to plead for them in the Senate, with no powerful representative with whose particular interest their own could be identified, easily imposed on by inventions, however monstrous, liable from their temperament to bursts of passion, smarting under a sense of undeserved wrong, hopeless of redress, yet detesting their perpetual bondage, have been guilty of making the sudden discovery that the Government of her Majesty would not prop up an unjust and impolitic system by force of armed authority; and of then using their newlyfound freedom with, on the whole, a moderation, a gravity, and a discretion of which the Scotch, the most sober-minded of nations even in times of revolution, need not have been ashamed.

The whole of the false system which we have above exposed must be speedily changed, that is, as soon as the ryot can be brought to hear the word indigo named with patience. The presence of Englishmen in the interior of India is unquestionably desirous on many grounds. We have not forgotten the gallant services rendered by several unofficial gentlemen during the mutinies: and so long as they engage in speculations conducted on sound commercial principles, their residence there in times of peace is calculated to increase the social prosperity of the natives, and to lend strength to Government. We are ready to admit that even under the faulty cultivation of indigo some good was really effected. Waste lands were reclaimed, jungle was cut and cleared away, employment was given to a number of labourers who were quite distinct from the class of cultivators of the plant; money was circulated to a limited extent; and some official abuses may have been exposed and corrected. But these advantages are attained as easily, and can be kept more securely, where recourse is not had to compulsion and violence. And there has been rather too much said of the blessing of European capital and civilization as worthy of being forced on the Oriental population at all risks.

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No system can be permanent of which the supporters are constantly crying out for special legislation to guard their interests from ruin. No amount of capital would fertilize a country in which its introduction and retention depended on six-pounders. No independence, no exhibition of the sturdy AngloSaxon character, will induce for it reverence and respect in the eyes of the natives, where such qualities are not combined with fair dealing and kindness; or where they are associated, as they have been unhappily in some cases, with avarice and unscrupulousness, and with a ready resort to coercion and force.

To account for the past crisis we do not want a lecture from men who have resided for twenty years in the Mofussil, as the interior of India is termed, on the duplicity and faithlessness of the Bengal ryot. The truest race of Englishmen might become demoralized in two generations if chained to pursuits which mocked them with such mere shams as blank contracts, unadjusted balances, and yearly losses. What resource is left to the weak but fraud and evasion? or what likelihood is there that deceit and faithlessness will be eradicated under the pressure of antagonistic interests backed by the strong hand? If the ryot is lazy, it is because the most continuous exertions would bring him no gain from indigo. If he evinces a desire to violate his contract, it is because he never entered into it of his own free will. If he hates indigo, it is because he has been practically taught the way to hate it. But the truth is that no class of men, save the manufacturers of indigo, complain of universal faithlessness on the part of Hindoos or Mahommedans, who engage in commercial dealings all over the country. Large quantities of the commonest country produce change hands on mere verbal agreements; are stipulated for beforehand, or are purchased for downright cash by dealers who go from one mart or village to another for this purpose. A little dirty scrawl, only intelligible to the native banker, and handed over to a traveller in a

bazaar in Calcutta, will be cashed at Delhi or Lahore without hesitation or mistrust. Dealers in the better kinds of produce, in hides, in timber, in silk, in sugar, in hemp, in a dozen other articles, find that their ventures conducted on the healthy and lasting principles of reciprocal benefit are carried out with unbroken smoothness. Even indigo can be manufactured in other parts of India than Lower Bengal without producing violent discontent, and without calls for special legislation and the interference of the Executive Government. In Madras, in the Doab of Hindoostan, and in some districts of Behar, indigo is grown by ryots under contract without complaints of unfairness from one party, or of evasion from the other; or is purchased in the open market by intermediate agents, who collect and sell to the manufacturer what they have purchased in different parts of the country from those who grow the plant of their own accord. Let British capital be employed in this direction, and it will find its ready outlet and certain reward.

