Archiving the British Raj: History of the

Archival Policy of the Government of

India, with Selected Documents,
1858-1947 Professor Sabyasachi
Bhattacharya
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Archiving the British Raj
 Archiving the British Raj
History of the Archival Policy of
the Government of India,
with Selected Documents, 1858–1947

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya

1
 1
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Foreword

The process for establishing archives in India started during the

colonial period with the process of dismantling ‘useless’ records.
Preserving records of important activities for future use was consid-
ered a potent administrative tool by the British. The story of the
institutionalization of the archiving system in India has been nar-
rated by noted historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya in this book. The
book lucidly describes the reasons, directives, problems, and policies
stipulated for the formation and final setting up of the ‘muniment
room’ (central records room) during the colonial period. It also docu-
ments the process of the collection, documentation, and publication
of the records by the British officials and their utilization for docu-
menting the history of India, even before the setting up of an archival
institution in India.
This work provides a comprehensive documentation of records
used by different historians and officials for their works and the
process by which a wide-ranging periodical record of letters, official
orders, and government proceedings were selected and published
by the governments of the three Presidency towns in India. It also
chronicles the policy, step-by-step growth, and development of the
record-keeping system in Britain, and its application in India. The
policies formulated and followed by the British Indian government
for the management, disposal, and utilization of government records
have thus been systematically narrated in this volume.
Bhattacharya chronologically divides this seminal work into
four chapters and presents the history of the setting up of the
Imperial Record Department (IRD)—the precursor of the National
viii Foreword

Archives of India (NAI)—the Indian Historical Records Commission

(IHRC), policies formulated for access to records, as well as changes
in this policy over the years. The effect of the partition of the country
in 1947 on archival assets has also been aptly documented in this
book, which makes for an interesting read. The narrative continues
into the independent Indian government and presents an analysis of
various archival policies in their evolutionary perspective.
This book is an outcome of painstaking research conducted by
Bhattacharya among the holdings of the NAI as Tagore National
Fellow of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, from 2012
to 2014. I am sure the work would be welcomed not only by schol-
ars, researchers, and other users of archives but also by administra-
tors—both in the public and private domain of archives management
in India.
Pritam Singh
Director General
NAI, Government of India
August 2018
Abbreviations

ICS Indian Civil Service

IHRC Indian Historical Records Commission
IRD Imperial Record Department
NAI National Archives of India, New Delhi
PRO Public Record Office, London
Progs Proceedings
RPC Research and Publications Committee
WBSA West Bengal State Archives
Introduction

Usually, the archives are sites where historians conduct research into our
past. They are not the objects of research. This work addresses that task.
This is a subject somewhat out of the ordinary for the general reader
or professional historians who tend to take the archives for granted. By
way of introducing this book, I would like to share with the readers
some thoughts that crossed my mind as I launched into this project.
Before the archives came into existence, there was a time when
there was no such source of knowledge of the past. Jacques Le Goff
takes us back to that past when he looks at a time when neither the
church in Europe nor the state in the Western countries was active
in creating an archival base in the form of written knowledge.1
The transition from oral to written knowledge at that time meant
erasure of popular oral memory by the powerful establishments
of the church and the state, Le Goff argues. Another important
intellectual intervention was that of Foucault, who highlighted
the involvement of power in the creation of historical knowledge.2
That intervention set in motion another train of thought: How to
address the problem of bias in historical sources in the archives?
In recent times, there have been illustrious exemplars of the art
of ‘reading records against the grain’.3 In India, too, there have
been attempts on the lines of the Italian historian Carlo Ginzberg.4
Parallel to that, there have been historiographic innovations in
reinterpreting archival records as a project to archive and classify all
knowledge in a universalistic framework.5
I have referred to some important intellectual interventions ques-
tioning the historian’s normal habit of accepting data in the archives as
Archiving the British Raj: History of the Archival Policy of the Government of India, with
Selected Documents, 1858–1947. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Oxford University Press
(2019). © Sabyasachi Bhattacharya. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199489923.003.0001
2 Archiving the British Raj

if it was beyond question. This critique created a stir even in the placid
discourse of archives. Consider, for instance, the influential writings of
Thomas Richards, Anne Stoller, or Nicholas Dirks, which influenced
the study of archives in relation to state-building and imperialism.
The most important consequence that followed was an innovation in
the use of archives. The practice of ‘reading documents against the
grain’ allowed the use of archival material in unprecedented modes.
Thus, there developed, on the one hand, an attitude of questioning
the naïve faith in archival data and, at the same time, a robust practice
of using archival data and reading them ‘against the grain’. However,
these developments have little relevance to the history of nineteenth-
century archival policy in the following pages. What seems to be
constantly relevant is the impact of political power on archival policy.
Archival Science, a major journal of archivists, devoted two numbers
in 2002 to the subject ‘Archives, Records and Power’.6
Every historian using British Indian records in the archives is
bound to feel the involvement of political power in the production
of historical knowledge. This feature of our archival records becomes
particularly evident in the historical writings on the freedom struggle
and the conflict between imperialism and all anti-imperialistic forces.
What is more, sometimes the possession of political power led to
deliberate suppression; an instance was the British Indian govern-
ment’s intervention to prevent Captain J.D. Cunningham in 1849
from using official government records in his history of the Sikh wars.
Thereafter, it became a settled official policy not to allow officials of
the government, both civil and military, access to the records for any
purpose other than official government work.
The work of J.D. Cunningham on the history of the Sikhs
and Anglo-Sikh relations, published in 1849, is of outstanding
importance.7 First, like Grant Duff’s book on the Maratha kingdom
published in 1826, this work was based on government records,
which are cited in detail in the footnotes. Second, the Government of
India took exception to the citation of official records (not yet made
public, for example, through Parliamentary Papers) by the author
and he was on that ground officially reprimanded and penalized.
Cunningham believed that he was penalized chiefly because of some
critical remarks he made about the British policy towards the Sikh
kingdom and because of a perception that he was guilty of leaning
 Introduction 3

towards the Sikhs. He wrote in his ‘Preface’ to the second edition

(published after his death):

He saw no reason for continually recurring to the duty or destiny of

the English in India, because he was addressing himself to his own
countrymen, who know the merits and motives of their supremacy
in the East, and who can themselves commonly decide whether the
particular acts of a viceroy are in accordance with the general policy of
his government.… The wisdom of England is not to be measured by
the views and acts of any one of her sons, but is rather to be deduced
from the characters of many. In India it is to be gathered in part from
the high, but not always scrupulous, qualities which distinguished
Clive, Hastings, and Wellesley, who acquired and secured the Empire;
in part from the generous, but not always discerning, sympathies of
Burke, Cornwallis, and Bentinck, who gave to English rule the stamp
of moderation and humanity; and also in part from the ignorant well-
meaning of the people at large, who justly deprecating ambition in
the abstract vainly strive to check the progress of conquest before its
necessary limits have been attained, and before the aspiring energies
of the conquerors themselves have become exhausted.8

The independence of mind shown in these remarks was not wel-

comed by the Indian government. Official reprimand from the
governor general and his council and being sent back to regimental
duty was, according to Cunningham’s brother, a shock from which
he never recovered. Two years after the publication of the book and
the reprimand, Cunningham died very suddenly at a young age in
1851. Later his editor G.T. Garratt of Lahore College wrote: ‘The
chapter contains many statements of an injudicious nature. Indeed,
as the result of certain strictures upon the policy of the Government
of India … the author was dismissed from his employment in the
Political Department by the Honourable East India Company and
sent back to regimental duty.’9
The Cunningham episode was a rare case where the Government
of India virtually censored a work of history by one of its own offi-
cers. As far as archiving is concerned the case was hugely important
because it became a precedent, set by the governor general himself,
that put a bar on use of official records by government officers; as for
outsiders or non-officials, they could not even read records in the
Imperial Record Room.
4 Archiving the British Raj

Even a casual reader of this book will perceive that in this account
the core issue that emerges is the freedom of access to the records of
the Government of India in the archives. While there was, on the
one hand, a section of British political authorities and even of the
bureaucracy that favoured not only accurate archiving of historical
events, but also some limited access to records for selected non-
official researchers, the overwhelming opinion, on the other hand, in
official circles was against such access.
Among the British serving in India, there were very few propo-
nents of the idea that the Imperial Record Office should be open
to historical research. There was strong and consistent bureaucratic
opposition to access by non-officials for research purposes. As we
shall see in the following pages, Lord Curzon was virtually the only
viceroy who spoke of the historical importance of the records of the
Indian government and the desirability of facilitating research. He
demanded information on ‘the facilities offered to the public for
research in the records’.10 He soon learned from C.R. Wilson at the
head of the Record Department that there were virtually no such
facilities. Curzon apprehended that ‘the jealous attitude of govern-
ment in this matter was a serious bar to research’. Due to Curzon’s
initiative, the governor general in council’s letter to the secretary of
state contained an admission that the absence of research facilities
was ‘a state of affairs [which] cannot but be regarded as a reproach to
our government’.11 Soon thereafter Curzon’s sudden resignation and
departure from India put to an end to the initiative he had taken.
The Indian government reverted to its usual position that archival
research facility in Indian records was unnecessary (because there was
no one in India competent to conduct historical research) as well as
dangerous (because Indian researchers would abuse their access to
records to mount political propaganda against the government).
In contrast to this position of the civil servants in India, the sec-
retaries of state in England consistently showed an awareness of the
historical value of the Indian records and the need to create facilities
for non-official historical researchers. How do we account for that
attitude, and the difference between the authorities in India and in
England? It is my surmise that this was the outcome of a complex set
of factors. To begin with, the bulk of the members of the Indian Civil
Service (ICS) had had scarcely any education beyond the grammar
 Introduction 5

