The Calcutta Review/Series 1/Number 2/Article 2
Art. II.—1. The English in India. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1828.
2. The East India Sketch-book. 1st Series. 2 vols. London, 1832.
3. The East Indian Sketch-book. 2nd Series. 2 vols. London, 1833.
4, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindustan, by Miss Roberts. 3 vols. London, 1835.
5. The Nabob at Home. 3 vols. London, 1843.
6. The Nabob’s Wife. 3 vols. London, 1837.
It is related by Sir Walter Scott, that having been asked by an octogenarian grand-aunt, Mrs. Keith, of Revelston, whether he had ever read Mrs. Behn’s novels, and having courageously replied in the affirmative, he was besought by the old lady to “get her a sight of them.” After a little hesitation, Scott consented; but expressed some doubts, as to whether his aunt would much relish the pictures of Society contained in the loose volumes of the free-spirited Aphra. Upon the old lady all this was thrown away; she remembered the time when every body read the novels, and every body was delighted with them. She herself had greatly admired them, in her young days, and devoured them with avidity. This was of course unanswerable. The novels were sent. But soon afterwards, Scott chancing to see his aunt received back the parcel, and was desired to “take back his bonnie Mrs. Behn, and to put her into the fire.” The old lady of eighty had been shocked and disgusted by that which the young girl of twenty had read without a blush. Sixty years before, those very novels had been read aloud, admired and discussed, in large parties of the best Society in London. Now an old woman of eighty could not read them by her own fire-side.—A better illustration of the improved tone of Morals, and character of Society, we do not remember to have seen.
Morality appears to have advanced steadily in England with the reign of George the Third. If the improved morality, which we claim for our contemporaries, be questioned, there can be no room to doubt the greater decorum of the present day. The court of the third George was the most decorous of courts. The King upon his ascension was in the enjoyment of a vigorous youth; but he waved the royal privilege of gilding vice and dispensing lechery from a palace; he denied himself the luxury of contaminating, by his example, the morals of a whole country; and proved to the world, that with every source of sensuality open to him, it was possible to be a virtuous man. During his reign, men ceased to make an open business of licentiousness; they ceased to consider it a grace in a gentleman to interlard his common discourse with blasphemies and indecencies; they ceased to drink; in a great measure, they ceased to gamble; and vice began “to pay homage to virtue” by hiding itself in dark places. Men learnt to conceal that of which before it had been the fashion to boast; and the accomplishments which erst made a man’s character, in process of time came to un-make it. All this was not achieved in a year or in a score of years; it was the gradually progressing work of that half-century, which elapsed between the ascension and the death of George the Third. How different the social state in which he left the country from that in which he found it! The novels of Mrs. Behn, which wreathed the mouth of girl-hood with the smile of delight, now tinged with the blush of shame the wan cheek of wrinkled age.
However inviting the subject may be, it comes not within our province to enquire how much or how little of the improved condition of public morals—or, as some will have it, only of public decency—is attributable to the decorous character of the court of Great Britain, during that most eventful half-century. The few remarks, which we have made, stand but as an introduction to what, in our proper sphere of Indian Journalism, we purpose to write of the vast improvement which Time has wrought upon the social character of the English in India. Whatever by contending parties may be said or written, touching the improvement or the no-improvement of the people of Hindustan under the British rule, there can be no conflict of opinion concerning the improvement of the British themselves. Doubts may be raised, nay, denials may be roundly urged by obstinate questioners, of the ameliorative influence of the Company’s Government upon the masses of its Indian subjects, whilst others admitting that something has been done, set down that something at a value lamentably short of the amount of good, which, after so many years, ought to have been accomplished, by a civilized and a Christian Government; but that year after year has seen a steady and progressive improvement in the character of the English in India—an improvement which cannot but have been attended with a corresponding influence, directly or indirectly, on the native mind, is happily a broad and undeniable fact, which no degree of scepticism can question.
