hink that he had
better sit quiet and keep the money in his own pocket. The native
police or revenue officer is directed by his superior to have wood
collected for the camp of a regiment or great civil officers, and he
sends out his myrmidons to employ the people around in felling trees,
and cutting up wood enough to supply not only the camp, but his own
cook-rooms and those of his friends for the next six months. The men
so employed commonly get nothing; but the native officer receives
credit for all manner of superlatively good qualities, which are
enumerated in a certificate. Many a fine tree, dear to the affections
of families and village communities, has been cut down in spite, or
redeemed from the axe by a handsome present to this officer or his
myrmidons. Lambs, kids, fowls, milk, vegetables, all come flowing in
for the great man's table from poor people, who are too hopeless to
seek for payment, or who are represented as too proud and wealthy to
receive it. Such always have been and such always will be some of the
evils of the purveyance system. If a police officer receives an order
from the magistrate to provide a regiment, detachment, or individual
with boats, carts, bullocks, or porters, he has all that can be found
within his jurisdiction forthwith seized--releases all those whose
proprietors are able and willing to pay what he demands, and
furnishes the rest, which are generally the worst, to the persons who
require them. Police officers derive so much profit from these
applications that they are always anxious they should be made; and
will privately defeat all attempts of private individuals to provide
themselves by dissuading or intimidating the proprietors of vehicles
from voluntarily furnishing them. The gentleman's servant who is sent
to procure them returns and tells his master that there are plenty of
vehicles, but that their proprietors dare not send them without
orders from the police; and that the police tell him they dare not
give such orders without the special sanction of the magistrate. The
magistrate is written to, but declares that his police have been
prohibited from interfering in such matters without special orders,
since the proprietors ought to be permitted to send their vehicles to
whom they choose, except on occasions of great public emergency; and,
as the present cannot be considered as one of these occasions, he
does not feel authorized to issue such orders. On the Ganges, many
men