IT would be difficult to mention any profession which is so often asserted as the Indian Civil Service is, to be a sure path to great worldly prosperity. Every one has heard of briefless barristers, starving curates, shabby authors; of doctors without patients, of merchants without business, and of soldiers and sailors without promotion. But who ever heard of an Indian civilian who was not rolling in wealth, pomp, and power? Who ever heard the Civil Service of India described except as "the finest service in the world, sir"-the one glorious certainty in the pursuits of civilized life. The Indian civilian is, indeed, to the present age almost what the Indian nabob was to a former age. He is studiously represented as a lazy, luxurious being, in the enjoyment of extravagant pay, and of improper privileges and immunities of all kinds, and with nothing but the dangers of the climate, and the discomforts of expatriation, to mitigate his almost superhuman felicity.

So long as the government of India and the right of nomination to the Civil Service remained in the hands of the directors, these misconceptions could do but little harm. But now that the government has been transferred to the Crown, and the service thrown open to the public, the most serious evils may result from them. They may lead to the unreflecting reduction of Indian civil salaries, and they may induce men to compete for writerships who have no No. 22.-VOL. IV.

inclination whatever for such a life as the Indian civilian's actually is. It is surely desirable that, before the salaries are reduced, it should be well understood what the work is by which they are earned; and that, before a youth enters the service, he should know what the service is.

To supply this information is the object of the present paper. We will first sketch the career of a civilian in the North West provinces ; then mention the chief incidents of his service; and, lastly, endeavour to place the service in its true rank as a worldly profession. In applying our results to other parts of India, variations of detail will, indeed, be necessary. But they will hold good generally of both the upper and lower provinces of Bengal,-the presidency to which the majority of probationers will probably always be sent, and in which the highest rate of salaries prevails.

On his arrival in India, the new civilian spends his first year in Calcutta, studying two oriental languages. He is now said to be "in college." The college is the college of Fort William, which has degenerated from Lord Wellesley's ideal into an examining board, a library, and a crowd of Moonshees and Pundits. Every student is provided with a Moonshee, with the loan of books, and with about 4007. a year pay, which, although it sounds enormous to English ears, is little more than enough to enable the young civilian to keep up his position in so expensive a city as Calcutta. It

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would not be easy, however, to justify this item of expenditure in a Committee of Supply. As an educational institution the effect of the college is almost inappreciable. The intellectual qualifications of the examiners are not high. The amount of restraint imposed on the students is not great enough to coerce the frivolous, and is quite sufficient to disgust the ambitious. On the whole, the almost invariable result of his residence in college is to impair the student's health, to damage his morale, to hamper him with debts, to lower his ambition, and to disgust him with Indian life-a heavy price to pay for the perusal of didactic fables about monkeys, mice, and crows, and the superficial acquirement of a scanty vocabulary of pedantic words.

At last, however, the student is reported qualified for the public service, and joins a station as an assistant to the magistrate and collector. In the course of the next two years, he will probably manage to pass two not very formidable examinations; and, being then vested with the full powers of a joint magistrate and deputy collector, he will enter on his career. And here we must do what no ambitious civilian is at all likely to do, confine our view to what is called "the regular line of the service." Of course, every one who is ambitious will determine in his own mind that it is all very well for Brown, Jones, and Robinson to keep in the beaten track. They, poor fellows, will never be fit for anything else! But he, with his rare endowments, will surely leap at once into a snug staff appointment! Did not Lord Metcalfe, he will reflect, attract Lord Wellesley's discerning eye almost as soon as he landed in Calcutta, and pass his time in personal attendance on "the glorious little man," till he entered on his brilliant diplomatic career? Have not A. B. and C. been in the Secretariat or in Council all their service? And shall he, the hero, remain unknown to fame in a Cutcherry, or spend his life as a police-magistrate? But, unfortunately, the whole number of staff appointments in the Bengal service is only about twenty; so that, if forty heroes go out