We trust that when the whole of this important subject comes before Parliament, as it undoubtedly will do, the wrongs and sufferings of the Bengal ryot will not be forgotten, nor be postponed to suit the views of those men who, after twenty years of false security, have now only themselves to thank for their own ruin. But we warn all genuine philanthropists that the voice of truth in this matter has been weak, and that of ignorance and misrepresentation strong. We might have enlarged further on the conduct of Europeans, and have drawn attention to some very ugly stories of affrays, illegal imprisonment of helpless individuals, and other consequences of irresponsible power on the part of unofficial Europeans, which the late inquiry has brought to light. We are told, however, that affrays worthy of an Irish fair have considerably decreased owing to better laws and a more vigorous administration; and our wish at present is to set the commercial part of the question in

its true light. It is on this that gentlemen in either House, with all their independence and enlightenment, require to be warned. To talk of the dispute as one between 'capital and labour;' to write that ryots had been 'tampered with' as if they were sepoys resuscitated from the defunct native army; to describe villages as being ' in insurrection;' to say that some parts of the country were 'disaffected,' while in others 'men were returning to their allegiance;' to transform humble agriculturists who for the first time had learnt to act together, into 'emissaries of sedition and treason,' is deliberately to misstate the whole question, and to evince a proficiency only in the use of that word misrepresentation for which Guizot could find no precise Gallic equivalent; or in that darker vice for which the Houhynhyms had no word at all. The Indian Press, with one or two honourable exceptions on the western side of India, are banded together in a firm resolve that the truth shall not appear, and when facts are brought to light distinctive of preconceived theories, or subversive of the rickety props of the European manufacturer, they are quietly shelved and ignored. The unofficial Englishmen and the public writers have but one wish, which is to throw the whole blame on Government, to advance the claims of their own class, and to perpetuate the unhappy antagonism of race and colour to which the mutiny gave a free vent. Bailie Nicol Jarvie told the English Captain in Rob Roy, when they were about to enter Rob Roy's country, 'They (the Highlanders) may quarrel amang themsells, and gie ilk ither ill names, and maybe a slash wi' a claymore, but they are sure to join, in the lang run, against a' civilized folk that wear breeks on their hinder ends, and hae purses in their pouches. This, and no more, need be said of the press of Calcutta.

As

That a score or two of planters should be ruined is, apart from the above considerations, matter for deep regret. The worst of Nemesis in these cases is, that she visits the

unoffending as well as the guilty. Men who had managed to conduct their manufacture on the foundation of such unfair contracts with success, and without exasperating the ryots; whose whole intercourse with the agriculturists had been marked by acts of kindness; who had conversed with the lower orders, redressing their grievances, attending to their wants, and giving them advice and instruction, have been. involved in the common ruin. It was, indeed, owing to their presence that the crash did not occur at an earlier period; and when anything was ever whispered or asserted in detraction of indigo, its supporters could triumphantly point to such individuals, and the assailant was immediately silenced or repulsed. But no isolated acts of mere personal kindness could save what has so long been doomed. The presence of Lord Clyde and all his English army, but nothing less, might

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perhaps force the ryots of Bengal to sow against their wishes. The presence of a few police battalions, a couple of gun-boats, and a score or two of Irregular Cavalry, has preserved tranquillity, whenever it was thought just possible that one party or the other might be tempted to commit violence. More than this the Government could not do. It could not attempt to save two millions of capital from being temporarily placed in abeyance, at a less risk than of provoking a popular rebellion, which would have cost forty millions. And when the selfish and irrational clamour of a couple of hundred of Englishmen shall have died away, the gratitude of some hundreds of thousands of emancipated agriculturists will obtain a hearing, will arrest the attention of the statesman or philanthropist, and find a record in the calm and dignified revision of history.