school or public school, while the secretaries of state were products

of the best universities of the day. Moreover, unlike the members of
the ICS, the secretaries of state were political people and this made
them keenly aware of the political importance of the representation
of Britain’s past record and British rule in India. Third, if there were
indeed secrets in the Indian government’s records, which upon revela-
tion would endanger the Indian government, political prestige, and
even political stability, then the ICS officials would know about such
things; the secretaries of state were outsiders, birds of passage without
the knowledge of India’s past and present. Finally, the secretaries of
state in London were aware of the trend in England in the latter half
of the nineteenth century, the Public Records Act of 1844, and so
on. After decades of persuasion by the secretary of state when the
Government of India eventually appointed Record Keeper George
Forrest in 1892, it was again the Secretary of State Kimberley who
took the initiative to create the post.12
It is interesting to recall that the practice of opening the archives
began with the French Revolution when the citizens’ right of such
access was vindicated. Many years later, in our days, access to his-
torical records was included in the charter of human rights, as, for
example, in the declaration of the European community. ‘Knowledge
of the past constitutes a cultural human right. It follows that any
restrictions on access to archives, in the name of the protection of
public and private interests, should not be imposed without a time
limit.’13 This was the principle accepted by the Council of Europe in
2000 and this became the basis of an intergovernmental standard on
archive access policy adopted by 48 member countries of the Council
of Europe. The theoretical basis of this is explained by Keckskemeti,
director of the Intellectual Council of Archives from 1962 to 1998,
as follows: the archives potentially have a role ‘in reinforcing cultural
identity, diversity and democracy’ in the European Union.14 While
the human rights aspect has thus been recognized in the European
countries’ intergovernmental understanding on archiving practices in
India, the discourse of archives has shown no sign of similar practices
or awareness. Similarly India is behind many countries in respect of
opening records to researchers. In the USA the established practice
is to open records about 30 years after the date of production of
records,15 in most European countries records are opened, that is,
6 Archiving the British Raj

made publicly available, after an interval of 30 to 40 years. In India

in theory the records are opened after 30 years, but actually this is not
the practice because the official recognition of the lapse of 30 years is
often awaited for many years.
I shall be happy if the present work, preliminary in nature, opens
up the possibility of further research in this relatively unexplored area
of archival studies. This is particularly necessary because the study of
research methodology has become part of higher training in histori-
cal studies at the universities.
In conclusion, I would like to put on record my indebtedness
to Yagati Chinna Rao of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
India. Without his editorial inputs, particularly the bibliography he
compiled after meticulously scanning this book, and his energetic
initiative, this project would not have seen the light of day. I am
equally grateful to the authorities of the National Archives of India
(NAI) for their kind permission to enable publication of this work,
which was done in fulfilment of my undertaking to produce it as the
Tagore National Fellow of the Ministry of Culture, Government of
India. I am personally grateful to the director general, NAI, for the
‘Foreword’ he has kindly written. I would like to thank the team at
Oxford University Press, who was extremely helpful in expediting the
publication of this book. I would also like to acknowledge the help
I received from the learned archivists at the NAI during my tenure
as the Tagore National Fellow. My secretary, Amiya Kumar Baul, was
of immense help in recovering material that had been scattered and
in consolidating it along with all the references to documents and
historical publications for my use.
Finally I come to an indebtedness of a different order altogether:
being the victim of a dreaded disease in the last few months I would
not have been able to put this volume together without the help of
my wife, Malabika Bhattacharya.

Notes
1. Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. S. Rendall and E. Claman
(New York, 1992).
2. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences (New York, 1994 [1971]); Michel Foucault, The Age of History
(New York, 1994), pp. 218–21.
 Introduction 7

3. Anne Stoller, ‘Reading the Records against the Grain’, in Refiguring the
Archives, ed. Caroline Hamilton et al. (Cape Town, Dordrecht, 2002).
4. Carlo Ginzberg, The Cheese and the Worm (New York, 1976).
5. Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of
Empire (London, 1993).
6. Richards, The Imperial Archive; Anne Stoller, ‘Colonial Archives and the
Arts of Governance: On the Content and the Form’, in Refiguring the
Archives, ed. Caroline Hamilton et al. (Cape Town, Dordrecht, 2002);
Nicholas Dirks, ‘Annals of the Archives: Ethnographic Notes on the
Sources of History’, in From the Margins: Historical Anthropology and Its
Futures, ed. Brian Axel (Durham, 2002); Joan M. Schwartz and Terry
Cook (guest editors), ‘Archives, Records and Power: The Making of
Modern Memory’, Archival Science, vol. 2 (2002): 1–19.
7. J.D. Cunningham, The History of the Sikhs, from the Origins of the Nation
to the Battle of the Sutlej, ed. G.T. Garratt (London, 1918 [1849]).
8. Cunningham, The History of the Sikhs, ‘Preface’, p. 31.
9. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs, ‘Preface’, p. 31.
10. Letter from J. Macfarlane, Viceroy’s secretary, to C.R. Wilson, 25
March 1904, Home (Public) Progs, No. 98, September 1904.
11. Govt of India to Secretary to State St John Broderick, 1 September
1904, Home (Public) Progs, No. 98, September 1904.
12. Secretary of State to Govt of India (Public Branch), 15 September
1892, Home (Public), No. 113, October 1892.
13. Charles Keckskemeti and Ivan Szekely, Access to Archives (Council of
Europe, 2005).
14. Keckskemeti and Szekely, Access to Archives, p. 13.
15. Department of State, USA, Public Availability of Diplomatic Archives
(Washington, DC, 1985).
1

Absence of a Definite Archives Policy

1858–71

It is a paradox that an endeavour to demolish records was the begin-

ning of the organized system to preserve documents in India after
1858. After the termination of the East India Company admin-
istration, there was an attempt to put in order the records of the
Government of India. The original motivation seems to have been
the destruction of old records to save space and expenditure on record
preservation in the offices of the Indian government in Calcutta. The
Finance Commission and the civil auditor (he was like the later-day
comptroller and auditor general [CAG], and the military audit was
done by a different auditor) recommended that to save unnecessary
expenditure files may be sorted out to identify those which were not
likely to be useful and thereby could be sold as ‘waste paper’. Since
the issue of expenditure and financial stringency comes up repeatedly
in the discussions on this matter, it will be useful to briefly note the
nature and extent of financial stringency that formed the background
to the first steps taken by the Government of India in respect of
records after the termination of the East India Company’s rule.
The uprising of 1857 brought home the point to the British that—
as Warren Hastings had said long ago—they had to maintain their
control over India ‘by the sword’.1 More specifically, the perception of

Archiving the British Raj: History of the Archival Policy of the Government of India, with
Selected Documents, 1858–1947. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Oxford University Press
(2019). © Sabyasachi Bhattacharya. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199489923.003.0002
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 9

the British officials that the threat posed in 1857 to British dominion
in India was due to the fact that the British forces in India, that is, sol-
diers of British origin, were small in number compared to the numeri-
cal strength of the Indian sepoys employed in the army. The proportion
of white men serving in the British Indian Army to the Indian sepoys
was about 1:6 in early 1857, and in many cantonments only a few
officers were white men of British origin, while the troops under them
were almost entirely ‘native’. Whereas one out of seven soldiers in
the British Indian Army was white in 1857, the statistics indicate a
huge change in the next few years. In the years 1858–60 the ratio
radically changed in favour of white soldiers and officers: their ratio
to the soldiers of Indian origin became about 1:2. Certain units, such
as the artillery, were deliberately designed now for reasons of British
security to consist only of white soldiers. Maintaining troops brought
from Britain in the ratio of one white person out of three employed
in the army in India was expensive. The overall result of all this was
that while the charges paid by India in England on military account
was £0.34 million in 1856–7, it became 1.62 million in 1860–1, and
kept rising thereafter. To sum it up, the British reaction to the uprising
of 1857 was to burden India with an enormous military expenditure.
The second impact of the 1857 uprising was the increasing levels of
public debt, and consequent annual burden of service charges or inter-
est. Indians had to pay for the suppression of their rebellion. In the five
years between 1857 and 1861–2, the total debt of the British Indian
government (mainly debt incurred in England) swelled from £59 mil-
lion to about £108 million. By 1872 it had reached 122 million. This
was largely due to military expenditure as well as auxiliary items in the
budget such as military public works, that is, expenditure on barracks
for the European soldiers. The third impact of the crisis of 1857 was
on the so-called home charges, that is to say the expenses incurred
in England by the British Indian government. Initially this increased
during 1857–8 due to military costs. The soldiers and officers brought
from Britain to serve in India were paid for by the Indian taxpayer and
the War Office in London exacted every penny spent on that account.2
The consequence of this financial crisis was the Indian govern-
ment’s drive to reduce expenditure, and an eminent economist of
those times, James Wilson, the founder of the journal The Economist
of London, as well as officials of the Treasury in England were
10 Archiving the British Raj

brought to India and two finance commissions were appointed to

check expenditure on the military and the civil departments. As a
part of that drive to reduce expenditure wherever possible

in the early part of the year 1860, Mr. H.D. Sandeman, then Officiating
Civil Auditor, suggested to the Civil Finance Commission the propri-
ety of destroying all useless records in the several Government Offices
in Calcutta, and disposing of them as waste paper, and proposed the
adoption of some effective means to prevent the re-accumulation of
worthless documents. The Civil Finance Commission, after consult-
ing the heads of the various Offices at the Presidency, laid the matter
before the Financial Department of the Government of India, and
recommended that a Committee of experienced and cautious men
should be appointed to treat the question in detail. The Commission
remarked that the benefit of the proposed destruction of useless
records would not be fully obtained without the substitution of one
grand central archive office for the existing record-rooms attached to
each Office, for the purpose of transferring to it, for safe preservation,
all old records that might be of value—the Offices concerned only
keeping such records as would be required for current use.3

Initially, the Finance Commission was assigned the task of prun-

ing record collections and, probably due to the magnitude and
complexity of the task, the commission admitted their inability.
Thereafter, in April 1861 the Government of India appointed the
Records Committee ‘for the purpose of superintending the scheme
for the destruction of all useless records in the Public Offices, after
carefully selecting such as might be statistically or historically valu-
able for preservation’.4 This Records Committee became the body
that framed the archival policy and made recommendations to the
government in that regard.

