Excerpt from Sketches of Social Life in India The first two chapters of this book were published more than a year ago in the Army and Navy Magazine, and are reprinted with the kind permission of the proprietors, Messrs. W. H. Allen 8: Co. The other chapters were written about the same time, as articles for the same Magazine, but not being sufficiently within the scope of a military and naval periodical, it was resolved to produce them in the present form. The author, in the course of a long career in the Ben gal Civil Service, has held nearly all the appoint ments which he has attempted to describe in connection with that service, and he had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the mechanism of Indian government, as seen from Calcutta and the Lower Provinces of Bengal. In his attempt to give a sketch of social life in India, it must be remembered that he is writing chiefly of the Lower Provinces of Bengal. He has endeavoured to avoid anything which might give personal offence, and he would gladly adopt as his. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.