160 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



imagine," says a well-informed writer in 'Black- 

 wood,' "a course of procedure more grossly unfair 

 or irregular, especially in India, ... A similar 

 order issued to a British regiment would probably 

 have no effect except to arouse indignation at such 

 means being resorted to in order to obtain evidence 

 against a man already under a cloud. But with 

 Orientals, or at least with the inferior classes of 

 Orientals, the case is different. They have no com- 

 punctions whatever about hitting a man who is 

 down ; on the contrary, the knowledge that an 

 officer had incurred the disj^leasure of his superiors, 

 and had been suspended in consequence from his 

 official position, would be the signal for every 

 snivelling wretch who had a grudge against him to 

 strive for a foremost place in throwing mud at him. 

 . . . Under such circumstances would Herbert 

 Edwardes, would John Nicholson, have escaped 

 scatheless ? " ^ 



In this connection one cannot help recalling the 

 language in which Macaulay characterised a similar 

 process employed by Philip Francis against his 

 great opponent AVarren Hastings. " An Indian 

 Government," says that brilliant essayist, " has 

 only to let it be understood that it wishes a par- 

 ticular man to be ruined, and in twenty-four hours 

 it will be furnished with grave charges, supported 

 by depositions so full and circumstantial that any 

 person unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity would 

 regard them as decisive. It is well if the signature 

 of the destined victim is not counterfeited at the 

 foot of some illegal compact." 



" It must be remembered," says Major Reynell 



^ 'Blackwood's Magazine' for March 1899. 



