our Administration. To be rid of
it there is hardly any surgical operation we would not cheerfully
undergo. You might extract the Bishop of Bombay, amputate the Governor
of Madras, put a seton in the pay and allowances of the
Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and we should smile.

The red chuprassie is ubiquitous; he is in the verandah of every
official's house in India, from the Governor-General downwards; he is
in the portico of every Court of Justice, every Treasury, every Public
Office, every Government School, every Government Dispensary in the
country. He walks behind the Collector; he follows the conservancy
carts; he prowls about the candidate for employment; he hovers over
the accused and accuser; he haunts the Raja; he infests the tax-payer.

He wears the Imperial livery; he is to the entire population of India
the exponent of British Rule; he is the mother-in-law of liars, the
high-priest of extortioners, and the receiver-general of bribes.

Through this refracting medium the people of India see their rulers.
The chuprassie paints his master in colours drawn from his own black
heart. Every lie he tells, every insinuation he throws out, every
demand he makes, is endorsed with his master's name. He is the
arch-slanderer of our name in India.

[He is not an individual--he is a member of a widely rammified
society.] There is no city in India, no mofussil-station, no little
settlement of officials far up country, in which the chuprassie does
not find sworn brothers and confederates. The cutcherry clerks and the
police are with him everywhere; higher native officials are often on
his side.

He sits at the receipt of custom in the Collector's verandah, and no
native visitor dare approach who has not conciliated him with money.
The candidate for employment, educated in our schools, and pregnant
with words about purity, equality, justice, political economy, and all
the rest of it, addresses him with joined hands as "Maharaj," and
slips silver into his itching palm. The successful place-hunter pays
him a feudal relief on receiving office or promotion, and benevolences
flow in from all who have anything to hope or fear from those in
power.

[Illustration: THE RED CHUPRASSIE--"The corrupt lictor."]

In the Native States the chuprassie flourishes rampantly. He receives
a regular salary through their representatives or vakils at the
agencies, from all the native chiefs round about, and on all occasions
of visits or r