Activities of the Records Committee

It will be useful to introduce to the reader some important personali-

ties in archival policymaking in the early days. Who were the people
interested in and responsible for the organization and preservation
of records in the first decade after the takeover of the Indian govern-
ment from the East India Company by the Crown? Were persons
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 11

who had historical interest appointed to serve as members of the

Records Committee from 1861–72? The record of the National
Archives of India (NAI) do not contain any clue except for the names
in the files, but those familiar with nineteenth-century Indian his-
tory can identify several members with historical interest and attain-
ments in historical research. The first secretary of the committee was
Rev. James Long (1814–87), who was known for his knowledge
of Indian languages and his publication of old records Calcutta in
Olden Times (1852); we shall see later that in the middle 1860s he
edited, as a member of the Records Committee, a selection of gov-
ernment records. The first president of the committee was James C.
Erskine (1821–93) of the ICS, who edited and published his father
William Erskine’s (1773–1852) work History of India under Babur
and Humayun (1852); he was also the vice chancellor of Calcutta
University and director of Public Instructions in Bombay Presidency.
The third member was Richard Temple (1826–1902), who later
biographized James Thomason (Rulers of India series, Oxford, 1893)
and showed some historical interest in his more well-known work
India in 1880 (London, 1881). Among those who joined the com-
mittee in the next 10 years, there were some who had historical works
to their credit. James Talboys Wheeler (1824–1897) came from a
humble background as a bookseller in England, worked as the editor
of Madras Spectator, and edited old Madras records under the title
Madras in Olden Times, 1639–1748 (Madras, 1882). While serv-
ing as assistant secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign
Department from 1862 to 1870, he was drawn into the Records
Committee. He was the only paid secretary of the committee from
1863 to 1869. Among his historical works, India under British Rule
(1886) was quite well known as a textbook. He was also the author
of Early Travellers in India (drawing upon S. Purchas and J.H. Van
Linschoten, published in 1864) and Early Records of the British in
India (London, 1878).
While Wheeler or Rev. Long from outside the ICS served as sec-
retaries of the Records Committee, the president was always a dis-
tinguished civil servant. For example, the last one among them was
W.S. Seton-Karr, ICS, who edited Selections from Calcutta Gazettee,
1784–1823 (six volumes, 1864–9), and Marquess of Cornwallis
(Rulers of India series, Oxford, 1893). As has been mentioned earlier,
12 Archiving the British Raj

the files at the NAI contain not a clue as regards the scholarly inter-
ests of the persons in the Records Committee. However, the Records
Committee probably drew to itself men with such interests. Members
inducted in the late 1860s included ‘A. Colvin’, probably Auckland
Colvin who served in the ICS in the North-western Provinces (later
to became lieutenant governor of the North-western Provinces and
Oudh from 1887–92) and wrote a biographical account in the
Rulers of India series of history books edited by Sir William Hunter.
‘Dr Mouat’ was evidently Dr Francis J. Mouat (1816–1897), who
was a teacher in Calcutta Medical College. For a while James Cave-
Browne served on the Records Committee; he is the author of a his-
torical treatise Indian Infanticide, Its Origins, Progress and Suppression
(London, 1857).
Among the higher authorities in India, A.O. Hume, ICS, played
an important role from outside the Records Committee. He is
chiefly known as one of the Englishmen who lent support to the
Indian National Congress, but he is also to be remembered as an
important supporter of the cause of archiving for purposes of histor-
ical documentation: that was his contribution as a secretary to the
Government of India in the Revenue and Agricultural Department
when the Records Committee was floundering for want of admin-
istrative support. Another friend of the Records Committee was
Sir Charles Trevelyan, the finance member of the viceroy’s council;
he helped in getting Wheeler the post of a salaried secretary to
the Records Committee. Among those outside of the Records
Committee, Sir William Hunter was an important personality
in determining archival policy. He joined the ICS in 1862 in the
Bengal Presidency and very soon he produced The Annals of Rural
Bengal (1868), a historical account that is still cited. Then followed
20 volumes of the Statistical Account of Bengal (1875–7) and the
Imperial Gazetteer (1881). He became an unquestionable authority
and the ‘home government’ depended on his advice on record-
keeping in the 1870s. Hunter was a prolific author who moulded
the outlook in colonial historiography. Many of the historical works
mentioned earlier, written by Erskine, Temple, Colvin, and others,
were part of the Rulers of India series edited by Hunter. He was
instrumental in giving a colonialist turn to the archiving of records
and the narration of the history of British India. At the same time,
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 13

his academic acceptance and reputation was undeniable on account

of his works The Indian Muslims (London, 1871) and The Earl of
Mayo (London, 1876), as well as his contribution as chairman to
the Indian Education Commission report (Calcutta, 1883) and
his last major work Marques of Dalhousie (Rulers of India series,
Oxford, 1895).
Only some of the papers relating to the internal working of the
committee in the early days have survived, but we have a fairly com-
plete idea of how the committee pursued the task set for them by the
Indian government. The Government of India recorded later that

the Committee was requested to associate with it for the time being
the head of the Office on the records of which it might be employed,
in examining the records of the several Offices, and separating use-
less papers for disposal or destruction, having the papers selected for
preservation, bound and catalogued, and placed in a separate record-
room accessible to all persons who might wish to consult them. A
small establishment, consisting of clerks and peons, was also allowed
to the Commission. The Committee was, in this instance, prohib-
ited from concerning itself with the actual disposal or destruction
of worthless records. Later, however, the Secretary to the Committee
was ordered to arrange for the sale of such records to paper makers
in Calcutta.5

As the volume of business increased, the unpaid secretary was replaced

by a paid secretary who had expertise in the use of records. In 1863,
Mr Wheeler, formerly of the Madras Educational Department, was
appointed to be secretary to the committee on a salary of 500 rupees
per month. Actually,

the question of Mr Wheeler’s appointment was first raised by the

Secretary of State for India who, in consideration of the satisfac-
tory manner in which Mr. Wheeler had arranged and classified the
records of the Madras Presidency, and prior to being apprised of
the steps already taken by the Government of India for the attain-
ment of the desired end suggested6 the desirability of availing of Mr
Wheeler’s practical experience in the work of examining and classify-
ing official records, in weeding the Government Offices in this side
of India of all the mass of worthless papers with which they were
unnecessarily encumbered.7
14 Archiving the British Raj

James Talboys Wheeler was originally employed in the Madras

Education Service and there he acquired a reputation as a records
expert since he helped arrange the records of the government of
Madras. From 1863 to 1869, he served as the secretary to the Indian
government’s Records Committee.
The activities of the committee can be divided into three phases.
In the first, 1861 to 1865, the Records Committee deliberated on the
archival policy to formulate two alternatives: either the government
should set up a central ‘muniment room’, that is, record room, or
the different departments should have record rooms of their own
and document selection for preservation was their concern. The first
alternative was initially recommended in the committee’s report in
June 1861. The second alternative was recommended by the presi-
dent of the committee in August 1863. After some dithering, in 1865
the government decided to discard the idea of a muniment room,
that is, a central record room; decentralized preservation of records
was initially the alternative that was chosen by the Government of
India. This is the summary of what happened, but in the story how
it happened there is something more—we get to know in the details
what were the motives and the policy of the government. Basically,
the story below tells us that the Records Committee, which included
scholars such as Rev. James Long, wanted to create a muniment
room, or central archive, to facilitate historical research, while the
bureaucracy—specially the veteran ICS officials in the viceroy’s
council, were opposed to that idea because not only was it financially
undesirable, since it would be an additional expenditure, but also
politically undesirable to open the records to the scrutiny of readers
outside the bureaucracy.
In pressing for a muniment room facilitating historical enquiries,
Rev. Long, the senior-most member of the Records Committee and
in the beginning their honorary secretary, probably played an impor-
tant role. Rev. James Long was ordained in London in 1839 and
joined the Christian Missionary Society; he also pursued his own
historical and literary interests in Bengal for many decades. He was
known for his sympathy for the ‘natives’, and around the time of the
Indigo Rebellion in Bengal had courageously published a Bengali
play (written by Dinabandhu Mitra and translated into English by
the poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt) on the oppressions inflicted by
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 15

English indigo planters upon the Bengal peasantry; he was convicted

in a libel suit leading to a fine of a 1,000 rupees and imprisonment
for a month. Despite this vengeful reaction of the indigo planters,
his reputation as a literary personality and editor was high enough to
secure him a place in the Records Committee.
As regards the Records Committee’s recommendation of a muni-
ment room in a report dated 21 June 1861, they said:

In dealing with this vast mass of records, the primary considerations

are,—how the documents to be preserved may be best secured from
injury, and rendered most readily accessible for reference. The greater
portion of the papers has long since passed from the stage of practical
official usefulness into that of purely historic and statistical interest.
Though they continue to occupy the record-rooms of the offices in
which they were prepared, the occasions on which they are referred to
seem to be rare. Their real value consists in the fact that they contain
a great deal of detailed information relative to the affair of the coun-
try which can be had in no other repository. It seems to be desirable,
therefore, that these papers should be made available in Calcutta to all
who may wish to consult them, and that such a published account of
them should be provided as may enable enquiries to ascertain readily
what documents are available.8

For the implementation of this proposal, the committee made several

propositions of which the important ones are as follows:

In order to effect these objects, the commission propose—(I) That a

printed index be prepared to all valuable documents. (II) That such
of the original documents as seem to be of any permanent interest
in place of being scattered, as at present, over all Calcutta, should be
preserved in a single muniment room. (III) That selections or précis
should from time to time, be made of papers or more prominent
interest or value in view to their publication.9

The amount of records awaiting archiving as estimated by the

Records Committee was enormous, amounting in their estimate to
over 16,255 volumes and 16,300 bundles of current files alone. Its
recommendations to appoint a record keeper and archival staff in a
separate muniment room was not acceptable to the Government of
India on the ground that additional expenditure must be avoided.
16 Archiving the British Raj

The only position sanctioned by the government was, as we have

seen earlier, that of J.T. Wheeler as the committee’s secretary, part-
time, with a salary of 500 rupees per month. The Government of
India was recovering slowly from the financial crisis and debt burden
caused by the enormous increase in military expenditure during the
uprising of 1857. That was the reason cited by the government for
denying financial support to the Records Committee. The Records
Committee was, in fact, entrusted with a responsibility without the
means of discharging that responsibility. The government did not
oppose the Records Committee’s proposals, but they took no action
on it until 1863. In August 1863, the higher bureaucracy, opposed
to the idea of collecting papers in one muniment room, engineered
the rejection of the Records Committee’s proposals. It was virtually
a coup d’état. The chairman of the Records Committee was Walter
Scott Seton-Karr, a very upper-class man, a product of Rugby and
Haileybury, who was in the ICS since 1842 and rose to the position
of foreign secretary in 1868–70. A member of the viceroy’s council
since 1861, he seems to have little regard for members of the Records
Committee such as the clergyman Rev. J. Long or its secretary J.T.
Wheeler. Seton-Karr wrote a memorandum on 8 August 1863 on
his own rejecting the recommendation of the Records Committee he
chaired. This episode was an example of artful manipulations within
the bureaucracy. Seton-Karr writes in his memo: ‘I understand that
the Government of India have, for the present at least, abandoned
the idea of a central Muniment Room, or have not provided for
such a Room.’10 Thus, when he rejected the Records Committee’s
recommendation he already knew that the government was inclined
to do so. Further, he asked J.T. Wheeler, the secretary to the Records
Committee, to write another memo. Wheeler writes that Seton-Karr
‘invited me to express my own views upon the subject, when it was
known that those views were strongly opposed to the recommenda-
tions of the Commission’11 (the Records Committee was sometimes
called the Record Commission).
Seton-Karr in his report began with an adverse observation about
the Record Commission or Committee he chaired:

Looking to the comparatively limited practical effect of the labours

of the Commission hitherto, I assume that it is not too late to effect
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 17

alterations in our plans, provided such can be justified, or seem

expedient.… From the plan of a Central Muniment Room recom-
mended by the Commission and since laid before Government, I must
dissent. Its expense would be very great, and the advantages problemati-
cal and, it appears to me, quite incommensurate with the expense. A
very large room or series of rooms would have to be erected or set apart;
a special Officer would have to be appointed to the charge of the said
Records; and I do not exactly understand to what Office such an Official
would consider himself subordinate, or whether he would constitute a
separate Department under the Government of India. But when the
numbers of the Records to be conveyed to the proposed Muniment
Room are estimated at 2,00,000, by the Commission, and these all
unprinted, it may be conceived that no person is likely to be found
who, in an ordinary life-time, could master one-half of their contents.
The practical inconvenience of a removal of the old Records from such
Departments as the Foreign and Home Offices and the Government of
Bengal has, I think, been very much under-rated, as far as the smooth
working of those really important Departments is concerned; and it
is surely more likely that a separate Record-keeper in each great and
permanent Office, gradually trained to and familiar with his business,
would exhibit a greater amount of knowledge and ability to refer to any
given subject, than would a single Record-keeper or Librarian placed
in charge of an enormous number of unprinted volumes, comprising a
wide range of subjects, and extending over three-quarters of a century.12

Instead of a central record office, or muniment room, Seton-Karr rec-

ommended decentralized record-keeping in different departments.
He urged

the propriety of selecting a certain number of Head Offices, such as the

Secretariats and others, which, and no others, should be Permanent
Offices of Record, [and] the propriety of retaining, in such Offices,
the Records in bulk and in their present shape, instead of in a Central
Muniment Room, care being taken, by the issue of a few Rules, that
every volume be regularly inspected and preserved.… Of course, all
documents that can be separated from others and are shown to be
worthless after a year or two of their existence, can, even from such
Offices, be removed as rubbish.13

Incidentally, it is interesting to observe that later when the viceroy

and his council summed up the above-mentioned proceedings in
18 Archiving the British Raj

their dispatch to the secretary of state, they concealed the fact of dif-
ference of opinion between the members of the Records Committee
and its president, Seton-Karr. The viceroy in council wrote that ‘in
August 1863 the Records Committee submitted a series of revised
propositions’, and then proceeded to summarize Seton-Karr’s propos-
als that they approved.14 Thus, they pretended to believe that after
submitting proposals in June 1861 the Records Committee changed
their mind. Actually, the committee’s opinion in favour of a central
archive was rejected. The viceroy in council reported the matter the
way he did probably because the secretary of state Sir Charles Wood
was known to be in favour of a muniment room and, in fact, said so
clearly in his dispatch to the Indian government.15
Seton-Karr also proposed, inter alia, that selected records be
published from time to time. That was also the main point made by
J.T. Wheeler in his memorandum.16 Both Seton-Karr and Wheeler
emphasized the importance of publishing extracts from records,
implicitly suggesting that publishing selected records was a substitute
for archiving records in a muniment room. In fact, publication of
selected records was already under way and may be counted as the
main concrete achievement of the Records Committee. The first
attempt, a calendar of State Papers, Secret Series, of 1774–5, compiled
by a Mr Scott Smith, then secretary to the committee, was never com-
pleted due to the premature death of the compiler. Several volumes
containing extracts from the old numbers of the Calcutta Gazette
were published, but they were from a source generally available and
not really rare government records. The only good publication spon-
sored by the committee was a work of historical documentation by
Rev. J. Long, a member of the committee, who compiled and edited a
selection of records relating to Bengal from 1748 to 1767.
To revert to the main issue, whether a muniment room, or central
archive, was necessary and desirable, the rejection of the idea by the
president of the Records Committee, Seton-Karr, was seized upon as
the decisive factor by Viceroy John Lawrence and his council in their
resolution of 3 October 1865.17 This decision was taken in 1865,
while Seton-Karr had given his opinion in 1863 and the Records
Committee had suggested a central record office in 1861. The
government was obviously dragging its feet and eventually rejected
the creation of a central record room. The reasons appear to be
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 19

bureaucratic inertia and the apprehension of increase in expenditure

at a time when Viceroy Lawrence’s government was trying to tide
over the financial crisis precipitated by the uprising of 1857.
When the resolution in this regard was dispatched to London, the
secretary of state, Sir Charles Wood, to his credit, commented:

The preservation and arrangement of the public Records and the facility of
access to them on the part both of the officers of Government and of persons
desiring to consult them for historical or antiquarian purposes are objects
of great importance; and although perhaps the latter object would be
best promoted by the formation of a Central Muniment Room, I
approve on the whole your decision to leave the Records, which are to
be preserved, in the several Offices to which they belong.18

In this instance, Sir Charles Wood represented the enlightened opin-

ion prevailing in England in respect of the value of historical records
and the preservation of records by an appropriate archive policy. As
we shall see later, the secretaries of state for India took this position
fairly consistently while the majority of the British Indian bureau-
cracy tended to neglect the value of historical records except insofar
as it served some utilitarian purposes of governance.
In the second phase, from 1865 to 1869, there is no further
discussion of a central record room. The secretary of the Records
Committee, J.T. Wheeler, was engaged in preparing for publication
some state papers but he was unable to complete the task till 1869
when he left the committee to join a higher post in the British Burma
Commission. The post of Records Committee’s paid secretary thus
fell vacant and was never filled up again. The Records Committee’s
members visited some departments to begin the process of setting
up departmental record rooms and to put the old papers in order.
Since a regular archival staff was estimated to be expensive, the higher
authorities in India and the ‘home authorities’ preferred the cheaper
alternative of publishing selected documents.
As secretary of the committee, J.T. Wheeler published a useful
handbook and guide to records entitled Memorandum on the Records
of Foreign Department (Calcutta, 1865). His selection of narratives of
travellers was popular for many years.19 He also published selections
from the records. One such collection published in 1878 became a
success, Early Records of British India. It was an eclectic collection, for
20 Archiving the British Raj

he included British memoirs and travel accounts as well as govern-

ment records. He was proud that he had ‘drawn directly from the
fountain head, after a study of the records of government of India’.20
But there was not much appreciation of his work in official circles,
and W.W. Hunter did not think that the expense of paying a salary
to this former professor of History at Madras Presidency College was
justified. In the last major book Wheeler published, his ‘Preface’ was
somewhat bitter in tone:

