ion for old age, will be
zealous and honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very
imperfectly acquainted with human nature--with the motives by which
men are influenced all over the world. Indeed, no man does in reality
suppose so; on the contrary, every man knows that the same motives
actuate public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted
successfully upon this knowledge in all other branches of the public
service, and shall, I trust, at no distant period act upon the same
in that of the police; and then, and not till then, can it prove to
the people what we must all wish it to be, a blessing.

The European magistrate of a district has, perhaps, a million of
people to look after.[16] The native officers next under him are the
Thanadars of the different subdivisions of the district, containing
each many towns and villages, with a population of perhaps one
hundred thousand people. These officers have no grade to look forward
to, and get a salary of _twenty-five rupees a month each_.[17]

They cannot possibly do their duties unless they keep each a couple
of horses or ponies, with servants to attend to them; indeed, they
are told so by every magistrate who cares about the peace of his
district. The people, seeing how much we expect from the Thanadar,
and how little we give him, submit to his demands for contribution
without a murmur, and consider almost any demand venial from a man so
employed and paid. They are confounded at our inconsistency, and say,
where they dare to speak their minds, 'We see you giving high
salaries and high prospects of advancement to men who have nothing on
earth to do but to collect your revenues and to decide our disputes
about pounds, shillings, and pence, which we used to decide much
better among ourselves when we had no other court but that of our
elders to appeal to; while those who are to protect life and
property, to keep peace over the land, and enable the industrious to
work in security, maintain their families and pay the government
revenue, are left without any prospect of rising, and almost without
any pay at all.'

There is really nothing in our rule in India which strikes the people
so much as this glaring inconsistency, the evil effects of which are
so great and so manifest. The only way to remedy the evil is to give
the police what the other branches of the public service already
enjoy--a feeling of security in the tenure of office, a higher rate
of salary, and