Throughout a long series of years, the English in India, as moral beings, lagged far behind their brethren in Europe. Time was, when they imported into their eastern settlements all the vices and none of the virtues of Christians; when Christianity was looked upon by the natives of Hindostan only as another name for irreligion and immorality; when to be a Christian was, in their estimation, to be lustful, rapacious, cruel; a loud and angry sot; a contemner of God and a scourge to his fellows. Little by little, this stigma wore away: but slow indeed was the progress of decency and morality until towards the close of the last century. We have said that morality advanced in England with the reign of George the Third. We may date the rapid and substantial improvement in the social condition of the English in India from the arrival of the Marquis of Cornwallis. With the accession of that virtuous nobleman to the Government of British India, a new social era commenced; and though it would be unreasonable to assert that this great social reformation was brought about by the sole influence of this one man’s personal character, it would be equally unreasonable to deny that such a character in a ruler must have greatly conduced to the change. Clive and Hastings had left England as mere boys. They brought with them to India no settled principles; their morals accordingly were Indian morals—formed in the worst possible school. Neither one nor the other could have exercised any but a bad influence The more isolated the position of the European exile, the more probable becomes the decay of all high principle in his breast. Self-respect is a choice plant, but few are at the trouble to cultivate it. A man, cut off from the society of his countrymen, is not only removed beyond all the obstructions of immorality, but is doubly exposed to all its temptations. There is in fact every thing to allure—and nothing to stay him. He seeks, in the pursuit of sensual enjoyment, occupation and excitement; and, as there are none, whose opinion he regards, to watch his descent, he cares not how low he descends. In his solitude he takes “a harem for his grot,” or he flies to the companionship of the bottle. Regarding the natives only as so many graven images or so many ingenious mechanical contrivances, he sinks lower and lower in the slough of immorality, until he is utterly debased. Even in these times, the demoralising effects of segregation are not unfrequently apparent. Men who, had they been fated to move in a more extended social circle, would have preserved at least an outward show of morality, and perhaps, whilst cultivating decorum, actually attained to purity of conduct, have found themselves, when cut off from the companionship of their countrymen, unable out of mere self-respect, to restrain themselves from vicious self-indulgence. Now, something of this segregation distinguished the lives and influenced the conduct of our earliest European settlers. It is true that they sometimes met together at the few stations which were accessible to them, but even then they were mere scattered fragments broken off from the mass of European humanity. There was among them little dissimilarity of taste, feeling, and habit. There was no society, whose frowns the sensualist could dread. His doings, on these far-offshores, were unknown to his countrymen in England; perchance there may have been a parent, or a brother, or a friend, in whose eyes the adventurer might desire to wear a fair aspect; but in India he was as far beyond the observation of that parent, brother, or friend, as though he dwelt in another planet. There were, in truth, no outward motives to preserve morality of conduct, or even decency of demeanor. From the moment of their landing upon the shores of India, the first settlers cast off all those bonds which had restrained them in their native villages; they regarded themselves as privileged beings—privileged to violate all the obligations of religion and morality, and to outrage all the decencies of life. They who came hither, were often desperate adventurers, whom England, in the emphatic language of the Scripture, had spued out; men who sought these golden sands of the East to repair their broken fortunes; to bury in oblivion a sullied name; or to Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/305 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/306 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/307 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/308 The more isolated the position of the European exile, the more probable becomes the decay of all high principle in his breast. Self-respect is a choice plant, but few are at the trouble to cultivate it. A man, cut off from the society of his countrymen, is not only removed beyond all the obstructions of immorality, but is doubly exposed to all its temptations. There is in fact every thing to allure—and nothing to stay him. He seeks, in the pursuit of sensual enjoyment, occupation and excitement; and, as there are none, whose opinion he regards, to watch his descent, he cares not how low he descends. In his solitude he takes “a harem for his grot,” or he flies to the companionship of the bottle. Regarding the natives only as so many graven images or so many ingenious mechanical contrivances, he sinks lower and lower in the slough of immorality, until he is utterly debased. Even in these times, the demoralising effects of segregation are not unfrequently apparent. Men who, had they been fated to move in a more extended social circle, would have preserved at least an outward show of morality, and perhaps, whilst cultivating decorum, actually attained to purity of conduct, have found themselves, when cut off from the companionship of their countrymen, unable out of mere self-respect, to restrain themselves from vicious self-indulgence. Now, something of this segregation distinguished the lives and influenced the conduct of our earliest European settlers. It is true that they sometimes met together at the few stations which were accessible to them, but even then they were mere scattered fragments broken off from the mass of European humanity. There was among them little dissimilarity of taste, feeling, and habit. There was no society, whose frowns the sensualist could dread. His doings, on these