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    944 THE LEADER; [No. 442, September 11, ...

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    INDIA.

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    WHAT INDIA MAY COME TO. It is surprising...

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    Theatres And Public Entertain-- , '¦ ¦ ¦...

    4 . n jjfe CMr James Bland ) , and his equally ' ; SS & £ 3 * 28 » S & m ¦ ™> $ ^

    establishment . Doddles and Fidget fall back upon their master , and a sortie of the baronet in person at the head of his malcontent retainers seems for some time imminent . But the good qualities of the new broom soon compensate for the clean-sweeping tendencies which made it first so objectionable . Doddles , caught off his guard by his amiable mistress , exchanges his old livery and unkempt locks for a powdered coiffure arid a modern butler ' s uniform Fidget , though roused to frenzy in defence of her preserving-pans and pickling-jars , is , woman-like , "by no means so impregnable on the side of dress , and is persuaded out of an antediluvian crimson brocade into a dove-coloured modern silk . Gentle

    raillery , and the force of example , drive the ridiculous ex-milkman , Mt . SweUington , from the most awful Mosaic excesses into the customary suit of sables that becomes a gentleman ; and his _ wife expands in length of waist and breadth of skirt , to something modern and yet reasonable . Lastly , the stiff baronet himself , rather than be left alone in his eccentricity , dons trousers , boots , dress-coat , and Gibus hat , vice pepper-and-salt coatee , nankeen shorts and their usual accompaniments , cuts off his pigtail , arid confesses himself a reformed character . It is not too much to say that this piquant little piece is delightfully acted throughout . Mr . Selby ' s perforriaance , although his facial make-up is far too

    juvenile , lacks none of the tasteful quietude which was appropriate to the part-of Sir Noah , and to be expected of the artist author . Miss Swanborough is fascinating as ever , and Mr . Clarke is in dress , voice , and every respect , an admirable Mr . SweUington . In no part that this artist has filled upon the stage of this theatre has he been , to our thinking , so well fitted or so successful as in the present . Mrs . Selby and Mr . James Bland are both acquisitions in their respective walks . Miss Swanborough may now be congratulated on having gathered round her a company

    fully capable , unless fortune prove singularly unpropxtious , of attracting aud . taking permanent Hold of popular favour . In Mr . Buckstone ' s delightful little comedietta of The Rough Diamond , which follows The Last of the Pigtails , Miss M . Oliver , another new engagement , interested us very much as the pretty , highprincipled hoiden , Lady Evergreen . Mr . Parselle was gentlemanly and faultless as Sir William , and Mr . Clarke , as Coxisin Joe , ( one of Buckstone ' s brightest bits ) , a thought too broad in manner , and far too antique in appearance . WirxiAaistreet

    Polygbaphio Halt ., King - , CHAKlNGr-CROSS . —WlJALBA FbIKELI / S SoiItBES . — - On Monday last this prince pf " prestidigitators " commenced his third metropolitan season . Discarding , as many readers may have noticed , the timehonoured paraphernalia of jugglery , the painted rickety tomfoolery that formed of old the background of all wizardy showB , abandoning the star-spangled and be-crescented gaberdine which , while it undoubtedly favours trick , destroys all that unquestioning faith in physical mngic which ¦ w e ourselves , and thousands more , delight to profess , —our modern Oagliostri , of whom Wijalba Frikell is at once the most artful and most artless ,, appear

    before their audiences in close-fitting garments , -without apparent plant or machinery , reliant aloneif the blapk art be really extinct—on the simplicity of mankind and their own dexterity of hand . There was never fitter title for a magician ' s stance than the Two Hours of Illusions chosen by Hcrr Frikell . We spent our two l ^ ours on Monday as we have spen t many an other two hours *—as it were in a dream . Delusions hailed upon delusions . We saw handkerchiefs burnt , chopped , and restored ; rings , watches , and money

    made to travel ; hundred-pound notes recklenely burnt , stamped upon , and remintcd ; and u wondrous hat : filled thrice with flowers . And we agreed with ~^ ur c 1 everr * Bharn . Bighted ~ noighbaur 8 . _ . who knew aU about it , that the trick might be a trick aiftor nllj but when the wondrous hat came to be filled time after time by unseen hands , with silver cups , more flowers , and flags , and deluged last of all with playing ? cards , wo could but rub our eyes , and ask if Iierr TYikelJ , the company , nay , ourselves , were all delu- < siona too .

