Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan

by John Lang

It was the press that introduced to the notice of the Government many clever and able men, who had no other interest to help them. I could mention scores of instances, but two will suffice. Herbert Benjamin Edwardes, of the Bengal Fusiliers, the "Brahminee Bull" of the Delhi Gazette, and Mr. Campbell, of the Civil Service, who was "given up" to Lord Dalhousie as the "Delator" of the Mofussilite, and promoted to an office of great responsibility. In the last-mentioned paper there also appeared, in eighteen hundred and forty-seven, forty-eight, and forty nine, a series of leading articles on military reform and other matters, some of which attracted the notice of Sir Charles Napier. They came from the pen of General (then Major) Mansfield, of the Fifty-third Foot, and at present chief of the staff of Sir Colin Campbell. It was not to silence these men, who displayed their ability in the newspapers, that they were placed in staff employ, or promoted. On the contrary, I know that they were expected—and in some instances requested—to use their pens in defence of certain Government measures; and that, on several occasions, they did vigorous battle with their former literary chief, the editor of the paper in which they first made their appearance in print. I remember that on one occasion the editor, on being beaten in an argument, headed his admission of the fact with the following lines:—

Keen are our pangs; but keener far to feel
We nursed the pinion that impels the steel.

There are no newsmen in the Upper Provinces of India, nor, indeed, in any of the Presidencies. Whoever wishes to take a journal must subscribe for a certain period—year or half-year. The rates for the Mofussilite, or Delhi Gazette, were three pounds twelve shillings per annum, or two pounds per six months. The net profits of both these papers, in eighteen hundred and forty-nine and fifty, were upwards of five thousand pounds per annum. With the exception of the Friend in India, when under the control of its original proprietor, these journals of the North-West were by far the most remunerative of any in the East.

There was a native newspaper published at Meerut, called the Jam-i-Jumsheed, which title signifies a bowl or glass, into which if you look, you will see what transpires in the whole world. The history of this paper is very curious.

It was founded without the knowledge, privity, or consent of the conductor of the European journal, by the head pressman, of his establishment, who was a Brahmin. The editor of this native print, which was lithographed in the Oordoo language, was the moonshee of the English press at Meerut. He was well skilled in English, and his chief employment was translating the native correspondence. Having constant access to the desks of the compositors, this press moonshee acquired a knowledge of every item of news furnished by European as well as native correspondents, and of this knowledge he failed not to avail himself. This, however, was but a small evil, comparatively. Unknown to the conductor of the Meerut paper, a much greater evil arose from the publication of the native print. Availing himself of such sources of information, its editor seized the views of his employer—views intended only for European eyes, and gave his own version of them to his readers in the Hindoostanee language; and, what was equally mischievous, he published quantities of matter which the conductor of the Meerut paper thought proper to suppress after it was set up in type. These were the morsels in which the native editor took most delight. A single instance will suffice. The following appeared in the leading columns of the Jam-i-Jumsheed, the facts having been kept out of the columns of the Meerut paper, at the instance of the friends of the gentleman who was guilty of the indiscretion:-

An act of retributive justice has just been committed by the worthy magistrate of this district. It was supposed that an escaped convict from the jail was secreted in a village about four miles distant from this cantonment. In the dead of the night, the magistrate, at the head of a large body of police, visited the village, aroused the inhabitants from their slumbers, and demanded the culprit. The villagers denied any knowledge of him. The magistrate, with characteristic kindness and consideration, gave them half-an-hour to make up their minds. At the expiration of that time, as the culprit was not produced, he set fire to the village. In those flames, which illuminated the country for miles round, thirteen lives were sacrificed; namely, those of three men, four women, and six children. One of the unfortunate women was in labour at the time. Some malicious natives in the neighbourhood of Meerut give out that the Sahib has been notoriously mad for several years past. Let us hope, however, that the Lieutenant-Governor will not heed such insinuations, but after complimenting the magistrate on his vigour and his zeal, appoint him to the first judgeship that may become vacant. No less than six hundred persons are, by this fire, rendered homeless beggars. But what of that? Must justice be obstructed?

It remains for us to add that the escaped convict of whom the magistrate was in search, has been in Oude for the past month, and that no notice of this affair will appear in any of the papers printed in English and edited by the Sahib Logue. Those gentlemen are far too modest to make known the manifest blessings which arise out of British rule in India.

