THE
PET[RITF. VoL . X .
JULY, IS9o .
No . 87.
SOMETHING ABOUT INDIA. HE Indian Civil Service has attracted a few but not many old Peterites into its ranks . Not half so many as we old boys in India would like to see . Looking at the list I find I am the first Peterite who took up that line of life, and although I passed immediately from Trinity College, Dublin, I have always felt that I owed my appointment entirely to the old school, for I was only a few months in college after leaving school life before I went up for the Indian Civil Service . Now I suppose, Mr . Editor, your readers would like to hear something about India and the life we lead there . Things have changed very n uch since Thackeray described Jos . Sedley as the type of a Bengal Civilian, and hard work has for most of us taken the place of the jolly indolent life supposed to have been led by that hero. A great many youn g men when they first think of an Indian career, do so with the very laudable idea of setting everything right in that country. We all, more or less, have our ideas about the requirements of India, and we all aspire to be the coming genius who is destined to put things straight, just as a small boy coming to a public school from a small private one thinks he is going to be a second Tom Brown . Well, like that little boy, we soon shake down into our places and come to the conclusion that the men who went out before us had some sense in their heads, and we also begin to find out that we have a lot more to learn than Mr . Caine or any globe trotting N niter can tell us . The first thing that takes the conceit out of a newly arrived civilian is the fact that although he may have thought he was going out to be a ruler of men he has a lot of examinations to pass, and he postpones the idea
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