    Vavxhaia Gardens . —Mr . Duffell , who has been m « ny years connected with t | ic direotion of Vauxhall Garden * , and is well known to the regular visitors of the eatubliehmenfc for Mb energy and his zeal for the amusement und comfort of the public , announces an attractive benefit foe Monday next .

    944 The Leader; [No. 442, September 11, ...

    944 THE LEADER ; [ No . 442 , September 11 , 1858 .

    India.

    INDIA .

    What India May Come To. It Is Surprising...

    WHAT INDIA MAY COME TO . It is surprising how great lias become the tenderness of late expressed for the Hindoos by the friends of the Civil Service as the double Government has been going through its phases . The love for the natives has been almost as strong as that of the Baptist missionaries for the West India negroes , of the Wesleyan missionaries for the Kaffirs , when these latter were robbing and murdering our brethren , and of the Aborigines Protection Society and the Society of Friends for the Maoris ,

    when these were engaged in deadly war with us . The great-end and aim of the Government of India is now declared to be to maintain the natives in their rights , and more particularly to preserve them against the oppression of Englishmen , not members of the Civil Service ; and yet , strangely enough , the result of all this sympathy will not be to advance the political position of the native one whit , while it would retard his social progress . Surelyalthough we may pay a high tribute to the many noble men in ttie Civil Service , as in the Uncovenanted Service and the Military Service , who have done so much for India—we cannot assume that

    the welfare of India depends on its continuing under the paternal despotism of some few hundred gentlemen , and yet for years we have been called upon to do so . There . arc rightsv privileges , superstitions of so many classes of the population , of whom no outside barbarian can know anything , and , above all , there is caste , and if Englishmen are allowed to meddle with the country there is an end of pur empire , or rather of the empire of the Civil Service , and as Lord Stanley is threatened with the consequences of any innovation , he must surrender himself to the old routine , and be governed by it , or he will lose the country .

    India is the great mystery which it auswers the purpose of a good many people to keep a mystery , and for this mystery double government was maintained , and for this mystery direct government is to be morally shackled and restrained ; and yet the Colonial-o ' jCfice has had to deal with this mystery and dealt with it successfully . Whatever we can say of India , we can say of Ceylon . There are people ignorant , superstitious , and peculiar ; there are a

    variety of races , and , what cannot be said of the plains of Bengal , there are mountain fastnesses with warlike tribes to hold them , and yet the mystery has been solved , Ceylon has been held , and a parliamentary government is at work with full scope for English exertion ^ Ceylon has had its difficulties as well as Bengal-, if the bulk of the Ciughalcso are obedient , there have nevertheless been wars and a revolt on account of Buddha ' s sacred tooth .

    Those who remember what . Ceylon was some years ago , will remember that it was a country in as low a condition as India now really is under its bureaucratic government . It was ruled by a coterie , and the small English population was discouraged and treated with contempt ; its revenues were small , and its population in a state of pauperism ; native prejudices were fostered , and native progress depended on the benevolent efforts of a

    works ., or as officers of engineers advocating reproductive improvements , will look with envy upon such an outlay , which is far beyond the amount so bestowed on any district in India of corresponding extent and population . This outlay is exclusive of the sums devoted to railways and local expeuditure for roads . ; ' The remarks of the Grovernor will be echoed by every enlightened administrator of India , for , speaking ot the increase of income and of the corresponding increase of expenditure , he says : — " I am the more particular in dwelling upon this fact because there is , in my judgment , the most intimate connexion between the one increase and the

    other , and I wish the Council to feel with me that we arc labouring upon a grateful soil , that trade and agriculture respond to every measure favourable to their development , and that when the outlay is well considered , the effect up ° the revenue is as rapid as it is remarkable . " There is many a man in India administers a district as populous as Ceylon , but he has not the same means of improving jtlic condition of his population , because his exertions arc paralysed by the system in the hierarchy for the maintenance of which he is enlisted . He wants a sufficient number of English assistants , lie wants English settlers , and he wants a legislative council to co-operate with him in providing and properly distributing an adequate revenue .