every year, the great majority of them must perforce remain in the "regular line." Moreover, even assuming that the authorities in the disposal of their patronage adopt, in its integrity, the motto, "Detur digniori," we only fall back on Lord Palmerston's question, "What is merit?" Your ideas and my ideas on the point may differ widely; and, even if you would be as fully convinced as I am of my qualifications for a given post, if you knew me as well as I fancy that I know myself, fortune may deny you the knowledge, and may perversely bring to your notice the inferior qualities of Smith or Jones. In India, where civilians are scattered over so large an area, the chances of acquaintanceship play a most important part in the lottery of staff appointments. No Governorgeneral can be personally acquainted with every civil officer between Calcutta and Peshawur. When he has a good thing to dispose of, he gives it either to a man whom he knows himself, or to a man who is strongly recommended by some one personally known to his excellency. So that the nominee be competent, why should we complain that the post is given only to a competent man, and not to him whom we consider the most competent?

It is best, then, at the outset, to turn our eyes resolutely away from all secretaryships, registrarships, and other fat and tempting posts, and to confine ourselves to the regular line of the service where the rank and file must work. The odds are that any given civilian will be kept in that line all his service. An intending candidate, therefore, who feels a distaste for the work of a district officer, would do well to abandon altogether the idea of entering the Indian Civil Service.

After an assistant has passed his two examinations, his duties and powers, for the best part of the next ten years, will remain unaltered. His title will be changed from "Assistant with full powers," to "Joint Magistrate of the Second Grade," and "Joint Magistrate of the First Grade." His pay will be raised contemporaneously to 70%. and

1007. per mensem. His station, which was, at first, probably one of the most isolated, may very likely be, at last, one of the largest and most attractive in the provinces. But his powers and duties will throughout remain almost unchanged; excepting that, as a young hand, he will of course be more closely watched by his superior officers than in his maturer years.

The usual practice in most districts is to place a portion of the district in the exclusive charge of each civil officer, to whom every application of every description must, in the first instance, be made. Such applications may be divided into those relating to (1) Criminal Justice, (2) Revenue, and (3) Matters of General Territorial Jurisdiction.

The criminal powers of a joint magistrate are identical with those of a magistrate. They extend to awarding thirty stripes, imprisonment with hard labour for three years, and fines of various amount. In all cases in which the specified crime involves a heavier punishment than these, and in all cases in which this amount of punishment seems to be inadequate to the offence, the joint magistrate must commit the prisoner to be tried before the Sessions Judge, by whom also are to be decided all appeals from the orders of the joint magistrate. It would be out of place to discuss here the mode in which criminal justice is administered in India. But it may safely be affirmed, to show the general nature of a civil officer's duties in this branch of his work, that the whole machinery is rude and unreliable in the extreme, and that the mode of taking evidence is eminently calculated to give every encouragement to perjury and equivocation.

The suits in revenue which come before the joint magistrate in his capacity of deputy collector relate chiefly to disputes about the payment of rent by tenants to landholders, and to the appointment of the lowest officials engaged in the collection of revenue. In several classes of cases, which concern more immediately the realization of the government demand, no order can be made except by

the collector. The deputy collector, therefore, when the case comes before him, either forwards it at once to the collector, or investigates it, and sends his opinion to the collector for confirmation. The gravest objections have often been made to Mr. Thomason's revenue system. But they attack merely the general effect of the system, as tending to level the poppies to the rank of the surrounding weeds, and to blend all classes of society in one indiscriminate mediocrity. Be its general tendency, however, what it may, no one who has administered a district under it will deny that, as a system, it is deserving of high praise; that its details have been constructed with a degree of scientific regularity and logical precision that is very rarely met with in India. Revenue cases, indeed, are almost the only cases which a civilian can decide with any satisfaction to himself. In the rules applicable to them, at any rate, there is something definite and clear; and, in this branch of his work, he may occasionally find an intellectual enjoyment in classifying masses of details in subordination to fixed principles, somewhat akin to the delight of an old lawyer in a complicated equity suit.

In dealing with matters relating to the territorial government of the district, the joint magistrate must be careful not to trench on the prerogatives of the magistrate and collector. To the magistrate the district has been entrusted, and to him all matters of importance must be referred.

