Part 1 — ELUCIDATIONS

No. 1

WITH THE VICEROY

The late Edward Robert Bulwer, First Earl of Lytton (1831-1891), Viceroy and Governor-General of India from April 12, 1876, to June 8, 1880, is here depicted from the superficial point of view of his character as a man, a poet, and a statesman generally current at the time.

Lord Lytton was thoroughly unconventional in all his manners and moods, and in his methods of conducting the affairs of his great office.

As a boy of seven he was already scribbling verses; and he wrote a poem, "The Prisoner of Provence," which turns upon the famous story of the Man in the Iron Mask, only two or three months before his death. In fact, all through Lord Lytton's distinguished career, as his father had done before him, he found recreation in change of employment. As forcibly and eloquently stated by his daughter, Lady Betty Balfour, in her introduction to the 1894 edition of his Selected Poems, "The minds of both were ceaselessly active, and they turned without a pause from one kind of thought and business to another as readily as they turned from either to easy, disengaged conversation. Had the rival calls of his many-sided intellect been at variance, the poet in my father would always have had the preference."

Ali Baba, it may be taken for granted, did not intend to characterise as "a flood of twaddle" the whole of Lord Lytton's verse. Poetry which, as far as published up to 1855, called forth from Leigh Hunt warm praise for its beauties and mercy for its defects, in these words embodied in a letter to Mr. John Forster, the friend and biographer of Charles Dickens.—

"I have read every bit of Owen Meredith's [his now well-known pseudonym] volume, and it has left me in a state of delighted admiration. He is a truly musical, reflecting, impassioned and imaginative poet, with a tendency to but one of the faults of his contemporaries and that chiefly in his minor pieces—I mean the doing too much, and the giving too much importance and emphasis to every fancy and image that comes across him, so that his pictures lose their proper distribution of light and shade, nay, of distinction between great and small. On his greatest occasions, however, he can evidently rid himself of this fault."

During Lord Lytton's Indian career, those who were on political or self-interested grounds opposed to his policy—and there were many such—were wont, as recorded by his daughter, to attempt to discredit the statesman by reiterating that he was a poet.

As a matter of fact, Aberigh Mackay's acquaintance with Lord Lytton's poetry was mainly, if not entirely, based upon a volume edited by N.A. Chick, and published in Calcutta in 1877, quaintly entitled: "The Imperial Bouquet of Pretty Flowers from the Poetical Parterre of Robert Lord Lytton, Viceroy and Governor-General of India."

Our Author's knowledge of Lord Lytton's Indian Administration was necessarily based upon the views—pro and con—expressed by the daily newspaper writers of the period, who wrote, of course, uninitiated in political affairs as a rule, and without those full expositions now embodied in many notable recent publications, official and other, foremost among which we would cite Lady Betty Balfour's History of his Indian Administration, published in 1899, and her edition of her father's personal and literary letters, issued in two vols. in 1906.

Verily "Time tries All," and an impartial and notable summary of Lord Lytton's services to his country, written by the Reverend W. Elvin, is engraven on the monument to his memory in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was designed and partially carried out by the sculptor, Mr. Gilbert.

+HE WAS A DIPLOMATIST RICK IN THE QUALITIES, OFFICIAL, AND SOCIAL, BY WHICH AMITY WITH FOREIGN NATIONS IS MAINTAINED.+

+A VICEROY INDEPENDENT IN HIS VIEWS, RESOLUTE IN ACTION, LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FUTURE.+

+A POET OF MANY STYLES, EACH THE EXPRESSION OF HIS HABITUAL THOUGHTS.+

+A MAN OF SUPERIOR FACULTIES HIGHLY CULTIVATED BE LITERATURE, ARDENT IN HIS AFFECTIONS, TENDER AND GENEROUS IN ALL THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE, LAVISH IN HIS COMMENDATION OF OTHERS, AND HUMBLE IN HIS ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF.+

As a good example of Lord Lytton's independent views, and tenderness and generosity in all the circumstances of life, the following incident may be quoted:—

Among many changes in Indian administration which he initiated, and which were severely decried at the time, but the benefits of which experience has amply vindicated, was the amalgamation of Oudh with, or rather annexation to, the North-Western Provinces, the final arrangements being completed at the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi on January 1 1877, with the concurrence—which he had sought previously—of all the principal Talukdars of Oudh there assembled.