    In the situation to which Ceylon has , under English •¦ government , been brought , Sir Henry Ward is able to refer with pride to its healthy and thriving condition , to the increase which for five years the revenue has sustained , to the fact that " the colony has no debt "—and he is not ashamed of using the word colony—that it is executing large works out of its own surplus funds , that railways and telegraphs are provided , and that public tranquillity is maintained . "To these happy results , " he tells the Legislative Council , " you havo yourselves largely contributed , by the impartial spirit that has guided you in the distribution of the

    public resources . If the demands of the European settlers have been liberally , met , the irrigation votes show that native wants lnive not been neglected . " So far is he from being afraid of referring to English settlers , or supposing that their presence in the country can be inimical to his Government or the progress of the people , that he asserts that not only is there no incompatibility between them , ami no lack of means to do justice to both , but that ia many respects they are completely identified , lie says in express words that the vast properties which English energy and capital arc creating in the interior furnish the . readiest market for every

    article that the industry of the low country enu supply . What is wanted , says he , is a more intimate knowledge of the field upon which we have to work , improved means of communication , greater familiarity with the wants and producing powers of each separate locality . How painful is the contrast between this picture and that of the Madras presidency . In that presidency , In the Neilghcrries , in Mysore , and in Coorg , is as fine coffee country as any in Ceylon , and the Ncilgherries produce some of the best coffee now imported into England . In the Neilgherrics , with one of the most splendid qlimatcs , the few English settlers cannot obtain an acre of land in fco simple ,

    few well-disposed functionaries . What it now is , is something different ; for on the 28 th July , the Legislative Council was opened by the Governor , Sir Henry George Ward , . with the usual parliamentary speech ; and it is worth noting , for afte > all we have heard about the difficulties , and indeed impossibility , of the English getting a footing in India , it is what wo must some day look forward to in India , and although wo cannot indulge Bengal with vote

    but arc subject to the chance exactions of a collector , who has proposed to tax land , held to be tax and rent free ; the magistrate is a government oflionl with inferior powers , and black subordinates , ami before whom the English settler has no rights' of citizenship , no claim of English law , no privilege of an English jury ; ho is taxable without representation , and without the benefit of a legislative council in which he or his class can take part . His posiMou solely

    by ballot , and South American representative institutions , and South American institutions , wo may gradually raise the Presidencies in the scale of Govamment , and in the hills of the north and the south we may endow the largo English settlements whiohwjU bo formed there with the like institutions that are to bo found throughout the empire . ^ Sir ^ Ifewy-Ward ^ the government of Ceylon , and refers only totho statistics of his own time } but in that short period the gross revenue has advanced from 408 , 000 / . in 1864 ) to 578 , 000 / . in 1857 , with , every ¦ prospeot that it will in the current yoai ? exceed < J 20 ; 000 / ., and may rcaoh 050 , 000 / . As a matter of course , the expenditure has likewise increased at a corresponding rate , and in . the lust year alone 160 , 000 / . was spent on works of acknowledged public utility . Those who have laboured in India in their districts as collectors and magistrates to promoto public

    in the country is ignored , and he is dependent on the accident of the Government official of llw distrjot being kindly disposed to settlers . It is wo * surprising , it under such a system , produco is Kept from market , for want of roads , and that it takes a week to carry coffee fifty miles in bullock trucks , when the season allows of travel . In that t } ' 3 ^ ' 1 ? 1 THiol 3 bvenMett ^ to English settlers , allows four hundred buvokcs , named Podahs , to claim and exorciao squnttni n rights over a opuntry as large as an English cou » i )< A narrow sea separates Coylon from Mttclrns , i » now government from aw old one , a land of P » ' 0 £ f 1 >(^ from a land of misery , and yet in Madras there « » inon as able , as zealous , as benevolont , us fl » j > Ceylon ; but the latter has the institutions oi «' English colony , and . Madras the wcll-moaning ' » fooble institutions of Prussia , liussia , ft » d Cinnn ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1858, page 24, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11091858/page/24/