if the above-mentioned qualities are, as the
native speaker complains, deficient, it is simply because the climate of
India is not favourable to their production. As an Indian gentleman once
said to me in London, "Here I am glad to go out for a walk. In Madras I
find it an exertion to walk across a room." That explains our presence in
India, and the necessity for keeping all important active work in our own
hands. The natives are not at all to blame for being deficient in the
active virtues. We ourselves, our bull-dogs, and our vegetables would
alike decline without constant renewal by fresh importations from England.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] The landed qualification varies from 100 rupees to 300 rupees, and
the house and shop qualification from 13 rupees to 18 rupees. This
arrangement has evidently been made to suit the wealth or poverty of
particular parts of the country. This seems to be rather an inconvenient
system, and it is difficult to see why the lower rates of qualification
should not be made universal.

[12] For all practical spending purposes in India the rupee may be
reckoned at par. It is only when it requires to be turned into gold for
the purchase of articles in England that its gold value must be taken into
account.

[13] The meeting now held was, I am aware, quite out of order, but as the
Assembly had taken a new departure some laxness was permissible at first.

[14] On looking at the Government Report of the proceedings of the
Assembly for 1891 (which I may observe was not published till the year
following), I find that, though 340 members were elected, only 262
attended. No less than seventy-eight members failed to put in an
appearance, and the only probable explanation of this that I can give is
that these members felt that they had nothing in particular to represent
to the Government, and therefore thought that they might much better
remain at home.

CHAPTER IV.

NATURAL HISTORY AND SPORT.

After the numerous books that have been written on Sport in India, a
chapter on this subject might at first sight seem superfluous. So might,
at first sight, another novel full of what has been written thousands of
times before about love. And yet we never tire of hearing or reading of
either, and naturally, for both appeal to the imagination, and carry the
mind far away from business or carking cares, or, in other words, that
proverbial smoky chimney with which every house is provided. And if the
mer