absolutely fearless, and, withal, given to indignation quite up to his own measurement of wrongs and insults; and he had a pair of little fists that worked with the steam-power of passion in the administration of distributive justice, which he charged himself with executing at all hazards. In right of primogeniture, he was protector to his younger brothers, and was not yet nine years old when he assumed the office, with all its duties and dangers. At school, about this time, with a brother two years younger under his care, the master ordered his protegé up for punishment. Elisha sprang from his seat, and interposed with a manner which had rather more of demand than petition in it: Don't whip him, he's such a little fellow-whip me.' The master, understanding this to be mutiny, which really was intended for a fair compromise, answered, 'I'll whip you too, sir.' Strung for endurance, the sense of injustice changed his mood to defiance, and such fight as he was able to make quickly converted the discipline into a fracas, and Elisha left the school with marks that required explanation. When he was ten years old, four or five neighbour boys, all bigger than himself, who had climbed on the roof of a back building in his father's yard, .were amusing themselves by shooting putty-wads from blow-guns at the girls below. Elisha, attracted to the spot by the outcry of the injured party, promptly undertook the defence, and, in the firm tone of a young gentleman offended, required them to desist and leave the premises; but he, of course, was instantly answered by a broadside levelled at himself. Fired at the outrage, he clutched the rain-spout, and climbed like a young tiger to the roof, and was among them before they could realise the practicability of the feat; and then he had them on terms even enough for a handsome settlement of the case. The roof was steep and dangerous to his cowed antagonists, but safe to his better balance and higher courage, and they were at his mercy; for no one could help another, and he was more than a match for the best of them, in a position where peril of a terrible tumble was among the risks of resistance. Forthwith he went at them seriatim, till, severally and singly, he had cuffed them to the full measure of their respective deservings. But, not satisfied with inflicting punishment, he exacted penitence also, and he proceeded to drag each of them in turn to the edge of the roof, and, holding him there, demanded an explicit apology. Before he had finished putting the whole party through this last form of purgation, little Tom, who had witnessed the performance from the pavement below, greatly terrified by the imminent risk of a fall, which would have broken a neck or two, mayhap, called out, 'Come down, Elisha! oh, 'Lisha, come down!' Elisha answered the appeal in the spirit of the engagement, No, Tom, they an't done apologising yet.' He took no sauce' from anybody. He couldn't understand why he should, and it was hard and risky to make him know that he must; for he was equally fertile in expedients and bold in execution. On the wharf one day, when he was not yet twelve years old, an insolent ruffian, big enough and wicked enough to break every bone in the lad's body, aroused his wrath by an intolerable piece of rudeness. Resistance and redress seemed impossible, but submission was completely so. He saw his opportunity—a rope fixed to the end of a crane hung within his reach, and the ruffian stood fairly in the track of its swing. He seized it, and running backward till it was tightly stretched, he made a bound which gave him the momentum of a sling, and planted his knees like a shot in the fellow's face, levelling him handsomely; and with a spring he put himself under the protection of the bystanders, who had witnessed and admired the performance. So Elisha earned the character of a bad boy, while he was, in fact, exercising and cultivating the spirit of a brave one. Goody-good people, very naturally, did not understand him then; they do now. Elisha never reformed: he just persisted until he performed what was in him to do. The rills, so tortuous and turbulent near the springs, rolled themselves into a river in time, and regulated their rush without losing it. It is said that 'education forms the common mind:' it is more certain that as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.' This boy, at least, was the father of the man. It was utterly impossible to fashion his young life by veneering it with the proprieties which are supposed to shape it into goodness. He may not have known what he should be in the future, but he knew what he must be in the present: and he happily did not limber himself by forced compliances. Difficult, daring, and desperate enterprises, not only useless, but recklessly wild, under the common standard of judgment, worked in him like one possessed. At ten years of age he studied the weather, watched the moon, and carefully scanned the opportunities afforded by the nights for scaling fences, clambering over out-houses, and getting into the tree-tops, all round the square that was overlooked by his dormitory. Wherever a cat could go, he would; and escapes from the skylight, by way of the kitchen-roof and through the trap-door to the yard, and thence abroad to enjoy an unwatched and unmolested rambling, clambering, and tumbling, afforded him a seriously high-toned delight. He took nobody into his confidence except his bedfellow; but this was voluntary and generous, for he was bent upon training him for similar achievements. One instance will illustrate: The back building was two storeys high, the front three, and the houses which flanked the kitchen were also three storeys. To relieve the draft of the kitchen chimney from the eddy of the buildings which embayed it, it was carried up like a shaft sixteen feet above the roof. There it stood at the gable, in provokingly tempt ing altitude, and the point that concerned our little hero was, how to get to the top of it? 