far-offshores, were unknown to his countrymen in England; perchance there may have been a parent, or a brother, or a friend, in whose eyes the adventurer might desire to wear a fair aspect; but in India he was as far beyond the observation of that parent, brother, or friend, as though he dwelt in another planet. There were, in truth, no outward motives to preserve morality of conduct, or even decency of demeanor. From the moment of their landing upon the shores of India, the first settlers cast off all those bonds which had restrained them in their native villages; they regarded themselves as privileged beings—privileged to violate all the obligations of religion and morality, and to outrage all the decencies of life. They who came hither, were often desperate adventurers, whom England, in the emphatic language of the Scripture, had spued out; men who sought these golden sands of the East to repair their broken fortunes; to bury in oblivion a sullied name; or to Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/310 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/311 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/312 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/313 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/314 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/315 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/316 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/317 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/318 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/319 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/320 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/321 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/322 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/323 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/324 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/325 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/326 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/327 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/328 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/329 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/330 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/331 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/332 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/333 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/334 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/335 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/336 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/337 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/338 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/339 Page:The Calcutta Review (1844), Volume 1.djvu/340 may say grandeur, of their air. They are generally found in troops of six or eight attended by musicians, whose aspect and dress are as uncouth and squalid as the sounds they produce under the name of music are inelegant, harsh, and dissonant. To this music, from which measure as much as harmony is excluded, they dance most wonderfully, adapting their step to the perpetual change of the time, accompanying it with amorous songs, while the correspondent action of their body and limbs, the wanton palpitation and heaving of their exquisitely formed bosoms, and the amorous or rather lascivious expression of their countenance, excite in the spectators emotions not very favorable to chastity. Thus they continue to act, till, by the warmth of exercise and imagination, they become seemingly frantic with ecstacy, and sinking down motionless with fatigue, throw themselves into the most alluring attitudes that ingenious vice and voluptuousness can possibly devise.
That such incitements to vice should make a part of the system of any society, is to be lamented: yet at all ceremonies and great occasions, whether of religious worship or domestic enjoyment, they make a part of the entertainment; and the altar of their gods, and the purity of the marriage rites, are alike polluted by the introduction of the dancing girls. The impurity of this custom, however, vanishes in India, when compared with the hideous practice of introducing dancing boys.”What would the European of the present day think, if when about to enter the house of a friend, in quest of his hospitality, he were to be met in the compound, by his host, attended by a troop of dancing girls? We may venture to say, that a large number even of our Indian readers have never seen a troop of dancing girls. The English gentleman, who were now to entertain his guests with this well-nigh exploded abomination, would infamize himself in the opinion of the majority of his countrymen; and none, by attending such exhibitions at the house of the native gentry, raise themselves much in the estimation of their brethren. The more respectable portion of the British community, scrupulously abstain from attending the nautches, which even in our recollection were graced by the presence of many of the first gentlemen—ay, and ladies—in India. The holiday and other nautches now given by some native gentlemen are attended only by natives, and such less reputable Europeans as have little or no character to lose.[1] Not, however, that the above extract is descriptive of any such nautching, as our fair country-women were in the habit of looking at, some few years ago; for nothing could be more staid and decorous—more dull and unexciting—than the native dances which were presented to their view. To the eye, at least, there was no violation of decency; compared with a Ballet, on the boards of a London or a Paris theatre, the only nautches, which we ever remember to have seen, were outward propriety itself; but setting aside the very important consideration, that the nautches are for the most part given on the occasion of some idolatrous ceremony, and are performed in actual adoration of a graven image, it is unquestionable that in the minds of the native—indeed, of all who are acquainted with their character—these nautch-girls, who are professional courtesans, are associated with all that is impure; and that the European lady, who gives the sanction of her presence to these exhibitions, however outwardly decorous, must infallibly lower her own character and the character of her country-women in the eyes of every native looker-on.