The great pageant at Delhi (which formed the subject of Ali Baba's first contribution to Vanity Fair, and which he attended officially as the Guardian of the Raja of Rutlam), so far from being a mere empty show, as then decried by his political foes, enabled the Viceroy to settle, promptly and satisfactorily by personal conferences, a great many important administrative questions. All as recorded by him in his narrative letter of December 23, 1876, to January 10, 1877, to her late Majesty Queen Victoria, which embraced events at Delhi, Pattiala, Umballa, Aligurh, and Agra.

Among the Oudh officials who were dispossessed of their appointments in 1877, some of them with but scanty compensation, was the late Mr. (afterwards Sir) E.N.C. Braddon, a kinsman of the novelist, who held the appointment of Superintendent of Stamps, Stationery, and Registration at Lucknow. Mr. Braddon was an uncovenanted servant of comparatively short service, and eligible for s very moderate compensation. Lord Lytton, unsolicited, took up his case, overruled various objections, obtained liberal terms for Mr. Braddon by which he was able to resign his appointment and proceed to Tasmania, where he entered political life, rising to be Premier and afterwards Agent-General for that Colony in London, and ultimately obtaining, in 1891, his K.C.M.G.

It was to Lord Lytton's personal action—in the face of would-be obsequious apathy in certain quarters—that Aberigh-Mackay, the youngest on the list, was nominated a Fellow of the Calcutta University in 1880, an honour usually reserved for officials of high standing. He then availed himself of that status to bring about the affiliation of the Rajkumar College at Indore to the same University, with, as a matter of course, the concurrence of the Syndicate.

No. 2

THE A.-D.-C.-IN-WAITING

We have here an admirable summary of the highly important personal duties of a tactful A.D.C. to an Indian Viceroy. Not the least important being the superintendence of the Invitation Department. It was in this very connection that an A.D.C. to an Indian Governor, fresh from a West Indian appointment and Society somewhat on "Tom Cringle's Log" conditions, by issuing invitations to a Quality Dance, gave rise, in Southern India, to a social commotion which reacted very unfavourably as regards the efficient working of various departments of his Chief's general administration.

In pre-Mutiny days in India an officer who could not carve meat and fowl well had a very poor chance of such an appointment. Happily the institution of à la Russe fashions in the service of the table has or many years past rendered such qualifications unnecessary.

To the regret of a very wide circle, the "loud, joyful and steeplechasing Lord "—the late Lord William Beresford—alluded to by Ali Baba, died in England in 1900. From 1875 to 1881 he was A.D.C. to Viceroys of India, and it was in the "distant wars" of the Jowaki expedition, 1877-8, in the Zulu War, 1879, where he gained the Victoria Cross, and in the Afghan War, 1880, that his military career was spent.

From 1881 to 1894 Lord William Beresford very ably served Viceroys of India as their Military Secretary. Services which were admirably summed up by a speaker on Dec. 30, 1893, when he was entertained at a farewell dinner at the Town Hall, Calcutta, by 180 friends, who declared that "he had raised the office to a science, and himself from an official into an institution, and acquired a reputation absolutely unique."

The voluminous and noteworthy annals of Indian sport can show no keener sportsman and successful rider of steeplechases and polo player. He won the Viceroy's Cup six times and many other principal events at race-meetings in India.

In 1894 Lord William retired from India, and in England maintained a renowned racing stable, being in addition one of the first to own American horses and employ American jockeys.

No. 3

WITH THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

An exceedingly important change affecting the power and functions of the Indian Commander-in-chief, together with various other reforms in the military administration of India, were all anticipated, foreshadowed, and—it is believed—largely helped on by this very paper, and others under the general heading of Things in India, contributed by Ali Baba to Vanity Fair during 1879.

Ali Baba, unlike some others that might readily be cited, would doubtless have been foremost in according most generous acknowledgments to the services in the cause of Indian Army reform, rendered in past days by many great Commanders-in-Chief in India.

