[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Bra,—How hard put to it is the Anglo-Indian (Spectator, September 14th) when he has to quote one more crude speci- men of Baboo English in order to explain to untravelled Britons what manner of man the Baboo is ! The attempt has often been made before, and perhaps the Baboo English method is as good as another. It has the defect, however, that you will probably be told, first, that not all educated Bengalis use the quaint dialect of " Audh Behari Lal " (a curious name for a Bengali Hindu), and, secondly, that few of the English rulers of Bengal could write a passable letter in Bengali. Both statements are true. Both are more or less irrelevant. How is any one to explain the mentality of a race which uses the formulae of English speech with surprising fluency, and yet cleaves to social and religious ideals which in Europe at least were obsolete more than a thousand years ago ? Aberigh Mackay attempted it in his immortal " Twenty- one Days in India." But to comprehend a caricature and a parody you must know the original. Lord Curzon, an acknowledged authority on undergraduates, told the under- graduates of Calcutta with paternal frankness what he thought of them, and figures in Bengal as a libeller of the Bengali race. Only last week the Times, in a vigorously plain-spoken article headed "The Great Goddess of Bengal," strove to show that the political situation in Eastern India is complicated by the fact that democratic demands are necessarily nothing less than democratic in a province where priestcraft only waits its opportunity to make an end of the teachings of Western science and letters. All these attempts to throw some light on the Bengali character are more or less successful, and do display a part of the truth. But is it necessary, or possible, that the average Englishman should understand what an educated Hindu's thoughts are There are Englishmen who have spent their lives in Bengal and are by no means sure that they have penetrated the mystery. Lord Macaulay believed that English education would sap Hindu superstition and make the Bengali fitted for freedom, the vote, and trial by jury. The actual result has been, in many cases, a recrudescence of the old beliefs, joined to an apparently honest conviction that an intelligent Hindu is every bit as good as an intelligent Christian, if not better. The situation is not at all what mid-Victorian statesmen anticipated. The new wine effervesces in old bottles, and there is plainly danger in too sharply and firmly pressing the cork. Is it not well to let the men on the spot make the beet of a difficult task It would be easy to urge that there are many Bengalis who would find the style and subject of "Audh Behari Lars" ingenuous petition as disgusting as an ordinary begging-letter would be to a self-respecting Englishman. But that proves nothing. The Bengali is going through a period of transition induced by our presence and our method of education. He is himself more perplexed and distressed than his natural amour propre will allow him to admit. For the moment he is out of touch with his rulers, and it is not likely that anything we can do or say over here will help him much. But he is not wanting in worldly wisdom, and knows that his Government means well by him. Leave it and him alone to discover an entente which, if not cordiale, shall be practical and lasting.—
P.S.—Perhaps you may think the following cutting from one of this week's Indian newspapers worth adding to "An Anglo-Indian's " specimen :-
" A NICE TURN FOR METAPROR.—A propos the flowery' language one usually hears in Indian courts, the following little specimen is interesting It was in a police court in India. The client of the Babu lawyer was a woman accused of assault and battery, and the attorney, attacking the opposing lawyer, delivered himself as follows : 'My learned friend with mere wind from a teapot thinks to browbeat me from my legs. I only seek to place my bone of contention clearly in your Honor's eye. My learned friend vainly runs amuck upon the sheet anchor of my case. My poor client has been deprived of some of her valuable leather (skin), the leather of the nose. Until the witness explains what became of my client's nose leather, he cannot be believed ; he cannot be allowed to raise a castle in the air by beating upon a bush.'"
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