More than one British ruler in India has, sinned against history, and
might well like to shut it up with confidential minutes and secret
negotiations. Within the present century, India has been desolated by
wars as cruel as those of the Heptarchy, and as unmeaning as those of
the White and Red Roses. Within the present generation, it has been
distracted and tortured by a military revolt, created by a scare about
greased cartridges, but leading to crimes more horrible than those of
the French Revolution. Yet Anglo-Indian statesmen have been known
to ignore the past.21

The phase from 1869 to 1871 was the one when the government
returned to the plan of publishing selected records and calendars and
decisively abandoned the idea of a central record room. In this matter
the advice of Sir William Hunter was decisive: there was, he said, no
need for a public record office as it existed in England and elsewhere
in Europe. Viceroy Northbrook was of the view that it would serve
a political purpose to selectively publish some documents. Thus,
the deliberations on an archival policy ended in this phase with a firm
rejection of the plan for a central record room and prioritization of
publication of selected documents of the imperial past.
It seems that the majority of the members of the governor gen-
eral’s council were averse to additional expenditure on account of
archiving. A.O. Hume pointed out that ‘a great deal of money has
been spent … and very little results have been obtained’. And yet
keeping records in good shape was important. ‘Year by year records
are decaying; and unless some measures be adopted, it will before
very long, be found that like the defunct Commission [Records
Committee, sometimes called Commission] the subjects of their
investigations have dissolved themselves’.22 In writing, thus, A.O.
Hume, later to become a founding member of the Indian National
 Absence of a Definite Archives Policy 21

Congress, was in the viceroy’s council a lone voice defending the need
for careful archiving. However, given the decision at the highest level
in 1865 to abandon the scheme of a central muniment room, the
only option that was open was to press for publication of selected
documents and handbooks or guides to records.
There is evidence that the opposition to the idea of a central record
office open to the public was partly motivated by political consid-
erations. The file noting of ‘E.C.B’ of the viceroy’s council on the
question of muniment room are significant. Sir Edward Clive Bayley
(1821–1884) had a long tenure as home secretary (1862–72) and
he had also worked in the foreign and political departments. He did
not mince words: ‘There are records even of the last century which it
might cause inconvenience to throw open to the public.’23 Further,
he said that selections from records were to be made carefully. The
wily, old bureaucrat commented on Rev. Long’s selection, perhaps
bearing in mind how Long, at one time, had been on the side of the
peasantry in the Indigo Rebellion:

I doubt if they [Long’s selected documents] would be equally satisfac-

tory to the literary inquirer who wishes to trace the gradual growth
and influence of English law, of English institution, or the intricate
relations with early Native powers and the constitutional questions
which arise out of them. The actual question as to what to print was
sometime ago solved, and I never understood why the solution
was abandoned by the proposal to print what are called the ‘General
Letters’ in each Department.24

It was politically the safest course of action to publish the General

Letters, which omitted details and summed up decisions the govern-
ment arrived at.
The political motive is not so openly visible in the position taken
by Sir William Hunter, another ICS veteran. He was content with
saying that a muniment room open to the public will bring in natives
who worked for the press, if at all natives take any interest in histori-
cal records. In India, he writes in 1871 in a reply to a query from the
Government of India:

There is no class of men of letters and leisure to use such a Central

Office [of Records].… Writers of considerable ability are to be
Another random document with
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 Her Majesty, however, continuing to express herself of a different
opinion, I found it useless to offer objections.
When I returned home in the evening, I set myself, therefore, to
consider how I might best execute her orders, and before I went to
bed I drew up a sort of plan, which I thought might furnish some
ideas for the formation of the establishment in view, and sent it off to
the Empress, more, indeed, for the purpose of complying with her
wishes than from any serious thought of furnishing a design worthy
of her choice and adoption. My astonishment may therefore be
imagined, when I received back, from the hands of her Majesty, this
imperfect outline of a scheme hastily conceived and informally drawn
up, with all the ceremonial of an official instrument, confirmed by the
sanction of her Imperial signature, and accompanied with an ukase
which conferred on me the presidentship of the embryo academy. A
copy of this ukase, I at the same time learned, had been transmitted
to the Senate.
Though this had the air of the Empress’s being in earnest, and
resolute in her intentions with regard to me, I nevertheless went to
Tsárskoe Seló two days afterwards, still hoping to prevail on her
Majesty to make choice of some other president. Finding my efforts
unavailing, I told her Majesty that as Director of the Academy of Arts
and Sciences I had already at my disposal sufficient funds for the
maintenance of the new establishment, and that she need be at no
other expense, at present, than the purchase of a house for it. These
funds, I observed, in explanation, would arise out of the five
thousand roubles which she gave annually, from her private purse,
for translations of the classics. The Empress evinced her surprise
and satisfaction, but expressed her hopes that the translations
should be continued.
“Most assuredly, madam,” said I, “the translations shall be carried
on, and I trust more extensively than hitherto, by the students of the
Academy of Sciences, subject to the revision and correction of the
professors; and thus the five thousand roubles, of which the directors
have never rendered any account, and which, to judge from the very
few translations that have appeared, they seem to have put into their
own pockets, may now be turned to a very useful purpose. I will have
the honour, madam,” added I, “of presenting you soon with an
estimate of all the necessary expenses of the proposed
establishment; and considering the sum I have stated as the extent
of its means, we shall then see if anything remains for the less
absolute requisites, such as medals and casts,—a few of which may
be deemed, indeed, almost indispensable, in order to reward and
distinguish the most deserving of its students.”
In the estimate, which I accordingly made, I fixed the salary of two
secretaries at 900 roubles, and of two translators at 450 roubles
each. It was necessary, also, to have a treasurer, and four persons,
invalid soldiers, to heat the stove and take care of the house. These
appointments together I estimated at 3300 roubles, which left the
1700 for fuel, paper and the occasional purchase of books, but no
surplus whatever for casts and medals.
Her Majesty, who had been accustomed to a very different scale of
expenditure, was, I think, more surprised than pleased at this
estimate; but signified her desire to add whatever was wanted for the
purposes not provided for in it, and this I fixed at 1250 roubles. The
salary of the president, and contingent perquisites of office, were not
usually forgotten in estimates of this nature, but in the present I had
not assigned myself a single rouble; and thus was a most useful
establishment, answering every object of its institution, founded and
supported at no greater expense to her Majesty than the price of a
few honorary badges.
To sum up all that may be said on the subject of the Russian
Academy, I may be allowed to state the following particulars: viz., in
the first place, that with three years’ arrears of her Majesty’s bounty,
originally granted for the translation of the classics, which had not
been paid to Mr. Domáshnev,—that is to say, with 15,000 roubles, in
addition to what sums I could spare from the economic fund,—I built
two houses in the court of the house given by the Empress for the
Academy, which added a rent of 1950 roubles to its revenue; I
furnished the house of the Academy, and by degrees purchased a
very considerable library, having, in the meantime, lent my own for
its use; I left 4900 roubles as a fund, placed in the Foundling
Hospital; I began, finished and published a dictionary; and all this I
had accomplished at the end of eleven years. I say nothing of the
new building for the Academy, the elevation of which has been so
much admired, executed, indeed, under my directions, but at the
expense of the Crown, and therefore not to be enumerated among
those labours which were more especially my own. Besides, had it
been, strictly speaking, a work of mine, I could never have
considered it as one of my labours; for with so decided a taste, or
rather passion, as I had for architecture, such a work would have
formed one of my highest gratifications.
I ought to observe, before I dismiss the subject, that many things
occurred at Court relative to the concerns of my office both to vex
and disgust me. The enlightened part of the public, indeed, rendered
me more than justice in the tribute of praise they bestowed on my
zeal and public-spiritedness, to which they were pleased to refer all
the merit of the institution of a Russian Academy, as well as the
astonishing rapidity with which the first dictionary of our native
language was completed.
This latter work was the subject of a very clamorous criticism,
particularly as to the method of its verbal arrangement, which was
not according to an alphabetical, but an etymological order. This was
objected to, as rendering the dictionary confused, and ill adapted for
popular use; an objection very loudly echoed by the courtiers as
soon as it was known to have been made by the Empress, who
asked me more than once why we had adopted so inconvenient an
arrangement. It was, I informed her Majesty, no unusual one in the
first dictionary of any language, on account of the greater facility it
afforded in showing and even discovering the roots of words; but that
the Academy would publish, in about three years, a second edition,
arranged alphabetically, and much more perfect in every respect.
I know not how it was that the Empress, whose perception could
embrace every object, even those the most profound, appeared not
to comprehend me, but this I know, that I experienced in
consequence much annoyance, and notwithstanding my repugnance
to declare the opinion which her Majesty had pronounced against
our dictionary, at a sitting of the Academy, I determined to bring
forward the question again at our first meeting, without entering into
some other matters connected with it for which I had often been
made accountable.
All the members, as I expected, gave their judgment that it was
impossible to arrange otherwise the first dictionary of our language,
but that the second would be more complete, and disposed in
alphabetical order.
I repeated to the Empress, the next time I saw her, the unanimous
opinion of the academicians, and the reason for it. Her Majesty,
however, continued to retain her own, and was, in fact, at that time
much interested in a work dignified by the name of a dictionary, of
which Mr. Pallas was the compiler. It was a sort of vocabulary, in
nearly a hundred languages, some of which presented the reader
with about a score of words only, such as earth, air, water, father,
mother and so forth. Its learned author, celebrated for the publication
of his travels in Russia, and for his attainments in natural history, had
dared to run up the expense of printing this work, called a dictionary,
to flatter a little prejudice of her Majesty, to a sum exceeding 20,000
roubles, not to mention the very considerable cost it brought on the
Cabinet in dispatching couriers into Siberia, Kamchatka and so forth,
to pick up a few words in different languages, meagre and of little
utility.
Paltry and imperfect as was this singular performance, it was
extolled as an admirable dictionary, and was to me at that time an
occasion of much disgust and vexation.
 Semén Andréevich Poroshín. (1741-1769.)
Poroshín studied in the military school, where he
distinguished himself for his knowledge of foreign languages
and mathematics. Even as a student, he became a
contributor to literary magazines. After leaving school, he was
attached as adjutant to Peter III. From 1762 he was teacher of
mathematics to Paul, whom he tried to impress with a sense
of duty and love of country. In 1764 and 1765 he kept a diary
of his relations to the young Grand Duke, hoping some day to
use it as material for a history of his reign. In 1769 he died
during an expedition against Turkey, being then commander
of a regiment of infantry.