Chief among such men might be cited Sir Charles James Napier (1782-1853), the conqueror of Scinde, who in 1849 returned to India, nominated by the Duke of Wellington to deal with the crisis caused by the Sikh campaign. Arriving in Calcutta on the 6th May, he at once assumed the command, the term of service of Lord Gough, who had brought the campaign to a successful end, being concluded. Napier's too short administration of little over eighteen months was rather judicial than military, but he effected many reforms on the parade ground and in cantonments.

The newspapers of the day eagerly chronicled the records of the proceedings in which he vigorously combated the vices of intoxication, gambling, insubordination, and other crimes and misdemeanours, both in officers and men of the Queen's and Company's forces alike.

It was during his command that separate barrack-room accommodation was provided for married soldiers. The state of affairs hitherto prevailing may well be imagined by an inspection of the barrack life pictures and caricatures of artists such as Ramberg, Gillray, Rowlandson, and others.

He also founded Soldiers' Institutes, and encouraged soldiers in the Queen's army to rear such pets as monkeys and parrots by regulations for their transport on route and transfer marches, which afforded material for many humorous sketches and paragraphs in the pages of The Delhi Punch. Wise and considerate regulations which are continued in the existing concessions as to the carriage of "soldiers' pets" by troop trains and homeward-bound Indian transports.

Colonel R.H. Vetch (Dictionary of National Biography) admirably sums up Napier's character by recording of him that "his disregard of luxury, simplicity of manner, careful attention to the wants of the soldiers under his command, and enthusiasm for duty and right won him the admiration of his men. His journals testify to his religious convictions, while his life was one long protest against oppression, injustice and wrongdoing. Generous to a fault, a radical in politics, yet an autocrat in government, hot-tempered and impetuous, he was a man to inspire strong affection or the reverse, and his enemies were as numerous as his friends."

Altogether a very different character from that which all and sundry are warned to avoid by the—to a great extent—satirical word-picture recorded by Ali Baba.

No. 4

WITH THE ARCHDEACON

In this article Ali Baba has pourtrayed with infinite skill and geniality the many-sided character of the late Joseph Baly, M.A., who was Archdeacon of Calcutta from 1872 until he retired from India in 1883. Appointed to the Bengal Ecclesiastical establishment in 1861, Mr. Baly served as Chaplain at Sealkote, Simla, and Allahabad until 1870, when, while on furlough in England, he acted as Rector of Falmouth until 1872. In 1885 he was appointed chaplain at the church in Windsor Park, built by Queen Victoria, in which appointment he died in 1909, aged eighty-five.

From the commencement of his Indian career the Reverend gentleman interested himself in that burning question of the employment of the Anglo-Indian and Eurasian community of India; a large indigenous and permanent element in the population, the disposal of which is still a question of very great public importance, and its practical solution a pressing necessity. The Archdeacon had this question, paraphrased by Ali Baba as that of the "Mean Whites," greatly at heart, and the conclusions he arrived at and suggestions made by him from time to time, ably and vigorously summarized in a paper he read before the Bengal Social Science Association on May 1st, 1879, in Calcutta, were productive of considerable good.

Archdeacon Baly's predecessor was the Venerable John Henry Pratt, an attached friend of Aberigh-Mackay's father, to whom his book, From London to Lucknow, published in 1860, was "affectionately inscribed." Certain traits in the character of this Archdeacon known to Ali Baba by tradition are pourtrayed in the concluding portion of the paper.

No. 5

WITH THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT

This article is of a composite nature. At the time it was published in 1879, the foreign policy of Lord Lawrence was a burning question, and in connection with the Afghan War then running its course, renewed attention was directed to the two essays, "Masterly Inactivity" and "Mischievous Activity," first published in The Fortnightly Review in December 1869, and March 1870, respectively, by a comparatively young Bengal Civilian, the late J.W.S. Wyllie, C.S.I. (1835-1870). Beyond the fact that these essays and certain other papers by the same brilliant author on the subject of the policy of the Indian Government with independent principalities and powers beyond the bounds of India were probably in Ali Baba's mind, the character of the supercilious Secretary was very remote from that of Mr. Wyllie.