'How should he get to the top! Bless me,' exclaims some considerate personage of correct habits and cautious judgments, why should he?' Elisha would have answered him, 'I must, and I wonder why I should not?' Very certainly there would have been two opinions on the matter, if any wise body had been consulted. But the little desperado needed no advice. The thing was to be done, and it was done. It required some engineering, but—it was all the better for that. It is not mere muscle and hardihood that will carry a man to the North Pole. He must have some science and some tackling along with him; and the boy that is practising upon a chimney-top for arctic service must put his wits to work quite as much as his muscles and his courage. He made his observations and his calculations-his determination was long made. The preparations were perfected, and his younger brother taken into the enterprise. When all in the house were asleep, and the stars gave just light enough to guide, and none to expose the performance, with prevention and punishment among the chances, the two little fellows left their bed, and descended the roof of the front building till they dropped themselves upon that of the kitchen. Here the clothes-line, providently stowed away during the day for the purpose, was lying ready in coil, with a stone securely tied at one end. 'What is the stone for, Elisha?' Why, you see, Tom, the stone is a dipsey. I call it a dipsey (a young science of exploration, and a nomenclature to match, already), because I'm going to throw it into the flue, so that it will run down into the old furnace, carrying the line down with it, and then I can slip down and fasten it there. Now for a heave. The chimney-top is almost too high for me. It is pretty near twenty feet, I should think; but I'll do it.' Failures to reach the height, then failures to direct the dip of the falling stone, followed in long succession: but this gave practice, and practice makes perfect. At last one throw more lucky than the rest, and the rumble in the chimney and the run of the line announced success. Down through the trap-door went Elisha, and, after securing the end at the furnace, he ascended to the roof again, and was ready. But stop a little the chimney is a very narrow stack; it stands outside of the gable, and there is a chance that the climber may swing out, and get forty or fifty feet of clear air between him and the pavement below. This must be cared for; and little Tom is duly instructed and planted firmly, with the slack of the rope in hand, to keep Elisha on the right side of the chimney, so that, if the bricks on the edge gave way, and a tumble betide, he may come down all safe and nice upon the roof. All these arrangements made, and the contingencies so well provided for, the rope is seized, the feet planted against the chimney, and, hand over hand, up goes the aspirant, till the top is within reach; but the perch is not so easily attained, even when the full height of the stack is mastered. One hand on a top brick to draw himself up by it, and it yields in its locsened bed! That won't do. With a hard strain he gets his elbow over the edge, and so much of the doubled arm within for a good broad hold, and then daintily and carefully wriggling up the little body, and he's up, seated on the top! 'Oh, Tom, what a nice place this is! I'll get down into the flue to my waist, and pull you up too. Just make a loop in the rope, and I'll haul you in. Don't be afraid-it is so grand up here.' But the strength was not quite equal to the will; and Tom's chance had to be surrendered. The descent was about as dangerous, though not quite as difficult, as the ascent. And then all that remained was to hide the tracks, which required another descent to the basement, a thorough washing of the rope, to remove the soot of the chimney; and then, as the business of the night was done, to bed via the roof and skylight again; and a bright, happy consciousness on awakening in the morning that he had done it. His child-history is full of this sort of incidents. Through them all runs the one character of physical hardihood, and steady, tense endeavour for doing everything that seemed difficult of accomplishment, without other aim, or any aim at all, beyond the mere doing. India: Its History, Religion, and Go- THE REVENUE OF INDIA. London: The latest returns presented to Parliament show the revenue for 1854 to have been £28,133,546, derived from the different Presidencies in the following sums:Bengal North-west Provinces Bombay £11,185,467 6,139,454 4,947,589 4,568,282 This amount is made up of the following items: Land-Tax censes, Duties on Mer £15,610,882 Town Duties, Tolls, Li chandise, &c., Taxes on Manufacture or Sale of Intoxicating Liquors, or 1,242,697 Tax on Houses, Shops, Looms, Trades and Pro fessions, 110,237 Mint 101,985 Post-Office 202,643 Stamp Duties 515,999 Customs 1,292,386 Salt 2,544,130 Opium 4,777,231 Tobacco (abolished since 1854) 8,958 Miscellaneous 1,692,844 The charges of collecting this revenue amounted, in 1854, to £4,451,704; so that the nett receipts were £23,681,842. In Some of the sources of revenue deserve, however, special attention. The landtax, which yields more than one-half of the gross amount, is levied in different ways, in the several Presidencies. Bengal, the land is chiefly held upon the Zemindary tenure; and in accordance with the permanent settlement, made by Lord Cornwallis in. 1792, the Government had no interest in the improvement of the country. Those who had farmed the landtax in former years were then made proprietors of the soil, upon the simple condition of paying a fixed revenue to the Company. Twenty millions of small landholders, whose hereditary rights to occupy and till their holdings had until then been acknowledged, were suddenly placed, by a mere stroke of the pen, at the mercy of the zemindars, who, in return for the grants made to them, were bound to pay an assessment to the Government of more than 50 per cent. of the produce of the soil, calculated upon the average yield of several former years. The consequence has been, that the zemindars exact all they can from the wretched ryots, so that, by the time they have collected their land-tax, and the presents which they claim at every feast, every festival, and even every visit which they make to their tenants, they receive, upon the lowest computation, from 80 to 90 per cent. of the crops. Can it be wondered at, that the cultivators of the soil are yearly becoming more and more impoverished; especially as the laws enable a zemindar, at any time, to sell up a refractory or obnoxious tenant? Bengal has, therefore, been named a 'pauper warren,' because nine-tenths of the population subsist by tilling the soil; and the oppressive terms which the zemindars impose leave no chance to the ryots of emerging from the most hopeless poverty. They must have land to cultivate, or starve; and being thus placed at the mercy of the zemindars, they are compelled to submit to exactions which entail suffering and debasement only to be equalled in the slave states of America. In the north-west provinces the land is held under the Putteedarree settlement. The 'Directions to the Revenue settlement officers in the North-West Provinces' explain the amount of assessment which has been fixed for a period of thirty years. 