FROM HIS “DIARY”

October 29, 1764.—Having dressed himself, his Highness sat

down to study. Then he went incognito to his drawing-room to get a
look at the Turkish ambassador, who was having an audience with
his Excellency Nikíta Ivánovich. He was received in the same
manner as the first time. But when I arrived, his Highness did not
receive me so kindly as to make me satisfied with him. I do not wish
now to enter into any especial discussion of the cause of it, but will
only remark that his Highness is frequently greatly influenced by the
remarks made in regard to absent persons which he happens to
overhear. I have repeatedly noticed that if anything favourable or
laudatory is said in his hearing of someone, his Highness later
shows himself kindly disposed to him; if, on the contrary, something
unfavourable and deprecatory is said of anyone, especially when the
remark is not made directly to his Highness, but as if by accident, he,
seeing him, appears to be cold to him.
We seated ourselves at the table. His Excellency Nikíta Ivánovich
did not dine with us. Of outsiders there was only Count Alexander
Sergyéich Stroganóv. I have suffered terrible anguish to-day at table.
How could one help suffering, considering what had taken place?
We were talking about Peter the Great. Someone, passing in silence
all the great qualities of that monarch, deemed it proper to dwell only
on the fact that the Tsar used often to get drunk, and that he beat his
ministers with his cane. Another person, incautiously emulating this
conversation, which ought in no way be tolerated in the presence of
his Highness, added that when the Tsar was at one time beating with
his cane one of his generals who was a German, the latter later
repeated from the Bible: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, etc.”
The first person continued, saying that history knew only of two royal
wallopers, Peter I. and the late King of Prussia, the father of the
present King. Later he began to praise Charles XII., the King of
Sweden; I told him that Voltaire had written that Charles XII.
deserved to be the first soldier in Peter the Great’s army. Upon this
his Highness asked whether it was really so. The speaker answered
his Highness that it was very likely written that way, but that it was
nothing but mere flattery.
When I later spoke of the Emperor’s letters, which he had written
from abroad to his ministers, and remarked that for the correct
understanding of his time it was necessary to have these letters, and
that I possessed many of them, and so forth, the first speaker did not
deign to make any other remarks thereupon except that these letters
were very funny because the Emperor often addressed them to “Min
Her Admiral,” and signed them “Piter.” I found it difficult to dissemble
my dissatisfaction, and to subdue my excitement.
I leave it to the whole intelligent and unbiassed world whether it is
proper to let his Imperial Highness, the heir apparent of the Russian
throne, and a great-grandchild of Emperor Peter the Great, to be a
witness to such malicious remarks. Xenophon has represented in his
Cyrus a perfect king, and his rule a beneficent rule, and an example
for the emulation of the monarchs of future generations. Senseless
historians in many points contradict Xenophon’s history, and try to
point out the weaknesses of his hero. But clever and far-sighted men
care very little whether Cyrus was really such as Xenophon has
painted him, or otherwise, and extol the historian for having given us
a perfect model for kings, and they adduce his wise rule as an
example for them to follow. Thus, too, many other monarchs, whose
great deeds history has preserved to our own days, are adduced as
an example. Is it not necessary to present to his Highness the
praiseworthy deeds of famous heroes, in order to rouse in him the
desire and noble impulse of emulating them? That seems to be
evident and incontrovertible. Now, whose deeds will awaken in him a
greater attention, will produce a stronger effect upon him, and are
more important for his knowledge, than the deeds of Emperor Peter
the Great of blessed memory? They are esteemed great and
glorious in the whole subsolar world, and are proclaimed with
ecstasy by the lips of the sons of Russia. The Grand Duke, his
Highness’s own grandchild, was born in the same nation, and by the
decree of God will in time be the ruler of the same nation.
If there had never been on the Russian throne such an
incomparable man as was his Highness’s great ancestor, it would be
useful to invent him, for his Highness’s emulation. But we have such
a famous hero,—and what happens? I do not mean to say that the
Emperor Peter the Great was free from imperfections. Who of
mortals is? As many great men as history knows have all been
subject to certain weaknesses. But when they are used as
examples, we must not sermonise about their vices, but about their
virtues. Vices may either entirely be passed over in silence, or they
may be mentioned, but only incidentally, with the remark that the
ruler who is taken as a model tried his best to free himself from them
and that he overcame them. And the very opposite has happened....
At table Prince Baryatínski remarked that during his stay in
Sweden he had heard that all the wearing apparel, sword, boots and
everything else that had belonged to King Charles XII. was
preserved in the arsenal. I retorted that in our Museum are
preserved the wearing apparel and other belongings of Peter the
Great, but that we naturally had more reason to keep these things
than the Swedes, because the one defended his country and
brought it to a nourishing condition, while the other had brought his
to such ruin that even to the present day it has not been
resuscitated, and that, of course, not one intelligent Swede could
mention the name of Charles XII. without disgust. Prince Sergyéich
assented to this. Then the conversation turned to Keissler’s travels,
and then to the academic translators Teplóv, Golubtsóv and
Lébedev. I said that they knew and translated Russian well. The first
speaker remarked to that: “And yet they all died the same death,
namely, from drinking.” Thereupon the Grand Duke turned to me and
said: “Now, you hear that yourself. I suppose that is not a lie?” I
answered that I did not know them intimately, that I was not
acquainted with the manner of their demise, and that equally I did
not know where that gentleman got his information.
February 28, 1765.—His Highness arose at eight o’clock. After
having dressed himself, he sat down to his customary studies. After
his lesson he looked with me carefully at the road map to Moscow,
and recollected where and how we passed the time on our last
journey thither. I read to his Highness Vertot’s History of the Order of
Maltese Knights. Then he amused himself with his toys, and,
attaching to his cavalry the flag of the admiralty, imagined himself a
Maltese Knight. At ten o’clock we sat down to breakfast. We spoke
of Moscow and dramatic performances. We were about to rise from
table, when someone, I do not remember who, asked for butter and
cheese. The Grand Duke became angry at the butler and said: “Why
did you not put it on the table before?” and then turning to us: “They
simply steal the things for themselves!” We all armed ourselves
against the Grand Duke and told him in French how bad it was to
insult in this way a man of whom he could not know whether he was
guilty or not.
When we left the table, this sermon was continued. Mr. Osterwald
and I told his Highness in strong terms how bad his action was, and
how easily he could cause those people to hate him. Then our
conversation turned to the labours that an Emperor must undertake.
His Highness remarked among other things: “But an Emperor cannot
work all the time! He needs also some rest, and his amusements.”
To this I retorted to the Grand Duke: “No one demands that an
Emperor should never have any rest, for that is above human
strength, and an Emperor is just such a man as anybody else; only
he has been exalted to his position by God for his nation, and not for
himself; that, consequently, he must use all his endeavour in the
welfare and advancement of his nation; that his amusements and
pleasures ought to consist in his knowledge and vivid representation
of the great mass of his subjects who through his labours and cares
enjoy well-being and numberless advantages, and of the flourishing
condition of his country as the result of his work, and how his name
will in just glory redound to the future generations.” These are the
exact words which I spoke to his Highness. He listened to them very
attentively.
September 20, 1765.—The birthday of his Imperial Highness; he is
eleven years old. His Highness arose a little after seven.... I was not
yet all dressed, when he appeared in my room, took me by my hand
and began to walk around with me. I congratulated the Tsarévich
upon his birthday, and explained to him my wishes in regard to him,
which were similar to those of all the faithful sons of the country.
Having dressed himself, he went into the yellow room. His
Reverence, Father Platón, addressed to the Tsarévich a short
congratulation, in which he presented very strongly and wittily our
wishes and hopes in the progress of his Highness’s studies. Then
his Highness went into the interior apartments to the Empress, and
from there with her Highness to church. At the end of the liturgy,
Father Platón spoke a sermon on the theme: “Settle it therefore in
your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer” (Luke xxi.
14). The whole sermon was beautiful. But especially the final
address to her Highness and the Grand Duke visibly moved the
hearts of all. Many eyes were seen in tears.... The Empress went
from church to her inner apartments, and his Highness followed her.
As we were there admitted to kiss her hand, she said among other
things: “Father Platón does with us what he wants. If he wants us to
weep, we weep; if he wants us to laugh, we laugh.”
The Satirical Journals (1769-1774), and Nikoláy
Ivánovich Nóvikov. (1744-1818.)
The first attempt at a periodical was made as early as the
year 1728, when literary essays were regularly added to the
news of the day in the St. Petersburg Gazette, but the first
literary journal was established in 1759 by Sumarókov under
the name of The Industrious Bee. The example of Russia’s
first littérateur was at once imitated by a number of private
individuals, and magazines became common, though their life
was nearly always very short. In 1769 there was issued by
Grigóri Kozítski, under Catherine’s supervision, the first
satirical journal, under the name of All Kinds of Things. During
the time of reforms, satire appears as a natural weapon of
attack against the old order of things, and there was,
therefore, nothing unusual in the popularity which this and the
following satirical journals attained. There is, however, also
another reason for their appearance. The English Spectator,
Tatler and Rambler were at that time well known in Russia,
and the literary part of the St. Petersburg Gazette brought out
a large number of translations from these English journals. All
Kinds of Things shows plainly the influence of Addison in the
tone of playful censure which was to Catherine’s liking and
which it cultivated.
Of the several satirical periodicals that followed, the Hell’s
Post; or, Correspondence between the Lame and the Halt
Devils, by F. Émin, and the famous Drone, by N. I. Nóvikov,
may be mentioned. The name of the latter is evidently chosen
in contradistinction to Sumarókov’s Industrious Bee, and its
editor, of whose imposing personality we shall speak later,
belonged to that enlightened class of men who were in
sympathy with the most advanced reforms, but had no love
for the flimsy Voltairism which pervaded Russian society, and,
like the Slavophile Shcherbátov (see p. 287), thought he
discerned some stern virtues in the generations preceding the
reforms of Peter the Great. He therefore set out to scourge
vice wherever he found it. The satirical journals were divided
into two camps: some clung to the mild and harmless satire of
All Kinds of Things, the others took the Drone for their model.
When the collaboration of Catherine in the first became
known, Nóvikov found it necessary to desist from his attacks,
to avoid the displeasure of the Empress, and soon his journal
stopped entirely. He later edited for a short time the Painter
and the Purse, but in 1774 all satirical journals ceased to
exist. The most important of these journals has been the
Painter, from which a generation of writers drew subjects for
their satire or comedy.
Nóvikov’s early education was received at the Gymnasium
connected with the Moscow University; he was excluded from
it in 1760 for laziness and insufficient progress. He soon
drifted into literature, and directed his attention to the
dissemination of useful knowledge among the people. He
developed a prodigious activity from 1772 to 1778, publishing
a large number of chronicles and documents dealing with
Russian antiquity. In 1779 he rented the University press for
ten years, published in three years more books than had been
issued by that institution in the preceding twenty-four years of
its existence, opened bookstores all over Russia and
encouraged and protected a whole generation of young
writers. He was a zealous Mason, and in that capacity
practised a most generous philanthropy by using the very
great income from his venture for the establishment of
charities and schools. Catherine was never favourable to the
Masons and other mystics who had got a firm foothold in St.
Petersburg and Moscow, and when the French Revolution
had broken out, she suspected such men as Radíshchev (see
p. 361) and Nóvikov of belonging to a secret society whose
object was the overturning of the existing order of things. At
first she ordered the metropolitan Platón to examine into the
soundness of Nóvikov’s religious views, but the enlightened
prelate reported: “I implore the all-merciful God that not only
in the flock which has been entrusted by God and you to me,
 but in the whole world there should be such good Christians
as Nóvikov.” Nevertheless, Catherine later found an excuse
for seizing Nóvikov and imprisoning him in the fortress of
Schlüsselburg, from which he was released by Emperor Paul,
who is said with tears in his eyes and upon his knees to have
begged Nóvikov’s forgiveness for his mother’s cruelty to him.
He passed the rest of his days in his estate of Tikhvín.

