66 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



Vans Agnew and his military colleague, Lieutenant 

 Anderson, at Multan. By the beginning of April 

 he had reached Lahore, where he met with a 

 friendly greeting from Sir Frederick and Lady 

 Currie, and once more tasted the delights of " loaf- 

 bread, arm-chairs, hats, and ladies." There he 

 found that the arrangement proposed by Currie 

 " had already become matter of history, not of fact. 

 The new one is still better for me. I am to remain 

 at Lahore, and be an assistant to the Eesident, 

 having my Guide duties to discharge also when 

 Lumsden arrives from Peshawar with the corps." 



The new Political " won't say anything of the 

 regularity or consistency of making a man of two 

 and a half years' service, and who has passed no 

 examination, a political officer, nor will we be un- 

 grateful enough to say that he is unfit for the 

 appointment, but that he should do his utmost to 

 show that the rule is more honoured in the breach 

 than in the observance." 



Pending the arrival of the Guides at Lahore, 

 Hodson threw himself with his usual energy into 

 the duties of his new employment. For six hours 

 a-day he had to sit in court, " hearing petitions and 

 appeals in all manner of cases, civil and criminal, 

 and in matters of revenue. . . . One must be con- 

 tent with substantial justice as distinguished from 

 technical law. In any point of difficulty one has 

 always an older head to refer to, and meantime 

 one has the satisfaction of knowinsf that one is 

 independent and untrammelled save by a very 

 simple code. Some things, such as sentencing a 

 man to imprisonment for several years for killing 

 a cow, are rather startling to one's ideas of right 



