llowed one vote and no more? How many votes does three hundred
rupees' worth of landed property carry? Is it better to kiss a post or
throw it in the fire? Not a word about carbolic acid and gangs of
sweepers. The little man in the black dressing-gown revels in his
subject. He is great on principles and precedents, and the necessity of
"popularising our system." He fears that under certain circumstances
"the status of the candidates will decline." He riots in "self-adjusting
majorities," and "the healthy influence of the educated middle classes."

For a practical answer to this, there steals across the council chamber
just one faint whiff of the Stink. It is as though some one laughed low
and bitterly. But no man heeds. The Englishmen look supremely bored, the
native members stare stolidly in front of them. Sir Steuart Bayley's
face is as set as the face of the Sphinx. For these things he draws his
pay,--a low wage for heavy labour. But the speaker, now adrift, is not
altogether to be blamed. He is a Bengali, who has got before him just
such a subject as his soul loveth,--an elaborate piece of academical
reform leading nowhere. Here is a quiet room full of pens and papers,
and there are men who must listen to him. Apparently there is no time
limit to the speeches. Can you wonder that he talks? He says "I submit"
once every ninety seconds, varying the form with "I do submit, the
popular element in the electoral body should have prominence." Quite so.
He quotes one John Stuart Mill to prove it. There steals over the
listener a numbing sense of nightmare. He has heard all this before
somewhere--yea; even down to J. S. Mill and the references to the "true
interests of the ratepayers." He sees what is coming next. Yes, there is
the old Sabha, Anjuman journalistic formula--"Western education is an
exotic plant of recent importation." How on earth did this man drag
Western education into this discussion? Who knows? Perhaps Sir Steuart
Bayley does. He seems to be listening. The others are looking at their
watches. The spell of the level voice sinks the listener yet deeper into
a trance. He is haunted by the ghosts of all the cant of all the
political platforms of Great Britain. He hears all the old, old vestry
phrases, and once more he smells the Smell. _That_ is no dream. Western
education is an exotic plant. It is the upas tree, and it is all our
fault. We brought it out from England exactly as we brought out the
ink-bottles a