Here the crowd laughed again, and one of them said that ’there was this certainly to be said for our Government, that the European gentlemen themselves never took bribes, whatever those under them might do’.

’You must not be too sure of that, neither.  Did not the Lal Bibi, the Red Lady, get a bribe for soliciting the judge, her husband, to let go Amir Singh, who had been confined in jail?’

‘How did this take place?’

’About three years ago Amir Singh was sentenced to imprisonment, and his friends spent a great deal of money in bribes to the native officers of the court, but all in vain.  At last they were recommended to give a handsome present to the Red Lady.  They did so, and Amir Singh was released.’

‘But did they give the present into the lady’s own hand?’

‘No, they gave it to one of her women.’

’And how do you know that she ever gave it to her mistress, or that her mistress ever heard of the transaction?’

‘She might certainly have been acting without her mistress’ knowledge; but the popular belief is that the Lal Bibi got the present.’

I then told the story of the affair at Jubbulpore, when Mrs. Smith’s name had been used for a similar purpose, and the people around us were all highly amused; and the old man’s opinion of the transaction with the Red Lady evidently underwent a change.[10]

We became good friends, and the old man begged me to have my tents, which he supposed were coming up, pitched among them, that he might have an opportunity of showing that he was not a bad subject, though he grumbled against the Government.

The next day at Meerut I got a visit from the chief native judge, whose son, a talented youth, is in my office.  Among other things, I asked him whether it might not be possible to improve the character of the police by increasing the salaries of the officers, and mentioned my conversation with the landholder.

‘Never, sir,’ said the old gentleman; ’the man that now gets twenty-five rupees a month is contented with making perhaps fifty or seventy-five more; and the people subject to his authority pay him accordingly.  Give him a hundred, sir, and he will put a shawl over his shoulders, and the poor people will be obliged to pay him at a rate that will make up his income to four hundred.  You will only alter his style of living, and make him a greater burthen to the people.  He will always take as long as he thinks he can with impunity.’

’But do you not think that when people see a man adequately paid by the Government they will the more readily complain of any attempt at unauthorized exactions?’

’Not a bit, sir, as long as they see the same difficulties in the way of prosecuting him to conviction.  In the administration of civil justice’ (the old gentleman is a civil judge), ’you may occasionally see your way, and understand what is doing; but in revenue and police you never have seen it in India, and never will, I think.  The officers you employ will all add to their incomes by unauthorized means; and the lower these incomes, the less their pretensions, and the less the populace have to pay.’[11]