The typical person held up to derision by Ali Baba has been oft times decried as one very detrimental to good government in India, where a personal and absolute rule must needs obtain for some time to come. By none more pointedly than by the present Secretary of State for India when addressing his constituents at Arbroath on October 21, 1907, when he informed them that "India is perhaps the one country—bad manners, overbearing manners are very disagreeable in all countries—India is the only country where bad and overbearing manners are a political crime." Or, as a prominent Mohammedan in India very well said, "When the English govern from the heart they do it admirably; when they try to be clever, they make a mess of it."

In the restored passage on p. 35 there is delineated a Secretary in striking contrast to the other. The Secretary in the Foreign Department referred to was the late Mr. le Poer Wynne, under whom Aberigh-Mackay had worked at Simla in 1870.

No. 6

H.E. THE BENGALI BABOO

Ali Baba avowedly treats the Bengali Baboo merely as a being "full of inappropriate words and phrases … and the loose shadows of English thought." Such being the case, it must never be forgotten that he is the product, in every sense of the word, of British modes of purely secular education. Modes which, eminently at the present time, are being gravely called in question.

All of which has been more lately elaborated by "F. Anstey," i.e. Mr. Thomas Anstey Guthrie, in the persons of "Baboo Jabberjee, B.A." and "A Bayard from Bengal."

The broad results of purely secular and mainly literary education might in fact be quite fairly summed up in the reproachful words of Caliban—

"You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse."

Aberigh-Mackay devoted his life in India to counteract the effects of purely literary instruction, which he persistently deprecated; and the last thirty years have undoubtedly witnessed many advances in the same direction, tending to the material progress of India.

Ali Baba trembled for the future of Baboodom, that its tendencies as he depicted them might infect others who might pass, through various stages, into "trampling, hope-bestirred crowds, and so on, out of the province of Ali Baba and into the columns of serious reflection."

No. 7

WITH THE RAJA

In this article we have a vivid picture—mainly—of a type of Indian Noble it was Aberigh-Mackay's aim and life's work in India to avoid creating. That too from the beginning of his career, but more especially in the training, and that not merely in book-learning, he initiated and earned on up to the last days of his life within and without the Residency College at Indore. To paraphrase the language of the then recently appointed Agent to the Governor-General for Central India—Sir Lepel Griffin—in his first Administrative Report, that for 1880-1881, the happy effects of the training some of the leading Chiefs of Malwa received under Aberigh-Mackay were visible in the improved administration of their States. The most notable instance, the Governor-General's Agent points out, being observable in Rutlam. His Highness the "Rajah Saheb having conducted the Government with such ability and success as would do credit to the ablest administrators."

It is well worthy of special notice that the Rajah of Rutlam had been, from a period several years antecedent to Aberigh-Mackay's coming to Indore, his special ward.

Most effectually did Aberigh-Mackay, one of the best all-round sportsmen that Modern India ever saw, counteract the "prodigiously fat white horse with pink points" tendencies of any of his alumni. The description of the kingly cavalcade in this article, vide p. 52, calling forth from John Lockwood Kipling (Beast and Man in India, p. 196), a most competent and discriminating authority, the following eulogy:—

"The late Mr. Aberigh-Mackay (Ali Baba of Vanity Fair), one of the brightest and most original, as well as one of the most generous spirits who ever handled Indian subjects, has drawn a picture in his Twenty-one Days in India of a Raja and his Sow[=a]ri [Cavalcade] which could not be bettered by a hair's breadth."

Aberigh-Mackay in his earliest writings—e.g. when, in describing The Great Native Princes in his "Handbook of Hindustan," published in 1875, he enters the "Remark" against the Nawab of Bahawalpur, "A smart boy of fourteen; a good polo-player"—laid great stress on the desirability of training all Indian noblemen's sons in horsemanship of all kinds. That his efforts in this direction were crowned with an abiding and ever-increasing success is well borne out by the testimony contained in an article, by Lieutenant E.R. Penrose, 23rd Bengal N.L. Infantry, accompanying his pictures of "Incidents in the Career of a Polo-Pony," which appeared in The Graphic, April 10, 1886. Lieutenant Penrose then wrote:—

