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NOTES OF A READER.

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SERVANTS IN INDIA.

[Captain Skinner, in his Excursions in India, makes the following sensible observations on the tyranny over servants in India:]

There are throughout the mountains many of the sacred shrubs of the Hindoos, which give great delight, as my servants fall in with them.  They pick the leaves; and running with them to me, cry, “See, sir, see, our holy plants are here!” and congratulate each other on having found some indication of a better land than they are generally inclined to consider the country of the Pariahs.  The happiness these simple remembrances shed over the whole party is so enlivening, that every distress and fatigue seems to be forgotten.  When we behold a servant approaching with a sprig of the Dona in his hand, we hail it as the olive-branch, that denotes peace and good-will for the rest of the day, if, as must sometimes be the case, they have been in any way interrupted.

Even these little incidents speak so warmly in favour of the Hindoo disposition, that, in spite of much that may be uncongenial to an European in their character, they cannot fail to inspire him with esteem, if not affection.  I wish that many of my countrymen would learn to believe that the natives are endowed with feelings, and surely they may gather such an inference from many a similar trait to the one I have related.  Hardness of heart can never be allied to artless simplicity:  that mind must possess a higher degree of sensibility and refinement, that can unlock its long-confined recollections by so light a spring as a wild flower.

I have often witnessed, with wonder and sorrow, an English gentleman stoop to the basest tyranny over his servants, without even the poor excuse of anger, and frequently from no other reason than because he could not understand their language.  The question, from the answer being unintelligible, is instantly followed by a blow.  Such scenes are becoming more rare, and indeed are seldom acted but by the younger members of society; they are too frequent notwithstanding:  and should any thing that has fallen from me here, induce the cruelly-disposed to reflect a little upon the impropriety and mischief of their conduct, when about to raise the hand against a native, and save one stripe to the passive people who are so much at the mercy of their masters’ tempers, I shall indeed be proud.

[Again, speaking of the condition of servants, Captain Skinner remarks—­]