Hill Scandals

by Sidney L. Blanchard.

Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.1 #2 (Dec 1866).

We are always hearing from India of Hill Scandals. They seem to be an institution-in the country. Are they of a class by themselves? Do they differ from scandals that occur in the plains? Are valley scandals in any way to be distinguished from them? Such questions may well occur to the uninitiated reader. The fact is that Hill Scandals are simply the representative scandals of the Empire. Scandals are not unplentiful in the plains; and where we venture to have any thing to do with valleys, they assert themselves and frequently come to the front. But the Hills are their home. Elsewhere mountainous regions usually claim a moral superiority over flat country. One hears sometimes in poetry of a vale inspiring contentment, or some other of the calmer virtues; but no one has a word to say for the level. It is in the mountains that people are true to their fatherland and their first love and all the finer instincts of their nature. Why is it, then, that in India the Hills (they are mountains, but our countrymen take a delight in degrading grandeur to which they are accustomed) bear such a bad name for scandals? Well, the main reason is that the Hills are not the homes of Anglo-Indians, not even their habitual residence. They betake themselves to their slopes as an occasional retreat, for the sake of health, or pleasure, or a judicious combination of both; and the result is too frequently a disastrous amount of success. The political consequences of the Hills would make a long catalogue of disasters. There was a distinguished party of public men once up at Simla, who, had they been merely a distinguished party of private men, would have found a safety-valve for their superfluous spirits in winning one another's money, or flirting with one another's wives. But their exuberance took a political direction, and the consequence was—the Affghan war. Nothing so mischievous as that has since been done in the Hills; but they are still the cause of a great deal being done in the plains that ought not to be done at all. "If we do not get rid of Simla," said a sagacious Anglo-Indian some years ago, "Simla will get rid of us." And it is a remarkable fact that whenever any thing is going wrong in India, the authorities, instead of meeting it upon the spot, are always telegraphing about it from the Hills. A frontier war, or a famine, are favourite occasions for absence in these charming retreats; and in the latter event—as recent accounts testify—it is quite possible for half the population of a province to die of starvation.
        But I will not venture to dwell upon this disaster, or I may say worse of the Hills than I wish. For the most part, the evil that they do is of a social kind, and does not extend beyond their holiday visitors. These are mainly members of the services—civil and military—who go up on leave for limited periods, and are naturally inclined to make the most of their time. And this, it must be confessed, is usually a very harmless process. The majority are contented with such ordinary enjoyments as are to be derived from living in a house having more or less the appearance of a Swiss cottage, situated on the terraced side of a mountain at a fabulous height above the level of the sea. With dwelling in a paradise of pines and rhododendrons, to say nothing of wild flowers of all kinds in prodigal profusion, and more luxuriant than tame flowers elsewhere. With being able, on account of the genial cold and rarefied atmosphere, which does not absorb the rays of the sun, to wander about all day in defiance of that luminary. With walking or riding, according to choice, up and down the steep paths, along the pleasant terraces, over the roofs of the houses, which at a short distance off look as if perched upon each other's heads. Or it may be with a jaunt into the interior, where the stealthy hyena and the cheerful baboon of daily life are varied by such incitements to sportsmanship as the leopard and the bear. And further, with having the club as a continual resource, the theatre as an occasional one, and balls and dinner-parties a perennial source of active and not merely passive satisfaction.
        These characteristics are common, if not to all the minor Hill stations, at any rate to Simla and Mussoorie, the favourite sanataria of the North-west. These, which are only some twelve marches apart, have most points of resemblance in common; the difference being that Simla is more grand than Mussoorie, and Mussvorie more pretty than Simla. Looking upon them both as ladies, I should say that Simla would have great proud eyes, masses of dark hair; would look well in velvet and diamonds; and if she picked you up to take you any where, would come in a carriage on C-springs, with a coronet on the panel: while Mussoorie would have vain rather than proud eyes, and be inclined to hair of the agreeable carrot colour now in vogue; would be fresh rather than rich in her toilette; would probably wear a turban hat; and if you called to conduct her to a croquet party, would take your arm without its being offered, and stop every two minutes to stare at the shop-windows. Does the reader understand what I mean now? Not that Simla is otherwise than affable, or even free-and-easy, or even a great deal too free-and-easy at times. It is a little more grand in its manner, that is all; and this is accounted for by the fact that the Viceregal court is usually there in the season, in addition to the establishment of the Commander-in-Chief. For courts would be courts, even though they were held in a two-pair back. I am convinced that if a Viceroy and his Aide-de-Camp were cast on a desert island, and had to live like a couple of Robinson Crusoes for twenty years, they would not forget their relative positions. The Viceroy, for instance, would never have to chop the wood for his own fire; and although he might insist upon making his own goatskin breeches, the Aide-de-Camp would be in attendance to keep the needles threaded, and to hand the clasp-knife which would probably do duty for a pair of scissors.
