e rulers and administrators of India in the future, allow me to
begin with the opinions which some of the most eminent, and, I
believe, the most judicious among the Indian civil servants of the
past have formed and deliberately expressed on the point which we are
to-day discussing, namely, the veracity or want of veracity among the
Hindus.

And here I must begin with a remark which has been made by others
also, namely, that the civil servants who went to India in the
beginning of this century, and under the auspices of the old East
India Company, many of whom I had the honor and pleasure of knowing
when I first came to England, seemed to have seen a great deal more of
native life, native manners, and native character than those whom I
had to examine five-and-twenty years ago, and who are now, after a
distinguished career, coming back to England. India is no longer the
distant island which it was, where each Crusoe had to make a home for
himself as best he could. With the short and easy voyages from England
to India and from India to England, with the frequent mails, and the
telegrams, and the Anglo-Indian newspapers, official life in India has
assumed the character of a temporary exile rather, which even English
ladies are now more ready to share than fifty years ago. This is a
difficulty which cannot be removed, but must be met, and which, I
believe, can best be met by inspiring the new civil servants with new
and higher interests during their stay in India.

I knew the late Professor Wilson, our Boden Professor of Sanskrit at
Oxford, for many years, and often listened with deep interest to his
Indian reminiscences.

Let me read you what he, Professor Wilson, says of his native friends,
associates, and servants:[17]

"I lived, both from necessity and choice, very much among the
Hindus, and had opportunities of becoming acquainted with
them in a greater variety of situations than those in which
they usually come under the observation of Europeans. In the
Calcutta mint, for instance, I was in daily personal
communication with a numerous body of artificers, mechanics,
and laborers, and always found among them cheerful and
unwearied industry, good-humored compliance with the will of
their superiors, and a readiness to make whatever exertions
were demanded from them; there was among them no drunkenness,
no disorderly conduct, no insubordination. It would not be
true to s