But to return from this not irrelevant digression—there are few, if any of our readers, whether in this country or in England, who have not heard much and read much on the subject of Female Adventurers, and the Marriage Market, and young ladies going out to India, on what was vulgarly called “a spec.” All this is quite swept away. There are young ladies in every part of India—but the question of what they are doing there may be answered without a reference to the Marriage Mart. In most cases, they are found in our Indian stations, for the same reason that other young ladies may be found in London, or Liverpool, or Exeter—simply because, when in these places, they are in their proper homes. Adventuresses there are none. The race has altogether died out, since the time when Capt. Williamson set down, as a fact worthy of record, that a young lady, on first arriving in India “should have friends to receive her.” We should as soon think of writing, in the present day, that she should have shoes to her feet. The passage in the “Vade Mecum,” to which we refer, will be curious at least to our younger readers:—
“It should be understood, that the generality of young ladies, though they may certainly comply with the will of their parents, are by no means partial to visiting India. The out-fit is not a trifle: no lady can be landed there, under respectable circumstances throughout, for less than five hundred pounds. Then, again, she should have friends to receive her; for she cannot else obtain even a lodging, or the means of procuring subsistence. It is not like a trip, per hoy, to Margate, where nothing but a well-lined purse is requisite; and where, if you do not meet with friends, you may easily form acquaintances. * * * * * * Let us, however, suppose all these things to be done; and that some worthy dame welcomes the fair adventurer to her house, with the friendly intention of affording an asylum, until some stray bachelor may bear away the prize. We have known some instances of this, and, in particular, of a lady making it, in a manner, her study to replenish her hospitable mansion with objects of this description; thereby acquiring the invidious, or sarcastic, designation of ‘Mother Coupler.’ But such characters are rare; and it generally happens, that those who have the will, do not possess the means, of thus rendering the most essential of services to young women, who, we may fairly say, are, in this case, transported to India, there to take their chance! That several have been thus sent, or have thus adventured round the Cape, cannot be denied; in any other country they would have experienced the most poignant distress, both of body and of mind; but, such has ever been the liberality evinced towards this class of unfortunate persons, that, in most instances, prompt and effectual relief has been administered.”
Young ladies now are never, “transported to India” “to take their chance.” Apart from all matrimonial intentions, they have a legitimate purpose in visiting India. The taunt that they come hither “to get husbands” is no longer applicable to the class. When they turn their faces towards the East, they do so, not leaving but seeking their proper homes. They go not to dwell among strangers; but “among their own people;” repairing to the guardianship of their legitimate protectors; and occupying as respectable a position, in the houses of their parents, their brothers, or their sisters, as though they had never left the narrow precincts of their own island. Every cold season sees the arrival of a succession of magnificent passenger ships, each one bearing a valuable freight of fair spinsterhood—but one has only to run one’s eye along the passenger list to satisfy any doubts regarding the why and the wherefore all these young maidens have made the voyage to the “Far East.” The history of each is recorded in her name. Nothing is left to chance, save to such chance as is inherent in all human affairs. Capt. Williamson says, that the voyage to India “is not like a trip, per hoy to Margate, where nothing but a well-lined purse is necessary.” In these days the voyage to India is quite as easy, and quite as safe, as the voyage to Margate, and the well-lined purse is not necessary at all.
Much has been written on the subject of the mercenary character of “Indian marriages.” In the old times, it was believed to be, and in many instances it undoubtedly was, the fact, that a young lady, carrying to India her stock of charms, put them up to the highest bidder. One has still a sort of vague confused idea of the old associations connected with those two significant words “Indian marriage”—as though they were the veriest sacrifices at the altar of Mammon, which cruelty and avarice ever plotted together to accomplish. Blooming youth, and sallow, wrinkled age, departing as yoke-fellows, to be a torment one to the other, through long years of jealousy, and distrust, and mutual reproaches; loathing on one side, crooked spite on the other; to end, perhaps, in guilt and desertion. The young maiden bought an establishment, it was thought, with her rosy cheeks and her bright eyes; she bartered the freshness of her young affections for gold and jewels; and woke, after a brief dream of glittering and heartless extravagance, to the true value of the splendid misery, for which she had sacrificed her youth. Then there were years of pining discontent; of fruitless self-upbraiding; luxury and profusion, as adjuncts of happiness, estimated at their true worth; then, perhaps, an old affection revived; the temptation; the opportunity; the fall; the abasement;—and this, it was thought, was an Indian marriage. Such Indian marriages there have been—and such English marriages there have been. There has been a world of blooming youth—of pure affections—sacrificed ere now in all the countries of the earth—but, perhaps, these sacrifices are rarer, now-a-days, among the English in India, than among our brethren on any part of the globe.
