m sheer ignorance against the customs of the country.
Then, again, with railways and telegraphs and the growth of commerce and
industry a type of Englishman has been imported to fill subordinate
positions in which some technical knowledge is required, who, whatever
his good qualities, is much rougher and generally much more strongly
imbued with, or more prone to display, a sense of racial superiority.
Nor is he kept under the same discipline as Tommy Atkins, who is
generally an easy-going fellow, and looks upon the native with
good-natured, if somewhat contemptuous, amusement, though he, too, is
sometimes a rough customer when he gets "above himself," or when his
temper is ruffled by prickly heat, that most common but irritating of
hot-weather ailments. In this connexion the remarkable growth of
temperance among British soldiers in India is doubly satisfactory.

On the whole, the relations between the lower classes of Europeans and
natives in the large cities, where they practically alone come into
contact, seldom give rise to serious trouble; and it is between
Europeans and natives of the higher classes that, unfortunately,
personal disputes from time to time occur, which unquestionably produce
a great deal of bad blood--disputes in which Englishmen have forgotten
not only the most elementary rules of decent behaviour, but the
self-respect which our position in India makes it doubly obligatory on
every Englishman to observe in his dealings with Indians. Some of these
incidents have been wilfully exaggerated, others have been wantonly
invented. Most of them have taken place in the course of railway
journeys, and without wishing to palliate them, one may reasonably point
out that, even in Europe, people, when travelling, will often behave
with a rudeness which they would be ashamed to display in other
circumstances, and that long railway journeys in the stifling heat of
India sometimes subject the temper to a strain unknown in more temperate
climates. In some cases, too, it is our ignorance of native customs
which causes the trouble, and the habits of even high-class Indians are
now and then unpleasant. A few months ago, I shared a railway
compartment one night with an Indian gentleman of good position and
pleasant address, belonging to a sect which carries to the most extreme
lengths the respect for all forms of life, however repulsive. Had I been
a stranger to India and ignorant of these conscientious eccentricities,
I