makes, is endorsed with his master's name. He is the arch-slanderer of our name in India.
There is no city in India, no mofussil-station, no little settlement of officials far-up country, in which the chuprassie does not find sworn brothers and confederates. The cut-cherry clerks and the police are with him everywhere; higher native officials are often on his side.
He sits at the receipt of custom in the Collector's verandah, and no native visitor dare approach who has not conciliated him with money. The candidate for employment, educated in our schools, and pregnant with words about purity, equality, justice, political economy, and all the rest of it, addresses him with joined hands as "Maharaj," and slips silver into his itching palm. The successful place-hunter pays him a feudal relief on receiving office or promotion, and benevolences flow in from all who have anything to hope or fear from those in power.
In the Native States the chuprassie flourishes rampantly. He receives a regular salary, through their representatives or vakils at the
