304 BRITISH SOCIAL SYSTEM. 



afforded at one time the means of realizing immense for- 

 tunes, and on account of the importance of the duty have 

 still considerable emoluments attached to them. 



The civil servants, called writers, receive their appoint- 

 ment from the same quartet as the cadets ; but as their pros- 

 pects of wealth are greater, higher interest is necessary to 

 procure it. They are educated in the East India College 

 at Haileyburv. It is provided, that no candidate shall be 

 nominated until he has completed the sixteenth year of his 

 age. And no person who has been dismissed the army or 

 navy, or has been expelled from any place of public educa- 

 tion, will be received in the college. No student can be 

 appointed a writer to India whose age is less than eighteen, 

 or more than twenty-two years; nor until he shall have 

 resided one term at least at Haileyburv, and obtained a cer- 

 tificate, signed by the principal in the name of the council, 

 of his having conformed himself to the statutes and regula- 

 tions of the college. He must further declare that he accepts 

 the office of his own free will and choice. For some years 

 the number educated in this seminary was insufficient to 

 supply the demands for the civil service ; and, by act of 

 parliament, the directors were empowered to admit candi- 

 dates for civil stations under the following conditions : — 

 That a board of examiners, consisting of two professors 

 from Oxford, and two from Cambridge, he appointed to ex- 

 amine the candidate in classics, mathematics, and history. A 

 proficiency in the native tongues is not absolutely required 

 for this class of writers at the examination ; but no civil 

 servant in India can enter upon his official duties, unless he 

 be master of at least two oriental languages. He must 

 produce testimonials of good moral conduct from the princi- 

 pal or superior authority of the college or public institution 

 where he may have been educated. This mode of selecting 

 writers' is for the present discontinued, and all civil appoint- 

 ments are confined to the college. These nominations are 

 in the gift of the directors. A yearly return is prepared of 

 the number required to fill vacancies occasioned by death ur 

 retirement. When this is ascertained, the patronage is 

 divided among them individually, and they are at liberty to 

 name any one they please under certain stipulations. A 

 writership is considered so valuable as to be solicited by 

 parents in the first circles of society ; for it opens to an 