FROM “ALL KINDS OF THINGS”

I lately went to dine in a Moscow suburb with a friend of mine. To

my great displeasure I found the house in great sorrow because his
wife had had a bad dream which threatened some danger to him,
her and their children. We seated ourselves at the table. Their
youngest boy, who was sitting at the end of the table, began to cry:
“Mamma, I shall begin my problems on Monday.” “On Monday!”
exclaimed his mother: “The Lord preserve us! Nobody begins
anything new on Monday. Tell the deacon to begin on Tuesday.” The
lady of the house asked me to pass her the salt. I hastened to do her
the favour, but, being timid and overzealous, I dropped the salt-cellar
in passing it. She trembled when she saw the mishap, and
immediately remarked that the salt was spilled in her direction.
Collecting herself again, she sighed and said to her husband: “My
darling, misfortune never comes single. You will remember that the
dove-cot broke down the same day our servant girl spilled the salt on
the table.” “Yes, I remember,” said her husband, “and next day we
received the news of the battle of Zorndorf.” I managed to finish my
dinner, though with a heavy heart. The dinner being over, I
accidentally placed my knife and fork crosswise on my plate. The
hostess asked me to put them together. I soon learned from the
lady’s behaviour that she looked upon me as an odd fellow and
foreboder of misfortunes.
Gentlemen:—He who writes All Kinds of Things ought not to
disdain anything. In this hope I, though a common labourer, take up
the pen without hesitation, thinking that you might find something of
interest in what I write. I have no intricate style, but write simply, just
as I think.
I am a silversmith. Though I was not born here, I love Russia. I am
not the only German whom it supports. The Lord may grant all to feel
as gratefully to Russia, but people feel differently about that. I work
for many people, among them for a French teacher. You know there
are bushels of them in Moscow. The one I am telling you about came
to his profession in a strange manner. He was originally a
shoemaker. Suddenly he was seized by the spirit of heroism, or, to
tell the truth, indolence and starvation compelled him to enlist as a
soldier. After the battle of Rossbach, he fled in company with many
others. He worked in many capacities, wandering about from place
to place, and finally reached Russia, where he developed the proper
qualifications for a coachman. But he soon grew tired of sitting on
the coachman’s seat, and had a strong desire of getting inside the
carriage. He found no easier way of accomplishing his ambition than
by becoming a teacher, emulating in this the example of many of his
countrymen who, some from the box, like him, others from the
footman’s stand, have found their way into the carriage. And he
succeeded. Thus a lazy shoemaker, runaway soldier and bad
coachman was turned into a first-class teacher. At least he appears
to me to be good because he pays promptly for my work and does
not feed me, as other gentlemen do, with to-morrows.

SOUND REASONING ADORNS A MAN

My teacher made me once a present of a doll on my name-day,

accompanying it with the following noteworthy words: “Every
brainless man is a doll.” I asked him whom he meant by the word
“brainless,” and he answered: “Him who obeys more his will than
established rules.” I wanted to know why. He said: “Will without rule
is licence, and licence is injurious to oneself and his neighbour,
whereas rules have been established in life in order to curb harmful
lusts.” I sighed and said: “Oh, I see, then our neighbour committed
an act of licence, and did not obey the established rules, when he
took away our meadows so that our cattle are starving.” “Our
neighbour,” he answered with a smile, “has his own rules. He
belongs to the class of people who say every morning: ‘Lord, I am in
need of everything, but my neighbour is in need of nothing.’”
We paid such a high salary to this teacher that my step-mother
found it necessary to dismiss him, in order to add one hundred
roubles to the cook’s wages, and another cheaper teacher was hired
for me. He belonged to the class of people who write in their will that
they are to be buried without being washed. His affection for his
ungrateful country was so strong that he always had the name of
Paris in his mouth, in spite of the fact that he had been driven out of
his country with the coat of arms of a full-blown lily imprinted on his
back.[144] He knew by heart the names of all the streets of Paris, and
the external walls of all the prominent buildings of that city were
familiar to him, but he had never had the courage to enter them. He
was so adorned with wisdom that he knew everything without having
studied anything. He had an absolute contempt for everything that
did not transpire in France. For other things he had no mind, for
frequently, in a fit of abstraction, he put other people’s property into
his pockets, the result of which was a certain misunderstanding, as
he called it, between him and the police. The police proved that he
had stolen, but he affirmed the word “steal” was the invention of
crass ignorance, and that an honest man must defend his honour
from the police by means of the rapier. So he invited the commissary
of police to fight a duel with him. The latter not being as good a talker
as he was wont to stick to incontrovertible proofs, ordered my mentor
to be cast into prison. My mother was quite put out about him, for
she said she did not know where to get another cheap teacher like
him. However, there arrived at that time some guests at our house
who assured her that that very day there had arrived in Moscow the
coachman of the French ambassador, with his scullion, hair-dresser,
courier and lackey, who did not wish to return with him, and that for
the common good of the people of Moscow they had the intention of
imparting their arts to those who wanted to be instructed for a
reasonable consideration, though somewhat higher than the price
they had received in the stable, kitchen, kennel, or for blackening
shoes and making wigs.
 I once went to see my friend and, as he was not at home, went to
his wife’s apartments. She had stepped down into the nursery. As I
am quite at home there, I went down into the nursery myself and
found her surrounded by her four children. The smallest boy started
crying; to pacify him, his mother made him beat the nurse with a
handkerchief. She pretended she was crying, while the mother kept
on repeating: “Beat her, my darling, beat well the stupid nurse! She
had no business annoying baby.” The child was trying to strike the
nurse hard; and the harder he struck her, she feigned weeping
harder, whereat the child smiled. A little while later, another child fell
down. The mother told it to spit on the floor and to kick the place
where it had stumbled. When I remarked that it was not good
education to allow the child to do that, she answered me: “My friend,
you are always philosophising. As if we had not been brought up in
the same way! Why should it be different with these babies?” Then I
heard the whining of a dog. I looked around and saw a third child
pinching a pup, while another child was frightening a canary bird by
striking with his hands against the cage: the poor little bird flitted
about distressed from one corner to another. I lost my patience, and
told their mother: “You are making tyrants of these children, if you do
not teach them to respect man and beast. I’ll tell your husband so!”
and I slammed the door as I went out.

