At Sreenuggur I found
several letters waiting for me, and amongst them a large "Official,"
which I tore open with eager haste; thinking it might be a reply to my
application to be sent home. It was ----. Well, you will never guess--an
urgent enquiry as to what language I could speak and write fluently
beside English. I have answered this question some half dozen times
since I have been in the service, but they never get tired of asking it.
The date of my arrival in India is another favourite and constantly
recurring enquiry, and this might lead me to give you a dissertation
upon the theory and practice of Red-tapeism, with a special
consideration of the amount of stationery thereby wasted, and its
probable cost to the Government. It would perhaps, be very interesting
to you, but to any one who is at all connected with it, the subject is
only one of weariness and disgust--weariness at the unproductive labour
entailed--disgust at the utter folly of the proceedings. So I pass it
by, leaving some one who is willing to sacrifice his feelings, or more
probably some one who knows nothing whatever about it to furnish the
much needed expose; it is customary to cry it down but it is an
acknowledged evil, the custom has never been fully and fairly explained
to outsiders or it must have given way before the burst of public
indignation which such an explanation would have created.
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