The minister was a man of good intentions; and, having inherited an immense fortune from his uncle, Hakeem Mehndee, he cared little about money; but he was an indolent man, and indulged much in opiates, and his object was to reform the administration at the least possible cost of time and trouble to himself.  He had, he thought, found the man who could efficiently supervise and control the administration in all its branches; and he invested him with plenary powers to do so.  Of the duty, on his part and that of his master; efficiently to supervise and control the exercise of these plenary powers on the part of the man of their choice, in order to prevent their being abused to the injury of the state and the people; or of the necessity of taking from Court favourites the nomination of officers to the charge of all districts and all fiscal and judicial Courts, and to the command of all corps and establishments, in order to render them efficient and honest, and prevent justice from being perverted, and the revenues of the state from being absorbed on their way to the treasury, they took no heed.  Court favourites retained their powers, and the King and his minister relied entirely, as heretofore, upon the reports of the news-writers, who attend officially upon all officers in charge of districts, fiscal and judicial Courts, corps and establishments of all kinds, for the facts of all cases on which they might have to pass orders; and remained as ignorant as their predecessors of the real state of the administration and the real sufferings of the people, if not of the real losses to the Exchequer.

The news department is under a Superintendent-general, who has sometimes contracted for it, as for the revenues of a district, but more commonly holds it in amanee, as a manager.  When he contracts for it he pays a certain sum to the public treasury, over and above what he pays to the influential officers and Court favourites in gratuities.  When he holds it in amanee, he pays only gratuities, and the public treasury gets nothing.  His payments amount to about the same in either case.  He nominates his-subordinates, and appoints them to their several offices, taking from each a present gratuity and a pledge for such monthly payments as he thinks the post will enable him to make.  They receive from four to fifteen rupees a-month each, and have each to pay to their President, for distribution among his patrons or patronesses at Court from one hundred to five hundred rupees a-month in ordinary times.  Those to whom they are accredited have to pay them, under ordinary circumstances, certain sums monthly, to prevent their inventing or exaggerating cases of abuse of power or neglect of duty on their part; but when they happen to be really guilty of great acts of atrocity, or great neglect of duty, they are required to pay extraordinary sums, not only to the news-writers, who are especially accredited to them, but to all others who happen to be in the neighbourhood