FROM THE “DRONE”

RECIPE FOR HIS EXCELLENCY, MR. LACKSENSE

This nobleman suffers from a quotidian fever of boasting of his

family. He traces his family tree to the beginning of the universe, and
hates all those who cannot prove their aristocratic blood at least five
hundred years back, and loathes to speak with those whose nobility
is only a hundred years old or less. He shakes with fever the
moment somebody mentions burghers or peasants in his presence.
In opposition to the modern current appellation, he does not even
honour them with the name “low-born,” but in the fifty years of his
fruitless life he has not yet been able to find a proper term for them.
He does not travel to church nor in the streets, for fear of a dead
faint which would unavoidably fall upon him the moment he met an
ignoble man. Our patient complains hourly against fate for having
destined him to share the same air, sun and moon with the common
people. He wishes there were no other beings on the whole globe
but aristocrats, and that the common people should all be
annihilated. He had repeatedly handed in projects to that effect, and
they had been highly praised for the good and novel ideas contained
therein, though many rejected them, because the inventor
demanded three million roubles in advance in order to execute his
plans.
Our aristocrat hates and loathes all the sciences and arts, and
regards them as a disgrace for any noble gentleman. In his opinion a
blueblood can know everything without having learned it; but
philosophy, mathematics, physics and all the other sciences are
trifles that are below a nobleman’s attention. Books of heraldry and
letters patent that have just escaped the dust-pile and mould are the
only books which he continually reads by spelling out. Alexandrian
sheets, on which the names of his ancestors are written in circles,
are the only pictures with which his house is adorned. But to be
short; the trees by which he illustrates the descent of his family have
many a dry limb, but there is no more rotten twig upon them than he
himself is, and in all his family coats of arms there is not such a
beast as is his Excellency. However, Mr. Lacksense thinks differently
of himself, and worships himself as a great man in mind, and as a
small god in his nobility. To make the whole world believe the same
way, he tries to differ from all others, not by useful and glorious
deeds, but by magnificent houses, carriages and liveries, though he
spends on his foolishness all his income that ought to support him
ten years hence.
Recipe, to cure Mr. Lacksense of his fever.—It is necessary to
inoculate the sick man with a good dose of common sense and
philanthropy, in order to kill in him his empty superciliousness and
the lofty contempt for other people. Noble descent is, indeed, a great
privilege, but it will always be dishonoured if it is not fortified by
personal worth and noble services to your country. Meseems it is
more laudable to be a poor yeoman or burgher and a useful member
of society than a distinguished drone who is known only for his
stupidity, his house, carriages and liveries.

THE LAUGHING DEMOCRITOS

Bah! There is the miser in his rags and tags, who has all his life
been hoarding money and squandering his conscience; who is dying
from hunger and cold; who teaches his servants to eat to live, that is,
not more than is necessary to keep body and soul together; who is
known far and wide for his unlawful usury; who has imposed upon
himself and all his slave cattle a whole year’s fast; who in winter
heats his miserable hut only once a week; who is ready to sell
himself for a dime, and who has forty thousand roubles, in order to
leave them after his death to his stupid nephew, that seventeen-
year-old wretch who in miserliness and unscrupulous usury has
surpassed his uncle of sixty years; who steals money from himself
and takes a fine from himself for this theft; and who does not want to
get married all his life, only not to spend his income on his wife and
children. Oh, they deserve being laughed at. Ha, ha, ha!
Meseems I see his opposite. Of course, it is Spendthrift? Certainly.
Oh, that young man has not the vices of his father, but he is infested
by other vices, not less objectionable. His father hoarded money by
unlawful exactions, and he spends it recklessly. His miserly father
consumed in one month what he ought to have eaten in one day;
Spendthrift, on the contrary, devours in a day what he ought to eat
up in a year. The other walked in order not to spend money for the
feeding of the horses; this one keeps six carriages and six tandems,
not counting the saddle and sleigh horses, only that he may not get
tired of travelling all the time in one and the same carriage. The other
wore for twenty years the same miserable caftan; while to
Spendthrift twenty pairs a year seem too little. In short, his father
collected a great treasure through all illegal means, usury,
maltreatment of his kin, and ruin of the helpless; but Spendthrift ruins
himself and lavishes on others: they are both fools, and I laugh at
both. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
 Who is galloping there so swiftly? Bah! it is Simple. He is hurrying
to some aristocratic house, to show there his stupidity. Simple glories
in visiting distinguished people. He goes to see them as often as
possible and, to please them, makes a fool of himself, then boasts to
others of the influence he has there. He takes part in their
conversations and, though he knows nothing, thinks he is posing as
a wise man; he reads books, but he does not understand them; goes
to the theatre, criticises the actors and, repeating what he has heard
elsewhere, speaks authoritatively: this actor is good, that one is bad.
He tells distinguished people all kinds of jokes, and wants to be
cutting in his remarks, though he never adapts them to the occasion;
in short, Simple tries to convince himself that his acts are intelligent,
but others think that they are silly. Ha, ha, ha!
Hypocrite steps humbly out of church and distributes to the poor
that surround him a farthing each, and counts them off on his rosary.
As he walks along, he mumbles his prayers. He turns his eyes away
from women, and shades them with his hands, for he avers he would
take them out if they tempted him. Hypocrite sins every minute, but
he appears as a righteous man that walks over a path strewn with
thorns. His simulated prayers, piety and fasts in no way keep him
from ruining and oppressing his like. Hypocrite has stolen thousands,
and he gives them away by farthings. By such appearances he
deceives many. He hourly preaches the nine virtues to young
people, but in the sixty years of his life he has never carried out one
himself. Hypocrite always walks humbly and never turns his looks to
heaven, for he cannot hope to deceive those that abide there; but he
looks upon the earth whose inhabitants he cheats. Ha, ha, ha!

FROM “HELL’S POST”

LETTER FROM HALT TO LAME

Last evening I took a walk in the park where nearly the whole town
disports itself twice a week. I seated myself with a friend on a bench:
four men, all acquaintances of my friend, passed by us; one of them
was an ex-officer who had left the service, in order that he may not
serve the Tsar, that he may cheat the world and become rich through
illegal means. All the pettifoggers and the minor officials at the court
of justice, and all the large litigators are known to him. He hardly
ever goes out of the Land Office, and even in other places there
appears almost every day a complaint of his. All the doubtful villages
are his, and he frequently makes application for them, proving that
they once belonged to his ancestors. He has no end of genealogies
in his pocket, and upon request can prove his descent from any
family he pleases. He buys promissory notes at a great discount,
and gets the money from the creditor with all the interest due
thereupon. If anybody borrows money from him, he never asks more
than five kopeks from the rouble a month, and he deducts the
interest in advance.

FROM LAME TO HALT

A certain secretary of a government office in this town got himself

into trouble by taking bribes, but he very soon freed himself through
his cunning. Although many orders explicitly demand that no bribes
should be received by officers, yet they insist that it is superhuman to
receive nothing from complainants. Many people of that class,
however, do not submit to the common weakness of the office, and
live on their incomes and salaries, but they have always empty
pockets. Scribe S. is much richer than Secretary V. because the one
sells every step of his, while the other attends to the affairs under his
charge for nothing. Now many of these gentlemen have discovered a
secret of stealing in a diplomatic way, that is, they no longer take
bribes themselves, but send the complainant to their wives, who
receive them very graciously. If he is a merchant, she asks for some
stuffs or velvet for a dress. When the goods have been brought to
her house, she says to the merchant: “My friend, come again in a
few days, and I will pay you!” The merchant knows what that means
and, being in need of her husband, goes home and for ever bids
good-bye to the goods he has furnished. If the complainant is a
nobleman, the officer’s wife tells him that she has no servant-girl, or
boy, and that she is compelled to do all the work herself; and the
complainant, having of necessity learned this conventional language,
answers her as she wants to be answered. Thus, in the taking of
bribes there has been produced this change: formerly the husband
was dishonest, now his wife helps him. But there are some officials
who are even more cunning and who steal in an honourable manner.
They invite the complainant who has any dealing with them to dinner,
after which they sit down and play cards with him. When they lose,
they assume a very angry look, but when they win, they look
exceedingly satisfied: this language the complainants have soon
learned to understand. To please the host, they throw off trumps and,
losing to the host, say two hundred roubles or as much as the host
expects for the case in hand, receive the next day a favourable
decision for it. Even the merchants have become refined and
frequent the houses of officials to play cards with them.

FROM THE “PAINTER”

To My Son Falaléy:—
Is that the way you respect your father, an honourably discharged
captain of dragoons? Did I educate you, accursed one, that I should
in my old age be made through you a laughing-stock of the whole
town? I wrote you, wretch, in order to instruct you, and you had my
letter published. You fiend, you have ruined me, and it is enough to
make me insane! Has such a thing ever been heard, that children
should ridicule their parents? Do you know that I will order you to be
whipped with the knout, in strength of ukases, for disrespect to your
parents! God and the Tsar have given me this right, and I have
power over your life, which you seem to have forgotten. I think I have
told you more than once that if a father or mother kills a son, they are
guilty only of an offence against the church.[145] My son, stop in time!
Don’t play a bad trick upon yourself: it is not far to the Great Lent,
and I don’t mind fasting then. St. Petersburg is not beyond the hills,
and I can reach you by going there myself.
Well, my son, I forgive you for the last time, at your mother’s
request. If it were not for her, you would have heard of me ere this,
nor would I have paid attention to her now, if she were not sick unto
death. Only I tell you, look out: if you will be guilty once more of