In the exercise of these powers, the civilian will spend the best part of ten years. Before he is promoted to the next grade, he will probably have completed the first half of his service. His work will lie, in great part, in the administration of criminal justice. And if he does his best with his cases, and is posted in a district of average litigiousness, his duties as a criminal officer will probably occupy him for six or eight hours every week-day, all the year round, excepting a few native holidays, Christmas-day, and Good Friday. Every civilian is indeed entitled to one month

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unceasing fire of language which is "directed at him as he passes. He "probably knows the principal heads "of villages, and merchants, and cha"racters in different lines; and this "is the great time for talk with them. "If anything of interest is to be dis"cussed, they obtain admittance to his garden, where he sips his cup of tea "under his vine and fig-tree on his "return from his ride. Then come "the reports from the tehseedars and "police-inspectors for the previous day; "those from the outlying stations "having come in during the night. "These are all read, and orders briefly "recorded; the police-inspector of the "town, and perhaps other native officers,

goes out to look at them, but no 66 sooner appears than a shout announces "that the villagers are waiting in a "body, with a slightly different version "of the story, to demand justice against "the grass-cutters, who have invaded "their grass preserves, despoiled their village, and were with difficulty pre"vented from murdering the inhabi"tants. So the case is sent to the "joint-magistrate. But there are more "notes; some want camels, some carts,

some tailors, and all apply to the magistrate. Then there may be natives "of rank and condition, who came to pay a serious formal kind of visit, "and generally want something; or a chatty native official, who has plenty "to say for himself.

awarding final sentence where his powers enable him to do so, and committing graver offenders to the Sudder Court; as civil judge, to hear appeals from civil courts and regulate their proceedings, and also to hear, in certain cases, appeals from revenue courts.

When he has got so far on the official ladder, the civilian has no right to further promotion. Nor, as a rule, is further promotion likely to be offered to him much before he has completed the period of twenty-five years' service and twenty-two years' residence, which gives him a legal title to his annuity. In all probability he will then have to choose between returning home, and remaining in India for the chance of obtaining a Commissionership on 3,700l., a seat in the Sudder Court on 4,2007., or a seat at the Revenue Board on 4,8007. a year. Except in special cases, no one is permitted to remain in the service more than thirty-five years.

Such, then, is the Indian civilian's career in "the regular line of the service." Throughout, it involves hard, unceasing work. During the first half of it, the civilian enjoys neither wealth nor power; during the next five years, he has but a moderate share of either; as a judge, his powers are limited to the administration of justice, and, although he has the supervision of district courts, he is himself closely watched by the Sudder Court. It is not until he has served for, at least, a quarter of a century that either his pay or his position gives any foundation for the popular idea.

It remains to notice the regulations for furlough and pension. Every civilian is entitled to a furlough of three years on 5007. a year, after ten years' residence; to leave, on special grounds, for six months, on half-pay, with retention of appointment; and to leave of absence, on medical certificate, for two years, on half-pay. But in no case is half-pay granted beyond 1,000l. a year.

About the pension very erroneous assertions are often made. It is usually said, for instance, that every civilian has a pension of 1,000l. a year, after twenty

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pension is taken. All the subscrip"tions of those who die in the service, or remain till their contributions "exceed the half value, go towards payment of the other half. What "remains is contributed by Govern"ment: but, on these terms, that "contribution certainly does not exceed "3007. of the 1,000l. annuity. Some "indirect advantage is also given in "the allowance of six per cent. interest "on the contributions, while the public "receive only five per cent. for money "invested in the funds. The pension "given by Government may, therefore, "perhaps be taken to be nearly 4007. per annum, while the rest is made up

by subscriptions on a mutual assurance "system." As, however, the scale of subscriptions was calculated for a much higher rate of salaries than exists at present, the gross sum now contributed by civilians of twenty-five years' standing never amounts to anything like the half-value of the annuity. The subscriber must always either take a reduced annuity, or pay from 2,000l. to 30007, in addition to his subscriptions. But, in the second place, twenty-five years' service, and twenty-two years' residence, merely give a legal title to the annuity. In practice, only a certain number of annuities are annually awarded, and they are awarded to applicants according to seniority in the service. As, therefore, the number of men legally entitled to annuities is usually about ten times the number of annuities to be granted, a legally qualified applicant may very possibly apply unsuccessfully for several years.

But, if popular opinion construes the regulations for pension too favourably, it certainly errs, on the other side, in exaggerating the effects of the Indian climate. It would, indeed, be difficult