480 GLEANINGS FROM THE CALCUTTA MARKET. 



safe men, who are always put over the unsafe fellows who 

 have ideas, and might, if not properly sat upon, do something, 

 some fine day, and of course u ruin the Empire." If you know 

 nothing- about a subject you have a good chance of being put 

 to direct, and control other people who do ; but if you really 

 understand any branch, you are certain to have some one, who 

 knows nothing about it, placed over you, to prevent your rashly 

 utilizing your knowledge. 



Cela dement ennuyant, and so even such a little business, as 

 spotting rare birds in a market and securing them then and 

 there, becomes interesting. If I went down to the market on 

 account of any Government, and found, say, a Macror/iamphus 

 or Pseudoscolopax semipalmatus, and recommended its purchase 

 for four annas, I should first be told that it was too dear ; 

 second, that it was not wanted ; third, that I had better 

 purchase three Nettapus coromandelianus (a bigger and much 

 handsomer bird) at a rupee a piece. It would be no use my 

 urging that the P. semipalmatus was an excessively rare and 

 valuable bird that would be cheap at a gold mohur, and that the 

 Cotton Teal per contra was one of the commonest of birds 

 and quite worthless for our purposes. A. B. would see no 

 reason to modify his opinion, and P. Q. would add their 

 initials and quite concur. But then luckily the Treasury 

 would have to be consulted, and they, " in the face of the exist- 

 ing financial pressure" (and of course there is always a finan- 

 cial pressure when you ask Government for money), would 

 regret their inability to sanction the Rs. 3, and so it would 

 come all right after all, for nothing would be done. 



Under such a dispensation, one would cease, after a cer- 

 tain number of years, to take any very vivid interest in 

 going to the bazaar. Luckily complex as our administration, 

 especially our municipal administration is, and interfering as it 

 does with most things on earth, and in the heavens above the 

 earth, and the waters under the earth, it still leaves one free to 

 exercise common sense and skilled knowledge in bazaar pur- 

 chases, and so year after year an unflagging interest in this 

 tiny piece of relaxation is maintained. 



I have for many years now steadily attended the market 

 whenever I have been in Calcutta ; and I think it may be 

 useful to make a few remarks on the species that I have 

 noticed there. 



This market, too, is really a remarkable one ; it is not like 

 Leadenhall, fed by half a continent. All we see in it — I mean 

 of course in the way of birds and game — has been procured 

 within a radius of 25 miles, the great mass of the birds 

 within 10 miles from the stalls where they are sold ; yet two 



