in vain efforts to purchase the attention they require.  Nothing is more common than for a peremptory order to be passed for the immediate payment of the arrears of pension due to a stipendiary member of the royal family, and for the payment to be deferred for eight, ten, and twelve months, till he or she consents to give from ten to twenty per cent., according to his or her necessities, to the deputy, who has to see the order carried out.  A sufferer often, instead of getting his petition smuggled on to the minister in the mode above described, bribes a news-writer to insert his case in his report, to be submitted through the head of the department.

At present the head of the intelligence department assumes the same latitude, in submitting reports for orders to the minister, that his subordinates in distant districts assume in framing and sending them to him; that is, he submits only such as may suit his views and interests to submit!  Where grave charges are sent to him against substantial men, or men high in office, he comes to an understanding with their representatives in Lucknow, and submits the report to the minister only as a derniere resort, when such representatives cannot be brought to submit to his terms.  If found out, at any time, and threatened, he has his feed patrons or patronesses “behind the throne, and greater than the throne itself,” to protect him.

The unmeaning orders passed by the minister on reports and petitions are commonly that so and so is to inquire into the matter complained of; to see that the offenders are seized and punished; that the stolen property and usurped lands be restored; that razeenamas, or acquittances, be sent in by the friends of persons who have been murdered by the King’s officers; that the men, women, and children, confined and tortured by King’s officers, or by robbers and ruffians, be set at liberty and satisfied; the said so and so being the infant commander-in-chief, the King’s chamberlain, footman, coachman, chief fiddler, eunuch, barber, or person uppermost in his thoughts at the time.  Similar orders are passed in his name by his deputies, secretaries, and favourites upon all the other numerous petitions and reports, which he sends to them unperused.  Not, perhaps, upon one in five does the minister himself pass any order; and of the orders passed by him, not one in five, perhaps, is intended to be taken notice of.  His deputies and favourites carry on a profitable trade in all such reports and petitions:  they extort money alike from the wrong-doer and the wrong-sufferer; and from all local authorities, or their representatives, for all neglect of duty or abuses, of authority charged against them.