IN

the days of the ancients (to give myself plenty of seaboard) lived three sisters, so remarkably shortsighted that it came to be commonly said by their neighbours that they had but one eye between them. This was downright scandal and exaggeration; and doubtless arose from the asperity and injured feeling which their seeming sometimes to know their acquaintance and sometimes not, occasioned. However that may be, the slander spread to such a degree as to be currently believed by many who, if they had used their own eyes, might have convinced themselves to the contrary. But none are so blind as those who won't see, and it is much easier and pleasanter to bemoan the sad mote in our neighbour's eye, than to admit that we can by any possibility have a beam in our own. Hence it became quite notorious that the three Miss Gorgons had but one eye; and as the youngest sister was extremely pretty and was given to flirting, the calumnies of the Scythian

ladies were aggravated on these accounts, till they seriously affected her character. 'Did you ever see such hideous curls?' said one, I would not have them if I could get them.' 'Curls! they are more like snakes,' rejoined another, ‘and I really believe the silly thing is vain of them.'

Thus idly and mischievously did tongues run on; till age, that comes to all (who live long enough), came to the three Miss Gorgons. There was no jealousy now of their beauty, for they had none to boast; but as the poor old things had never made friends for themselves when they were young, so they had none now that they were greyheaded. Miss Medusa's hair really did stand out in frightful spirals, like so many corkscrews, to use the mildest expression; though of course I no more mean to say they were literal corkscrews than snakes; and as for her sisters, they had no hair at all, yet objected to wear fronts. Their appearance may be imagined; old ladies always require a certain

amount of setting off; the less that is seen of them the better. If they are sensible, they will chiefly be pegs for ample and thick draperies, relieved by delicately clean laces and muslins; but unfortunately, full petticoats were not fashionable in the days of the Miss Gorgons, and I incline to think they rather affected the style afterwards in favour with Madame Recamier. Meanwhile, the poor ladies, though they had more than one eye, really came to have only one tooth between them; and as that fluttered like a wintry leaf in the mouth of the youngest, who had a way of sometimes concealing it altogether by drawing down her lip, it became a joke among their friends (!) that it was transferable.

Such was the decline and fall of 'the three Gorgons,' as they were irreverently termed behind their backs; but though they died unwept, unhonoured, it cannot be said they were unsung. Lampoons sometimes obtain greater circulation than only moderately bad epics; and if they once get into the mouths of the masses, their immortality is secured; while their subjects, instead of being, like flies, embalmed in amber, are like animals preserved in very rancid and noisome spirits.

Thus were these sisters handed down to credulous posterity as having hands of brass, hair entwined with serpents (though only one of them had even a wave in her hair!), wings (their shoulder-blades, poor loves, not but what they should have worn high dresses) as yellow as gold, scaly skins, teeth like tusks (as long as they had any), and eyes that turned to stones all those on whom they fixed them! The force of malice could no farther go.

Well, they are dead and buried; at all events dead and gone. The forked and venomous tongue of scandal can hurt them no longer. But the scandal itself, you see, has not died; what an indestructible thing it is, all through long ages!

Now, I did not mean to have enlarged so much on these unlucky women when I began, though I was drawn onward by the irresisti

ble force of sympathy. All that I meant to have done was to observe, by way of opening my subject, that it has always appeared to me a vulgar error to suppose that the power Miss Medusa Gorgon had of turning those whose eyes she met into stone, arose from anything peculiarly piercing in her own orbs of vision; on the contrary, I imagine it to have been simply a case of short sight.

Or, at any rate it might have been so; and my reason for this opinion is as follows. I myself am remarkably and painfully shortsighted, and the defect has coloured all my character and actions. If I should attempt to pen 'The Confessions of a Shortsighted Lady,' it would be quite a new page in autobiography; because persons in this category are mainly so sensitive on the subject, that, while owning in an off-hand kind of general way, that they are shortsighted, they shrink from revealing the ridiculous misadventures into which this defect has led them to a sardonic public.

