'Sun angry men are so wicked. In anger, him hide his face.' This ready-witted and poetical Ghebir met his death, not long after, in one of his own sacred elements, being drowned in the Mahr River, 'where ford there is none.' He once expressed great surprise to me that a nation possessing Regent Street—a description of which he had received from his father—'should come to live in India.'
It was night when we reached Parell after our day's pleasuring; and we all agreed that the climate of India, during the winter months, is of all others the best adapted for picnics, which are so often marred in England by ill-timed showers or gloom; and yet, certain memories came back half reproachfully as we spoke, painting to our mental vision the pretty lanes and fresh green dells and dingles of England, the soft cool breeze, the varied and flitting shadows, the open-air enjoyment of many a past summer-day, when in our own merry island we
'Went a gipsying a long time ago,'
and we gave an involuntary sigh for the country of our birth.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Residence of the governor of the Bombay presidency.
THE LONDON PRISONS OF THE LAST CENTURY.
In the year 1728, an opinion was entertained that much cruelty and rapacity were exercised by the keepers of the great prisons in London. It was known that they had almost unlimited power in their hands, that they were not subject to regular inspection, and that it was scarcely possible to bring them to justice for their treatment of those committed to their charge. It was argued, that it is impossible to depend upon the lenity of men who have such powers over their fellow-creatures, and that these officers must be supposed more than human if they did not occasionally abuse their authority. Of their having actually done so, many rumours had from time to time reached parliament. But in making out a case for inquiry, its strongest supporters had but a very slight forecast of the horrors it was to divulge. It may here be remarked, that before the proper arrangements for official responsibility and regular systematic management in such matters as prison discipline or the custody of the insane were devised, our free parliament did incalculable service by its inquiries and exposures. In that august assembly, every tale of formidable injustice or oppression was sure to receive a ready auditory; and its power was so transcendent, that every door flew open at its command, and no influence could protect the wrong-doer from its sweeping vengeance. With such a body in existence, even the worst governments which Britain has known could not keep up those mysterious agents of tyranny, secret state-prisons, which continue to be the curse of every despotic country. Yet it will be seen, that for want of some more immediate and direct responsibility, the abuses in the prisons even of this country had risen to a very dreadful height.