SOMETHING ABOUT INDIA .
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the world, were it not for the drawbacks of climate and absence from home. One hears some curious things in the course of an Indian life, and I daresay one or two things that have come to my own notice will not be unwelcome . My predecessor had once to try a man for murder. He was a hill man, and hill men are not educated, and don ' t know how to tell lies like some educated people . He at once admitted having done the deed but said he had received great provocation . It appears that the murdered man was a village doctor, and his murderer was his patient . The doctors in that part of the world rely a good deal on incantations for the cure of disease . At the same time they have souls not quite above their own material advantages ; so that they require for their performances sacrifices of animals likely to be useful for the domestic pot after they have served their religious purpose. This doctor told the patient, as he told the judge, to procure a black cock and a white goat and one rupee . The prisoner said, " I procured the goat and the cock and the rupee, and the physician began his incantations, but as he went on I got worse, so I cut his head off.' ' You will see that the medical profession has its drawbacks amongst hill tribes . Some ludicrous mistakes occur, too, from the want of knowledge of English on the part of natives, although their knowledge is in many cases wonderful . A friend of mine had just come out to the country, and saw a corpse being carried down for cremation to the river. He did not know what the burden was which the bearers were carrying, and asked one of my clerks . The man replied, " Sir, they are going to cook . " " To cook ?" said my friend, " What are they going to cook ?" " They are going, sir, to cook a man ." " To cook a man !" was the reply, in a tone of horror . " Yes, sir, when a man dies in this country, they cook him, and throw him into the river. " I will conclude with one or two real bits from Indian class rooms . One was an answer to a question—" State what you know about Cromwell . " The answer was, " Cromwell was an austere man who beheaded his king after many decapitations . He was never known to smile again, but on his death-bed was heard to say, " Had I but served my God as I served my king, He would not have left me with grey hairs ." An Armenian was once asked, " Who was Moses?" With a lovely mental confusion between the law-giver and his brother's rod, he replied,