'It is desirable that the Government should not demand more than two-thirds of what may be expected to be the nett produce to the proprietor during the period of the settlement; leaving to the proprietor one-third as his profits, and to cover the cost of collection. By nett produce is meant the surplus which the estate may yield, after deducting expenses of cultivation.' Under this settlement, which averages three shillings and sixpence per head of the population, and is the last effort made to settle the landtax in India, the population of these provinces is said to be comfortable and prosperous; whilst the solid advantage of creating a marketable private property in the land has also resulted from it. The true explanation of the prosperity of the landholders, however, is to be found in their right to clear waste land, and cultivate it, free of all land-tax, until the termination of the thirty years' settlement; because this arrangement furnishes a stimulus to their industry. In Bombay the Ryotwarry settlement is adopted. The land not in the occupation of hereditary proprietors has been claimed by the Government. A new survey has also recently been completed of the whole presideney, and each acre taxed according to the assumed quality of the soil. The Government lands are subdivided into farms of ten acres of unirrigated, and four acres of irrigated soil, which are let at a fixed sum, upon leases of thirty years. The option, however, is given to the tenant to surrender any part, or the whole of his farm, at the close of any given year. This system has been Ryots paying 8s. but a short time in use, and its efficiency cannot be confidently pronounced upon. In Madras the Ryot warry settlement is used, but the assessment is made from year to year. A maximum rate is fixed for the best lands, and inferior lands are assessed at lower rates. As the seasons in the south of India are very precarious, it has been the practice, in order to secure to the Government a fair share of the nett produce, to take more than the average in good, and to make compensating reductions in unfavourable seasons. The assessments, however, are fully one-third of the value of the crops on unirrigated, and 45 per cent. of those on irrigated lands. It is manifest that such a method of collecting the revenue must press with great weight upon the poorer ryots, whilst it opens the door to all kinds of fraud and partiality upon the part of the collectors. It is impossible that any man should be able to assess fairly the tax due from all the tenants in his collectcrate, when these, not unfrequently, are at least 100,000: and it cannot astonish any reasonable man to learn that the abuses of the system, especially in respect of remission, are said to be frightful. In the Madras Presidency, two districts only-Tanjore and Coimbatore-are in a flourishing condition; and in these cases the explanation is easy. In Tanjore the tax is determined by the price of produce, and in Coimbatore, the assessment of 1794, which was very light, is still maintained. The suffering and poverty which this Ryotwarry system entails upon the ryots at large, may be judged from the following table: on crops valued at £1 4s. 18s. To secure even such crops as this table reports, the Government has been accustomed to make advances of money to the ryots, to enable them to till the land; whilst it is well known that the average earnings of a ryot are not, and cannot be, sufficient for his sustenance. Imagine 593,129 persons with only sixteen shillings each for the support of their families for a year-a little more than onehalfpenny per family, per day. And their land-tax is one farthing per day! The salt-tax varies in the several Presidencies. In Bengal, it amounts to three farthings per pound (five shillings per maund of eighty-two pounds)—in " 593,129 Madras, upon that manufactured by the Government, to less than a farthing per pound, but upon imported salt, to rather more than three farthings per pound (six shillings per maund of eighty-two pounds);-in Bombay, to rather less than one farthing per pound (one shilling and sixpence per maund); and, in the Punjaub, at the Salt Mines, to rather more than one halfpenny per pound (four shillings per maund). The original cost of the article is rather less than one farthing per pound, at the Salt Agencies in Bengal; so that the tax levied at Calcutta makes the selling price there four times more than the cost price. Of course, the The Revenue of India. trader is entitled to a profit upon his As to opium, no person is allowed to grow the poppy throughout the Bengal territories, except on account of the Government. Annual engagements are entered into by the cultivators, under a system of pecuniary advances, to sow a certain quantity of land with the poppy, and the whole produce, in the form of opium, is delivered to the Government at a fixed rate.' The cultivation of the poppy is allowed to all parties in the Presidency of Bombay, but the Government purchase all that is produced. The opium grown in the native states pays transit duties on passing through the British territories for exportation. The working of this branch of the revenue may be thus shown: Fixed price at which Bengal opium = . £28 0 0 Leaving a profit to the govern- This tax is, therefore, open to grave 495 the form of a restriction upon the em- |