I consider, then, that I have opened up a new subject. It occurred to me just now, as I was walking along the high road, and came plump upon a man whom I might have seen a long while before walking straight towards me, if, as a generous world says, 'I had used my eyes,' Instead of this, I did not see him till he was just under my nose; I protest, he seemed to have risen that moment out of the ground; only I know he didn't. I caught his eye, as the saying is; I almost thought I knew him, and almost bowed: then I almost thought I didn't know him, and immediately hardened my neck and looked straight on, as much as to say, 'I did not see you, and don't know you-not in the least.' I was for the moment Medusa herself. The man looked petrified. When I say that, I know what it means. To petrify is to turn to stone. I am thankful to say he was not actually petrified; but he looked

So.

He looked as people look when we say metaphorically, they are petrified; which was all, I fancy, that they were in the days of Medusa.

1861.]

It all passed in a moment. He, mark you, knew me. He thought at first, as he came along towards me and marked my expression, 'She don't see me, and thought to slip by 'unknownst.' At the very moment of passing, when that strange fatality drew my eyes towards his, he thought 'She does see me,' and was immediately going to give a quick, short little bow-all that our very slight acquaintanceship warranted (I cannot, after all, be sure whether he was our glazier or the man that comes for the waterrate). But, unhappy man! at that very instant, quick as thought, he perceived the vacant expression my countenance suddenly assumed, the 'I-have-nothing-at-all-to-do-withyou' expression-the 'I didn't bow, nor begin to bow, and am not going to.' She's proud!' thinks he; which, as it happens, is the very last thing I am: and instantly he hardens into stone, bodily and mentally. Instead of the 'fixture of his eye having motion in it,' the case is just the other way. 'Oh,' thinks he bitterly to himself (for I know exactly what passed in his mind), 'catch me thinking for to bow to Miss Marrables again! She shortsighted, indeed! She's proud, that's what she is. One of your stuck-up quality; as poor as Job's cat, and yet holding her head above people that could buy her up over and over again any day. She needn't be afraid of my intruding again upon her gentility!'

to say

Now, is not it wretched? This is the kind of thing that is of continual occurrence. It is of no good Why don't you know people? why don't you keep a sharper look-out? why don't you show decidedly that you do know them or that you do not? I cannot, it is my fate. Because, you see, I don't know which way to decide till they are close upon me. Sometimes I see them advancing upon me, and I think, 'Do I know this person? I cannot tell; I'll look into the hedge till we have passed each other.' ` By which means I have sometimes cut an intimate friend, who has thought, 'What on earth is Miss Marrables about! Up in the clouds, evidently! And the fault

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of my short sight is set down to my authorship. But oftener a strange impulse overrules my settled determination to look into the hedge, and the fatal uncertain glance is given that ends in no positive recognition, and the Medusa fate is on me.

I have launched into the subject now, and will go through with it, regardless of internal conflicts. What sighs will be heaved, what groans of fellow-feeling extorted by this chapter of revelations ! I must have thousands of fellowsufferers who have

A grief they'll ne'er impart ;
It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes the heart!

Tell me, then, ye who are not quite case-hardened, is it agreeable, after calling up a frank smile and extending a friendly hand to a smart young man whom you take to be an intimate acquaintance, with a cheerful 'how do you do? to have to follow it up with an apologetic 'I beg your pardon?' Is the case much improved if the party accosted be an excessively fine lady, who coldly stares at you, and whenever she afterwards meets you, shows by her supercilious expression that she remembers your gaucherie?

Neither is it very agreeable to be told with a simper of superiority, 'I saw you yesterday quite close, but I saw that you did not see me." Again and again have I said, 'Oh, but it is just as bad of you to pass me without speaking, as of me to pass you.' In fact it is a great deal worse, and they know it. But this is one of the grievances that never get redressed.

Shortsighted people are often shy, and is it a wonder? For my part, I don't see how they can help it. I was not born shy; my disposition is naturally the reverse, but I have become liable to fits of shyness through force of circumstances. I have borne many a hard word from my music-master and drawing-master, from my reluctance to acknowledge that the reason why I did not play such an appogiatura, or copy such a line, was simply because I did not see