For upwards of a year and a-half the native paper went on filching news, and writing in the above strain. At length the conductor of the Meerut journal was furnished with some information which led to his discharging his employées, the head pressman and the moonshee, and breaking up their journal, the Jam-i-Jumsheed. And more than this was done. The danger of permitting native newspapers to be published without any sort of supervision was elaborately, and from time to time dwelt upon by the English editor, and at length the Government was moved to call for a return of the journals printed in the Hindoostanee language in the Upper Provinces of India, and for an account of the number of copies that each issued. With this return and account the Government was well satisfied; first, because the aggregate circulation was so ridiculously small (comparatively), that it was quite clear that the native press had no power or influence; and, secondly, that the tone of the best conducted and most respectable journals of the native press were loud in their praises of British rule, and firm supporters of the Government. It was overlooked with reference to the first point, that in no country, and in India especially, is the actual circulation of a newspaper any criterion of the number of persons acquainted with its contents, its chief items of intelligence, and its sentiments on the most important questions of the day. Let us take for example, the greatest paper in the world—the Times. Compare the number of copies that are struck off daily with the number of hands into which that paper passes, the number of eyes that read it, and the number of ears that listen to hear it read. As to the second point, the praise of the Government of India, it was laughable to hear it mentioned, albeit the subject was of so serious a character. That praise was bestowed very much in the same spirit that Jack Wilkes is said to have conveyed a serious warning, with a humorous grin, to an election mob—"I hear that it is your intention, gentlemen, to take that person (there!) who is interrupting me, place him under that pump, and duck him! Now, if you should do so, no matter how much it may be for his own good, you will—I give you this emphatic warning—incur my most serious displeasure, gentlemen!" They (the native editors) used to wrap up the most bitter irony in the most complimentary phrases, and frequently their allusions, if viewed abstractedly, were both humorous and witty. A case in point. The late Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, a few years ago, presided at an examination of the students of a Government public school. Amongst other questions which his honour put to the boys of the first class was this—"How does the world go round?" The head boy, a very intelligent Hindoo, gave an admirable reply—spoke, as the saying is, like a book. The editor of a native paper, in a notice of the examination, predicted that this boy would come to a bad end for giving such an answer to the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces. "He ought," said the native editor, "when so questioned by so potent a ruler, as to the cause of the world's going round, to have flung science into the gutter, and, having assumed the most cringing attitude imaginable, he should have placed his hands together, and then have responded meekly, 'By your honour's grace, favour, and kindness, does this planet revolve upon its axis.'" This same editor once wrote a notice of a ball given by the officers of the Horse Artillery mess at Meerut to the ladies of the Twenty-ninth Foot, on the occasion of that last-mentioned and distinguished regiment coming to the station. When translated, literally, to an Englishman this notice would seem the most flattering account possible; but, if such Englishman took it in the sense in which Asiatics understood and comprehended it, he would, without any sort of doubt, have admitted that it was the most extraordinary and ingenious admixture of satire and obscenity that ever was printed and published!

The same editor, during the second Sikh campaign, burlesqued the despatches of Lord Gough; but so cleverly, that they were taken by English people, who heard them translated, as genuine productions. This was the man who never lost an opportunity of bringing British rule in India into disgrace, ridicule, and contempt amongst his countrymen, and who, eventually, by producing his writings, and having them translated literally, succeeded in obtaining an appointment under the Government worth one hundred and fifty rupees per mensem! The great article on which his good fortune was based, was one descriptive of Lord Dalhousie, on the back of an elephant, proceeding to a spot appointed as the place of an interview between his Lordship and the late Maharajah Goolab Singh. Neither the London nor the Paris Charivari ever surpassed this squib, so far as its spirit of ridicule was concerned, while in point of mischief those European journals of fun would never have dreamed of going the lengths of the Asiatic writer. "What became of this native editor?" may be reasonably asked. I hear that he is now aide-de-camp and military secretary to Bahadoor Khan, the rebel, who is at the head of a considerable army, and, according to the latest accounts, in possession of the entire Bareilly district. He (the native editor) is a Mahommedan, of very ancient and good family; he has an extremely handsome person and plausible manners, and should I again wander in India, it will not at all surprise me to find him in the service of the British Government, and filling some office of considerable dignity and emolument.

I have incidentally spoken of the theatre at Meerut. It was a building about the size of the Adelphi Theatre, and was built by subscription, some twenty-five years ago. The performers were, of course, amateurs, officers in the civil and military services, and now and then an interloper, possessed of histrionic abilities. The ladies were those young gentlemen who could be best made up to imitate the gentler sex. The scene-painters, scene-shifters, prompters, and so on, were men belonging to the various European corps quartered in the station, men who had been about, or connected with, London theatres, and who understood their business thoroughly. On an average, there was a performance once a fortnight. Tragedy was seldom or never attempted; nothing but standard comedies and approved farces. It pains me to think of the last performance I witnessed on the Meerut boards; for, with the exception of myself and another gentleman, every one who had a character assigned to him is now numbered with the dead. The play was The Lady of Lyons. Claude Melnotte was an officer in the Governor-General's Body-guard; his height was under five feet, and his weight exactly eight stone. Pauline was the magistrate of Bolund-Shahur, who was six feet three, and weighed twenty-one stone and some pounds. In short, Claude was about the smallest, and Pauline about the biggest man, in British India. These two died of natural causes within the last three years. The rest have all been massacred or killed in action. Some perished at Cawnpore, and other stations, and some have fallen before Delhi and before Lucknow. And, alas! amongst the audience of that night, how many have since been prematurely despatched from this world—men, women, and children!

There are some matters connected with theatricals in India, in the Upper Provinces, which would strike any gentleman or lady fresh from Europe as very odd. Huge punkahs are suspended from the ceiling, and pulled by natives during the performance. Without the punkahs the heat in the house would be unbearable. Then, there are no boxes, and there is no pit. One part of the house, that nearest to the stage, is set apart for the officers civil and military, and their wives and families. The rest of the house is generally filled by non-commissioned officers and private soldiers. As a matter of course, the greatest order prevails throughout the play, which is usually produced "under the patronage of the officer commanding the station and his lady." The actors are never hissed; but the applause, in which the men always join, is loud, long, frequent, and encouraging.