon of Colonel
Pegler's little hotel at Lockhaven, in
Pennsylvania. He had not come by the stage, as I
had, but in a spider-wheeled tandem, drawn
by two fine horses, which equipage I had seen
through the window as I sat at dinner, and which
he drove skilfully enough. The new comer was
a tall loosely hung man, with the straight black
hair, the restless eyes and sallow complexion,
common throughout the States, and was of a
somewhat dandified appearance, in spite of the
dust which clung to him.

"Want your dinner, sar?" asked the negro
waiter, entering the room at this juncture, and
almost before I could reply that I had never
before crossed the Atlantic. The new comer
made answer in the affirmative, glanced over the
bill of fare, and the wine list, and then muttered
something about getting rid of the grey dust of
a Pennsylvania road, and hurried out.

Black Cicero transmitted the orders of the
stranger to book-keeper and kitchen, and then
came back to his favourite occupation of staring
from the window and knocking down gnats with