part of Calcutta in the morning and, if your correspondent takes the trouble, he can reach you with a reply before dinner.  The rates of postage on local matter and on parcels are much lower than with us.  I can send a package of books or merchandise or anything else weighing less than four pounds from Calcutta to Chicago for less than half the charge that would be required on a similar package from Evanston or Oak Park.

The best time for a stranger to visit Calcutta is during holiday week, for then the social season is inaugurated by a levee given by the viceroy, a “drawing-room” by the vice-queen and a grand state ball.  The annual races are held that week, also, including the great sporting event of the year, which is a contest for a cup offered by the viceroy, and a military parade and review and various other ceremonies and festivities attract people from every part of the empire.  The native princes naturally take this opportunity to visit the capital and pay their respects to the representative of imperial power, while every Englishman in the civil and military service, and those of social or sporting proclivities in private life have their vacations at that time and spend the Christmas and New Year’s holidays with Calcutta friends.  Moreover, the fact that all these people will be there attracts the tourists who happen to be in India at the time, for it gives them a chance to see the most notable and brilliant social features of Indian life.  Hence we rushed across the empire with everybody else and assisted to increase the crowd and the enthusiasm.  Every hotel, boarding-house and club was crowded.  Every family had guests.  Cots and beds were placed in offices and wherever else they could be accommodated.  Tents were spread on the lawn of the Government House for the benefit of government officials coming in from the provinces, and on the parade grounds at the fort for military visitors.  The grounds surrounding the club houses looked like military camps.  Sixteen tents were placed upon the roof of the hotel where we were stopping to accommodate the overflow.

Good hotels are needed everywhere in India, as I have several times suggested, and nowhere so much as in Calcutta.  The government, the people and all concerned ought to be ashamed of their lack of enterprise in this direction, and everybody admits it without argument.  There is not a comfortable hotel in the city, and while it is of course possible for people to survive present conditions they are nevertheless a national disgrace.  Calcutta is a city of more than a million inhabitants.  Among its residents are many millionaires and other wealthy men.  It is frequently called “the city of palaces,” and many of the private residences in the foreign quarter are imposing and costly.  Hence there is no excuse but indifference and lack of public spirit.