reference to kith or kin. You may turn on a Baboo at any moment and be
quite sure that words, and phrases, and maxims, and proverbs will come
gurgling forth, without reference to the subject or to the occasion,
to what has gone before or to what will come after. Perhaps it was
with reference to this independence, buoyancy, and gaiety of language
that Lord Lytton declared the Bengali to be "the Irishman of India."

You know, dear Vanity, I whispered to you before that the poor Baboo
often suffers from a slight aberration of speech which prevents his
articulating the truth--a kind of moral lisp. Lord Lytton could not
have been alluding to this; for it was only yesterday that I heard an
Irishman speak the truth to Lord Lytton about some little matter--I
forget what; cotton duty, I think--and Lord Lytton said, rather
curtly, "Why, you have often told me this before." So Lord Lytton must
be in the habit of hearing certain truths from the Irish.

It was either Sir Andrew Clarke, Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, or Sir
Some-one-else, who understands all about these things, that first told
me of the tendency to Baboo worship in England at present. I
immediately took steps, when I heard of it, to capitalise my pension
and purchase gold mines in the Wynaad and shares in the Simla Bank.
(Colonel Peterson, of the Simla Fencibles, supported me gallantly in
this latter resolution.) The notion of so dreadful a form of fetishism
establishing itself in one's native land is repugnant to the feelings
even of those who have been rendered callous to such things by seats
in the Bengal Legislative Council. [I refuse to believe that the
Zoological Society has lent its apiary to this movement. It must have
been a spelling-bee your informant was thinking of.

Talking of monkey-houses reminds me of] Sir George Campbell, who took
such an interest in the development of the Baboo, and the selection of
the fittest for Government employment. He taught them in
debating-clubs the various modes of conducting irresponsible
parliamentary chatter; and he tried to encourage pedestrianism and
football to evolve their legs and bring them into something like
harmony with their long pendant arms. You can still see a few of Sir
George's leggy Baboos coiled up in corners of lecture-rooms at
Calcutta. The Calcutta Cricket Club used to employ one as permanent
"leg." [The Indian Turf Club used to keep a professional "leg," but
now there are so many amateurs it is not requ