CALCUTTA 
thus attend upon children, would certainly operate as a check to 
the extension of zenanas, which are now but too common among 
the Europeans ; and this would be a benefit to the country, no less 
in a moral, than in a political view. 
After making these observations, I turn with much satisfaction 
to the brighter parts of the character of my Eastern countrymen. I 
can truly affirm, that they are hospitable in the highest degree, 
and that their generosity is unbounded. When an officer of re- 
spectability dies, in either the civil or military service, leaving a 
wddow or children, a subscription is immediately set on foot, which 
in every instance has proved liberal, and not unfrequently has 
conferred on the parties a degree of affluence, that the life of the 
husband or parent could not for years have insured them. The 
hearts of the British in this country seem expanded by opulence : 
they do every thing upon a princely scale ; and consequently do not 
save half the money that might be done with a narrower economy. 
The beginning, however, of a fortune being once made, it collects 
as rapidly as a snow ball. In seven years, or less, a capital is 
doubled; so that ten thousand rupees given to a child at birth, is 
a handsome independence by the time it arrives at the age of 
twenty-one. 
The Supreme Court is held in deserved repute, and the business 
is conducted with due decorum. The chief Interpreter has been 
permitted to act as a police magistrate, in consequence of which his 
deputy sometimes appears in causes, the importance of which calls 
loudly for his master. The Court, when I was there, was once de- 
layed two hours by a confusion of the terms repaid, and advanced^ 
made by this man, in a cause which General Martin s executors 
