On the whole, the relations between the lower classes of Europeans and natives in the large cities, where they practically alone come into contact, seldom give rise to serious trouble; and it is between Europeans and natives of the higher classes that, unfortunately, personal disputes from time to time occur, which unquestionably produce a great deal of bad blood—­disputes in which Englishmen have forgotten not only the most elementary rules of decent behaviour, but the self-respect which our position in India makes it doubly obligatory on every Englishman to observe in his dealings with Indians.  Some of these incidents have been wilfully exaggerated, others have been wantonly invented.  Most of them have taken place in the course of railway journeys, and without wishing to palliate them, one may reasonably point out that, even in Europe, people, when travelling, will often behave with a rudeness which they would be ashamed to display in other circumstances, and that long railway journeys in the stifling heat of India sometimes subject the temper to a strain unknown in more temperate climates.  In some cases, too, it is our ignorance of native customs which causes the trouble, and the habits of even high-class Indians are now and then unpleasant.  A few months ago, I shared a railway compartment one night with an Indian gentleman of good position and pleasant address, belonging to a sect which carries to the most extreme lengths the respect for all forms of life, however repulsive.  Had I been a stranger to India and ignorant of these conscientious eccentricities, I might well have objected very strongly to some of the proceedings of my companion, who spent a good deal of his time in searching his person and his garments for certain forms of animal life, which he carefully deposited in a little silver box carried for this special purpose.  Nevertheless it must be admitted that there have been from time to time cases of brutality towards natives sufficiently gross and inexcusable to create a very deplorable impression.  I have met educated Indians who, though they have had no unpleasant experiences of the kind themselves, prefer to avoid entering a railway carriage occupied by Europeans lest they should expose themselves even to the chance of insulting treatment.  On the other hand, speaking from personal experience as well as from what I have heard on unimpeachable authority, I have no hesitation in saying that there are evil-disposed, Indians, especially of late years, who deliberately seek to provoke disagreeable incidents by their own misbehaviour, either in the hope of levying blackmail or in order to make political capital by posing as the victims of English brutality.  But even when Englishmen put themselves entirely in the wrong, there is perhaps a tendency amongst Anglo-Indians—­chiefly amongst the non-official community—­to treat such cases with undue leniency, and it is one of the curious ironies of fate that Lord Curzon, whom the Nationalist Press has singled out for constant abuse and denunciation as the prototype of official tyranny, was the one Viceroy who more than any other jeopardized his popularity with his fellow countrymen in India by insisting upon rigorous justice being done where Indians had, in his opinion, suffered wrongs of this kind at the hands of Europeans.