"Polo is such an institution now in this country, that even in the remotest station a couple of enthusiasts may be found who will work heaven and earth to get a game of some sort. I have lately been stationed at Indore, where there is a collegiate school for the sons of native Princes and gentlemen. The head of the college was Mr. Aberigh-Mackay, the author of that popular book 'Twenty-one Days in India.' He was a keen polo-player, and quite imbued his pupils with his ardour, so that, though he is now dead, his memory is green throughout the whole of Central India. The impetus he gave the game has lasted, and consequently, with a few of the senior boys in the school, and some of the men of the troop of Central Indian Horse (who begin to play almost as soon as they can sit a horse), we could always get up a game. Some of the boys are not great riders, but like most natives they have wonderfully good 'eyes,' and rarely miss the ball. Polo-ponies come in very usefully in other ways—such as pig-sticking, for their training makes them so handy that it is easier to tackle a boar on a polo-pony than when mounted on a horse. Besides, they are cheap, and the men can afford a pony where they could not stand the expense of a horse."

Another very notable point in this article is the expression of confidence in the loyalty, as a general rule, of the Nobles of India. This same belief—nay more, conviction—is expressed all through the writings of Ali Baba.

At the same time, voice is given to the thought that "they have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British Rule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling below," vide p. 48.

Reuter, in a telegram from Calcutta dated Friday, February 11, 1910, and printed in but few of the London newspapers of the 14th, informs us that:—

"The leading Nobles and Gentry of Bengal have formed an Imperial League for the promotion of good feeling between Indians and the Government, the denunciation of anarchy and sedition, and the education of the people by means of lectures and pamphlets in the views of the Government.

"The Maharajah of Burdwan is president, and Maharajah Sir Pradyat Tagore secretary of the new league."

It must of course be borne in mind that since this article was written by Ali Baba, the formation of the Imperial Service troops, and the Imperial Cadet corps, furnished and in some cases officered by Indian Nobles and their sons, many of whom were educated at Delhi and Indore by Aberigh-Mackay, surely warrants us in believing that more than a mere "pannikin of water" is now available, if need be.

No. 8

WITH THE POLITICAL AGENT

The position of Political Agent, important though it was in 1879, is much more so now. The territories of the Indian Princes are being daily opened up more and more by railways; many of them contain coal, iron, gold, and other minerals in payable quantities, and the development of these resources call for very delicate handling in the matter of friendly advice by Political Agents.

In recent years, nay, at the present time, loud complaints have been published, emanating from experienced and unbiassed sources, that the position of many of the great feudatories of India, who by their treaty rights are much more allies than subjects of His Majesty the King-Emperor, has been reduced to that of a mere figure-head, with no real authority except when they meekly obey the dictation of the British Resident.

It is a fact that many of the Political Agents in 1879 were officers who had served in Madras Cavalry Regiments, the Central India Horse and other corps, but it is also a fact that many of the most successful administrators India has ever seen have been Soldier-Politicals.

Colonel Henderson, so pleasantly cited by Aberigh-Mackay, and happily still alive, was himself a Madras Cavalry Officer, who served as Under-Secretary to the Foreign Department of the Government of India, as Resident in Kashmir and latterly in Mysore, and Superintendent of operations for the suppression of Thagi and Dakaiti.

Our late King's visit to India as Prince of Wales in 1875-6 owed a good deal of its success to Colonel Henderson, who was special officer in attendance, and his services in connection therewith were recognized by a Companionship of the order of the Star of India. It may also be mentioned here that Aberigh-Mackay became his Brother-in-law in October, 1873.

No. 9

WITH THE COLLECTOR

In this sketch, warm with local colour, the real pivot of the great official wheel of Indian administration, "the Collector," is drawn with the exactness due to his importance. Withal very lifelike and picturesque in many of its touches.

Thirty years have of course made great changes in many of the details of life in the districts of an Indian Province, now as a rule connected up by lines of railway. Improved leave rules and many other causes have rendered intercourse with the home country much easier. Whether or no this far easier intercourse is altogether an advantage to the rulers and the ruled is what is termed a "burning question" at the present moment. In a word, that improved communications have not correspondingly increased our sympathy with a new birth in intellect, social life, and the affairs of state, all of which are mainly the results of British rule.

The functions of a Collector, sketched by Ali Baba in an entertaining medley, have increased enormously of late years, and the position is now said to be less desirable than of old, when it was amusingly said of every member of civilian society, that the verb "to collect" was conjugated thus: "I am a collector, you are a collector, he should be a collector, they will be collectors," and so on, ad infinitum.