Men marry earlier here than at home; and few are the marriages which are not at least marriages of liking. Very, very seldom is an old man seen standing at the altar with a youthful bride. There are more young couples to be seen in India than in the corresponding ranks of life at home; and not only do young ladies themselves, but their parents, or other guardians, seem well content, in these more reasonable times, with the prospect of increasing comfort and affluence, as years advance (even though there be some slight struggles at starting) which every Indian marriage seems to present. Perhaps, take them for all in all, these Indian marriages are productive of as much happiness, as matrimony, with its many blessings, can afford. There are evils almost inseparable from them, unknown at home; but there are privileges and immunities, too, unknown at home—and the balance is pretty equally struck. Constancy and affection are plants, which thrive as luxuriantly among us, as among our brethren in the West—and this, too, though in many instances the parties, before marriage, have had but small experience of the character and conduct of each other. The acquaintance, which leads to the contract, is often slight; and this considered, it appears strange that incompatibility, with all its attendant evils, does not more frequently overshadow the domestic life of the English in India; but in this country, husband and wife, being more dependent on each other for daily succour and daily comfort, sooner begin to assimilate in taste and feeling, and are more prone to compromises and concessions. Literally, we are more domestic. There is little, except business, to take us away from our homes; and a considerable number of business-men have their offices in their own houses. Men spend more time beneath their own roofs; and have fewer temptations to quit the family circle, even if they were not, as they almost invariably are, tied down to the circumference of a few miles as imperatively as though they were restrained by a tether. A man cannot, if he would, play the gad-about. He has no convenient bachelor cousin in the country; no affectionate old aunt dying to see him at a smart watering place; no opportune client, whom he can suddenly find it necessary to visit in Scotland, about the third week of August; no neglectful or fraudulent commercial correspondent, who renders it advisable, in fine weather, to make a trip to Frankfort or the Hague; no obsequious medical friend to recommend a little sea air, just as an old college chum, who has come into his fortune, is about to start on a pleasant little yacht-cruise in the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Separation, when it comes, is enforced separation. Stern necessity brings it about. The wife is compelled by ill health to seek a more congenial climate; or the husband is ordered off, on active service. These separations are often painful in themselves; still more painful in their results. Did our limits suffer us, and did the nature of this article admit of such narrative digressions, we could produce many sad examples—not less painfully interesting than the most skilfully elaborated tales of fictitious adventure, which the ingenious novelist creates—of the misery resulting from this one great evil of enforced separation. Many a household wreck have the hills of Simlah and Mussoorie looked down upon, within these last few years; many the record of misery and guilt which might be inscribed in the huge dark volume of the Annals of Separation. And yet, deploring as we do the many sad cases of conjugal infidelity, which have occurred within our own recollection, we cannot admit that they are sufficiently numerous—or that the contagion is sufficiently wide-spread—to detract from the general character of Indian domestic life. Let the English reader, who may have heard some vague stories of the immorality of our northern hill stations, picture to himself a number of young married women, whose husbands are absent, perhaps, among the mountains of Affghanistan, perhaps on the sandy plains of Sindh—gathered together in a cool, invigorating climate, with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy themselves. Then imagine a number of idle bachelors, let loose “between musters” or perhaps on leave for several months at a stretch, from Loodhianah, Kurnaul, Meerut, &c.—gay, young military men, with no more urgent, and certainly no more pleasant occupation, than to dangle after the young married women—“grass widows” as they are called—in the absence of their husbands; to amuse the fair creatures, to assist them in the great work of killing time, and finally to win their affections. Is it possible to conceive a state of things more surely calculated to result in guilt and misery?—High moral principle has ere now fallen before temptation and opportunity; and many is the frail creature possessing no high principle, who would, but for these temptations, these opportunities, have retained her character as a faithful and affectionate wife, and in after years been a bright example to her children. The immorality, to which we are now alluding, has been the result of a peculiar combination of circumstances; and must not be regarded as a proof of anything ricketty and rotten in the entire fabric of Indian Society. We maintain, that that fabric is at least as sound, as that of society in England; that the domestic and social virtues are as diligently cultivated, whilst, perhaps, there is proportionably even more piety and more charity, than exists among our brethren at home—but we do not say that there are no occasional plague-spots to be seen on the face of Society in India.
