The new arrival at Calcutta is very often tempted
to take the first man who offers himself with
this recommendation. But before he has
become independent of the aid, he finds out
his mistake. The native who talks English—
unless he belong to the educated classes—is
nearly always a rascal. If not a thief, he is
generally a drunkard; and in any case he is
certain to set the whole house in confusion. The
accomplishment he has picked up, gives him,
he considers, a peculiar right to his master's ear;
and whether tne right be recognised by the
master or not, its assumption is quite sufficient
to render the rest of the servants jealous, and
keep the whole establishment in a state of
disaffection. The consequence is, that complaints
on the one side, and counter-complaints on the
other, are bandied to and fro until the unfortunate
master finds the burden of life more than
he can bear. In this dilemma he has to choose
between turning away his accomplished servant
or dispensing with the remainder of the household.
The former is the easier course, so the
accomplished servant goes. Those men who
speak English really have a notion, I believe,
that they belong to a class superior to their
fellows. I had a servant of the kind once.
Pussoo was rather darker in complexion than
the majority of the natives, some of whom, in
the North-West, are scarcely less fair than
ourselves—or than Spaniards, at any rate. Pussoo
was nearly as black as one's boots; and I had
a theory that he cleaned and shined himself
by the same process which he employed upon
those articles of wear. But when he had
to make any complaint against his fellows, he
would never fail to speak disrespectfully of
them with regard to their complexion. Thus
he would say:

"You very wrong, master, to pay so much to
that man. The more you give to these black
fellows the more they want.''  Or:

"There no need to give him holiday, sare.
His father no more dead dan I am. These black
natives, sare, always ungrateful—he think no
better of you for all you do for him."

I really believed for a time that Pussoo was
sincere and faithful, and looked after my
welfare; but I soon found that he merely
considered me as his property, and wished to get as
large an interest upon me as possible. It
became manifest by degrees that every payment I
made through Pussoo was about half as large
again as need be—even allowing for the
ordinary dustoor, or commission—and that the
difference went into Pussoo's pocket. He began
to get so fat and haughty as to be unbearable to
everybody in the house, or the compound; and
when he added to his other concessions to
European civilisation the habit of getting into what
Mr. Yellowplush calls a "beasly state of
intawgsication," there was nothing for it but to
get rid of him.

On the whole—making all allowances—I am
not inclined to give Indian servants the bad
character ascribed to them by some of our countrymen.
The stories of the ill-treatment they are
said to receive from Europeans, are exaggerations
as applied to any period, and have in the present
day not much foundation in fact. Occasionally
we hear of some disgraceful outbreak of temper
on the part of an European, and the death of a
native in consequence—for a native, if suffering
from any disease, may be killed like a fly. But
such cases have always been rare, and are
becoming more and more rare. For the rest, any
European who strikes a native may be punished
for the assault as in England; and the native
has begun to find this out, and freely takes his
remedy. Still, without infringing the law, there
are many of our countrymen in India who treat
their servants with more harshness than is necessary,
and they are the persons who are uniformly
worst served. Those who practise a system of
kindness and consideration, joined to punctual
payments, will experience far less trouble in
managing an establishment in India than they
would incur in conducting an establishment at
home. For it is a mistake to suppose that "all
niggers are rascals"—even supposing that the
natives of India were "niggers" at all—and that
there is no such thing as gratitude among them,
however inadequately the word may be
represented in their language.

HAUNTED HOXTON.

AT last my guilty wishes are fulfilled! At
last I am enabled to look back into the past,
and think that one great object of my life has
been realised, for I have seen a GHOST! Shade
of (ah! by the way, I forget the name of the
shade, and I've left the document which could
inform me in my overcoat-pocket! never mind!)
sacred shade, who appeared simultaneously to me
and to some hundreds of entranced people, thou
hast, so far as I am concerned, set the vexed
question of apparitions at rest for ever. My
interest in the ghost subject has been intense.
I have read every story bearing upon it, and
worked myself up to a delightful pitch of agonised
excitement. Alone, and in the dead of night, do
I peruse the precious volumes: the mere fact
of the scene being laid in "an old castle in the
Black Forest," gives me a pleasing sensation of
terror; when the student seated alone in the
tapestried room finds "the lights begin to burn
with a blue and spectral hue," I shake; when
there "reverberates through the long passages a
dismal clanking of chains," I shiver; finally, when
"the door bursts open with a tremendous crash,"
and there enters "a tall figure clothed in white,
with one clot of gore immediately below its
heart," I am in a state of transcendent bliss,
and only long to have been in the student's place.
Some years ago I thought I had a chance of
realising my hopes. I read a book called, I
think, The Nightgown of Nature, the author of
which announced that he—or she— was
thoroughly well acquainted with several houses where
spectres appeared nightly with unexampled
punctuality—houses "within a convenient