Interlopers and Interloping. 125 



plucked for either the Army or the Indian Civil Ser- 

 vice. Thus, with a mind which had been buoyed up 

 with a false hope, until the time of the fatal exami- 

 nation all his thoughts are still of India. His family 

 knows, or may be related to, some one who has been 

 engaged in planting. Influence is made, and the re- 

 jection of the examination, or the neophite of the 

 public schools, is shipped finally for India. The 

 strong purposeful boy soon forges ahead, and wins 

 the vacant management ; but others less fortunate 

 swelter and stew on 12 to 15 a month all the days 

 of their natural manhood ; and when they become 

 old, they die or disappear. So, the fittest survive 

 not always ; it is, also, too often, the survival of the 

 luckiest. The hapless ones despair, die, disappear, 

 run into debt, or become interlopers. And how is the 

 metamorphosis achieved ? Thus : 



2. The liberal-minded and educated native zemin- 

 dar is rapidly on the increase. Such men, shrewd 

 and appreciative of commercial gain, as are all na- 

 tives of the country, have begun to see the enormous 

 profits accruing to the proprietors of indigo factories, 

 who are their tikadars or lessees, and the matter 

 suggests itself in so practical a form, that they 

 are slow to project operations on their own behalf 

 Leases fall in and are not renewed, even under the 

 most alluring conditions ; the zemindar has " struck 



