g
the priest who officiates in His temples; and if you should, you
would none of you hope to get from your Deity what you asked for.'

Here the crowd laughed again, and one of them said that 'there was
this certainly to be said for our Government, that the European
gentlemen themselves never took bribes, whatever those under them
might do'.

'You must not be too sure of that, neither. Did not the Lal Bibi, the
Red Lady, get a bribe for soliciting the judge, her husband, to let
go Amir Singh, who had been confined in jail?'

'How did this take place?'

'About three years ago Amir Singh was sentenced to imprisonment, and
his friends spent a great deal of money in bribes to the native
officers of the court, but all in vain. At last they were recommended
to give a handsome present to the Red Lady. They did so, and Amir
Singh was released.'

'But did they give the present into the lady's own hand?'

'No, they gave it to one of her women.'

'And how do you know that she ever gave it to her mistress, or that
her mistress ever heard of the transaction?'

'She might certainly have been acting without her mistress'
knowledge; but the popular belief is that the Lal Bibi got the
present.'

I then told the story of the affair at Jubbulpore, when Mrs. Smith's
name had been used for a similar purpose, and the people around us
were all highly amused; and the old man's opinion of the transaction
with the Red Lady evidently underwent a change.[10]

We became good friends, and the old man begged me to have my tents,
which he supposed were coming up, pitched among them, that he might
have an opportunity of showing that he was not a bad subject, though
he grumbled against the Government.

The next day at Meerut I got a visit from the chief native judge,
whose son, a talented youth, is in my office. Among other things, I
asked him whether it might not be possible to improve the character
of the police by increasing the salaries of the officers, and
mentioned my conversation with the landholder.

'Never, sir,' said the old gentleman; 'the man that now gets twenty-
five rupees a month is contented with making perhaps fifty or
seventy-five more; and the people subject to his authority pay him
accordingly. Give him a hundred, sir, and he will put a shawl over
his shoulders, and the poor people will be obliged to pay him at a
rate that will make up his income to four hundred. You will only
alter his style of living, and make him