eir own wards as they used to have. So
there is race-feeling, to be explained away, even among these beautiful
desks. Scratch the Council, and you come to the old, old trouble. The
black frock-coat sits down, and a keen-eyed, black-bearded Englishman
rises with one hand in his pocket to explain his views on an alteration
of the vote qualification. The idea of an amendment seems to have just
struck him. He hints that he will bring it forward later on. He is
academical like the others, but not half so good a speaker. All this is
dreary beyond words. Why do they talk and talk about owners and
occupiers and burgesses in England and the growth of autonomous
institutions when the city, the great city, is here crying out to be
cleansed? What has England to do with Calcutta's evil, and why should
Englishmen be forced to wander through mazes of unprofitable argument
against men who cannot understand the iniquity of dirt?

A pause follows the black-bearded man's speech. Rises another native, a
heavily built Babu, in a black gown and a strange head-dress. A snowy
white strip of cloth is thrown duster-wise over his shoulders. His voice
is high, and not always under control. He begins, "I will try to be as
brief as possible." This is ominous. By the way, in Council there seems
to be no necessity for a form of address. The orators plunge _in medias
res_, and only when they are well launched throw an occasional "Sir"
towards Sir Steuart Bayley, who sits with one leg doubled under him and
a dry pen in his hand. This speaker is no good. He talks, but he says
nothing, and he only knows where he is drifting to. He says: "We must
remember that we are legislating for the Metropolis of India, and
therefore we should borrow our institutions from large English towns,
and not from parochial institutions." If you think for a minute, that
shows a large and healthy knowledge of the history of Local
Self-Government. It also reveals the attitude of Calcutta. If the city
thought less about itself as a metropolis and more as a midden, its
state would be better. The speaker talks patronisingly of "my friend,"
alluding to the black frock-coat. Then he flounders afresh, and his
voice gallops up the gamut as he declares, "and _therefore_ that makes
all the difference." He hints vaguely at threats, something to do with
the Hindus and the Mahometans, but what he means it is difficult to
discover. Here, however, is a sentence taken _verbatim_. It is not
like