Where there is flesh and blood there must be disease—moral as well as physical; we merely desire to claim for our brethren in the East at least as much merit on the score of religion, charity, and the domestic virtues, as is assigned to our friends in the West. In some respects, perhaps, the common social checks operate more forcibly in India than in England; because Society, though sufficiently extensive to erect itself into an important and much-dreaded tribunal, is not so extensive as to allow any member of it wholly to escape the observation of all around him. In London, the individual is lost among the thousands and thousands moving in the same rank of life, treading daily the same path, yet each man going about his own business, utterly regardless of the movements of his neighbour. He is but a particle of sand on the sea-shore; an atom in the enormous mass of humanity, constantly in motion over the immense surface of the metropolis. Thus a man may, in almost perfect security, frequent the worst haunts of vice; spend night after night in shameless debauchery; and yet lose no ground in society. No one has seen him; no one has marked his progress, but his sympathising companions. Here, every man, who occupies any fixed position in society, is sufficiently well-known by scores of his neighbours, to render it impossible for him to escape detection, if he pursues a course of open profligacy—and difficult to escape, even though he takes precaution to cloak the deformity of his vicious career. The character of almost every Englishman in India is accurately known to the society in which he moves. It is known whether he is a good or a bad husband; whether he is sober or intemperate; honest or dishonest; religious or irreligious; and although it is true, that some men occupying a high worldly station in society are courted in spite of their infirmities, perhaps there is no country in the world where religion and morality are really more fully appreciated; and even these men high in station, whose rank and wealth cover a multitude of sins, are avoided by many, and secretly censured by almost all.
That there are still some men in the country, principally in remote stations, who have a Zenana attached to their establishment; that some few seek solace under the affliction of debt or the depressing influence of solitude, in the debasing excitement of noxious stimulant; that there are amongst us men, who at the billiard or at the whist table, sometimes spend all the long night and gamble for sums far exceeding their ability to pay; that acts of cruelty and dishonesty are occasionally still to be set down against the English in India; that we are not, in short, even at this advanced period, thoroughly bleached, is undeniably true. But in what country of the world is the morality of the English, or of any other people, as white as snow? There are drunkards and rogues; gamblers and keepers of mistresses; in London—Paris—Vienna—every where; more obtrusive and more shameless than in India. There is nothing, we say, in the amount of Indian immorality, to give us an unenviable notoriety. Nay, indeed, the balance fairly struck, the scale of our offences will rise. Are the English in India less domestic than their brethren at home?—Enter their houses at any hour of the day. Are they less temperate?—See them at their dinner-table. More dissipated?—Count the numbers, who are asleep an hour or two before midnight. Less charitable?—Read the long subscription-lists to be found in every public journal: count the number of institutions supported by a benevolence. Less religious?—Enter their churches, on sabbath-days—set down the numbers of families that meet, morning and evening, for domestic worship;—satisfy yourself, on all these points; and then let the answer be returned.
The subject of the progress of religious feeling among the English in India, we have but incidentally touched upon. It was our original intention to have given, considerably in detail, the result of our inquiries into a matter of so much interest and importance; but we soon found that the accumulation of our illustrative materials was such as to render it impossible to do justice to the subject, without extending the present article to an undue length. We, therefore, reserved the investigation for a future chapter; and contented ourselves with devoting the present to an imperfect exposition of the more prominent traits of external morality—the social characteristics of our countrymen in the East. In these the improvement, as we have shewn, is great and striking; the religious progress is, perhaps, a still brighter chapter in the history of the English in India.
- ↑ Of course we except the nautches given on the occasion of visits of ceremony to native Princes.