ajor Gregory was astonished and delighted. The colonel, a fine old
soldier from the banks of the Indus, who had commanded a corps of
horse under the former government, came to the magistrate in
amazement; every shop had become full of grain as if by supernatural
agency.

_'Kale admi ki akl kahan talak chalegi_?' said he. 'How little could
a black man's wisdom serve him in such an emergency?'

There was little wisdom in all this; but there was a firm reliance
upon the truth of the general principle which should guide all public
officers on such occasions. The magistrate judged that there were a
great many pits of grain in the town known only to their own
proprietors, who were afraid to open them, or get more grain, while
there was a chance of the civil authorities yielding to the clamours
of the people and the anxiety of the officers commanding the troops;
and that he had only to remove these fears, by offering a solemn
pledge, and manifesting the means and the will to abide by it, in
order to induce the proprietors, not only to sell what they had, but
to apply all their means to the collecting of more. But it is a
singular fact that almost all the officers of the cantonments thought
the conduct of the magistrate in refusing to have the grain pits
opened under such pressing circumstances extremely reprehensible.

Had he done so, he might have given the people of the city and the
cantonments the supply at hand; but the injury done to the corn-
dealers by so very unwise a measure would have recoiled upon the
public, since every one would have been discouraged from exerting
himself to renew the supply, and from laying up stores to meet
similar necessities in future. By acting as he did, he not only
secured for the public the best exertions of all the existing corn-
dealers of the place, but actually converted for the time a great
many to that trade from other employments, or from idleness. A great
many families, who had never traded before, employed their means in
bringing a supply of grain, and converted their dwellings into corn
shops, induced by the high profits and assurance of protection.
During the time when he was most pressed the magistrate received a
letter from Captain Robinson, who was in charge of the bazaars at
Elichpur in the Hyderabad territory,[14] where the dearth had become
even more felt than at Sagar, requesting to know what measures had
been adopted to regulate the price, and secure the supply of gra