perhaps the only specimen of pure professing secularism that the
civilised world has ever seen since the Christian era, and
sometimes, when our eyes are open to see things as they are, such a
secularism does appear a most monstrous phenomenon to be stalking
through God's world.... When the spirit of philosophy, poetry, and
godliness shall move across the world, when the philosophical
reformer shall come here as Governor-General, then the spirit of
Mammon may tremble for its empire, but not till then.'

Yet, notwithstanding the author's solicitude for India's welfare, the
natives make no figure at all in his story; they are barely mentioned,
except where Oakfield denounces the unblushing perjury committed daily
in our courts; and one can see that he does them the very common
injustice of measuring their conduct by an ideal standard of morality.
Anglo-Indian officials leave their country at an early age, in almost
total ignorance of the darker side of English life, as seen in a
police court or wherever the passions and interests of men come into
sharp conflict. But this is just the side of Indian life that is
brought prominently before them, at first, as junior magistrates and
revenue officers, who sometimes do not care to look into any other
aspects of it; and in consequence they stand aghast at the exhibition
of vice and false-swearing. A London magistrate transferred to Lucknow
or Lahore would find much less reason for astonishment.

The same criticism applies, for similar reasons, to Oakfield's
unmeasured censure of the tone and habits prevalent among officers of
the old Indian army; he probably knew nothing of regimental life in
the English army sixty years ago, and therefore supposed the
delinquencies of his own mess to be monstrous. It must be admitted,
however, that morals and manners were loose and low in a bad sepoy
regiment before the Mutiny. No two men could have differed more widely
in antecedents or character than William Arnold and John Lang, whose
novel, _The Wetherbys; or, A Few Chapters of Indian Experience_, was
written a few years earlier than _Oakfield_. It deals with precisely
the same scenes and society, at the same period, in the form of an
Indian officer's autobiography. The book is clever, amusing with a
touch of vulgarity, yet undoubtedly composed with a complete knowledge
of its subject; for Lang was the editor of a Meerut newspaper, who
took his full share