        The mention of an Aide-de-Camp reminds me that I have to deal with Hill Scandals; to which I shall add a few words about the plains, and some moral reflections of an appropriate character, from which I hope my readers, both in England and India, will derive advantage. The reason why there are more scandals—that is to say, more persons who conduct themselves improperly and get into scrapes—in the Hills than the plains is, in the first place, because the majority of them have nothing to do; and, in the second place, because they are in such an exuberant state of health and spirits, caused by the habitual society of either the lady in the black velvet and diamonds, or the lady in the turban hat and balmorals (I forgot to say that Mussoorie would wear balmorals), as to use up even the charming succession of disportments which I have described as being at their disposal. Moreover, the society, though numerous, is unvaried. There are arrivals and departures; but the personnel of the place remains at the end much as it was in the beginning; and that state of things lasting for several months together leads to the establishment of tolerably intimate relations between those who do not happen to quarrel. People know a great deal about one another in the plains, where your income is ascertainable to a fraction, and the amount of your debts calculable with almost equal accuracy; where your position and prospects are sharply defined in the clear mental atmosphere, and your measure is taken morally with a precision which might reduce the art of knowing the worst to one of the exact sciences. Nevertheless, in this kind of information the Hills beat the plains hollow. What is merely within your reach when below, is forced upon your attention when above; and that dreadful condition of having nothing to do makes you a more liable recipient than you would otherwise be.
        It is the intimate knowledge which every body has of every body else which is the occasion of most of the scandals that occur in India; and the Hills, as we see, are more prolific in producing them, simply because all the conditions are intensified in their case. Even the slight check imposed by what passes for "the public" in the work-a-day world of the plains scarcely exists in the holiday atmosphere of the hills. The few tradesmen who have their abode in the latter regions are there for the purpose of making their fortunes out of the wants of the rest. They are quite as independent as is compatible with that object; nobody will deny that. And they have a few companions of their own class who are "up," like other people, for the benefit of their health and animal spirits. But these do not, of course, constitute a public; and not even such a necessity as a newspaper seems to be in the most remote parts of the Empire, though several times planted, has ever been known thoroughly to take root. En revanche, there is a great deal of writing to the papers down below, in reference to every proceeding of the community above, on the part of "our own correspondents" of all classes. To every locality in the plains where people would care to know, the minutest particulars of what passes in the Hills are furnished by the most observing pens. At the beginning of the season a careful estimate is made of what is to come; the question whether the place is to be moderately or immoderately attended, and the prospects of amusement in store, being as gravely discussed as if they were matters of important concern. As things progress, you are duly informed of the names of distinguished arrivals, what houses they have taken (the houses are all called by the prettiest names—"Annandale," "Melrose," "Fairlight," &c.), and how long their leave is to last. A careful note is made too of marriageable young ladies—"spins," as they are irreverently called; and alliances to be—which include not to be very often—are referred to with almost American freedom. The doings at Government House are of course chronicled with avidity; but more than this, balls, pic-nics, archery meetings, assemblies of every kind, are recorded as the staple news of the place. Indeed, there is nothing else to record, unless some food for political gossip happens to be available, which it very seldom is. I once heard of a "leading lady" at a certain hill station who wrote down to one of the North-west papers an account of a ball at her own house, in which she gave a satirical picture of some of her own guests; including ladies of course, and not only holding their dresses up to ridicule, but criticising the chaussures which were thus disclosed.
        In former days personal writing was tolerated far more than it is at present, when respectable journals keep clear of it as far as is possible in the midst of so very intimate a society. The practice used to be a constant cause of duels, and was almost as bad as balls in this respect. A lady now advanced in years, who had formerly been a burra beebee in Calcutta, and a great object of admiration, assured me that in her time two or three "meetings" were almost inevitably the consequence of a large ball; and even in these latter days, or at any rate a few years ago, it used to be said that a "row" followed a ball almost as certainly as the report follows the flash of a piece of artillery. "The Dinapore Scandal," of which so much was made a few years ago, began at a ball, owing to a certain brigadier being more assiduous than was considered necessary in replacing a lady's fallen scarf upon her shoulders. There was a great deal of reference to balls in the Mhow Scandal; not that Mhow scandel in which Colonel Crawley was concerned, but one of the several which have occurred within the recollection of most of us at that interesting station. Balls were conspicuously associated with scandals which were talked about, though more or less successfully hushed up, at Simla not many seasons ago; and at Bombay, during a period when the Western Presidency was not remarkable for the strict propriety which has characterised it for some time past, balls continually figured in local disputes. In Sir Charles Napier's time this was especially the case at Simla, where intoxication upon such occasions cost several officers their commission. It was upon gambling and fraudulent transactions connected with money, however, that Sir Charles came out in his strongest colours.
        Such a large number of officers of the Indian army were at that time so disgracefully in debt as to affect the character of the entire service; and to this, as well as to the high play by which it was partly caused, Napier determined to put a stop. There had been great laxity in the way of repression for many years; and though officers were frequently tried by court-martial, convictions were very difficult to obtain. So Sir Charles made war against the courts, bullied them into re-considering their verdicts, and in a very bad case, where the guilt was palpable, he would, though an acquittal were persisted in, exercise his own authority, and remove the offender from the service. Some of the lectures which he appended to the official reports of these proceedings were models of Napierian vigour. One of his commentaries he concluded by saying, "These orders may seem severe, but the commander-in-chief intends them to be so." Upon another occasion he said that a court was utterly unfit for its functions; the president, the members, the judge-advocate—all concerned—were equally incompetent. Remarks of the kind might be quoted by the dozen. There was a great gambling case once at Simla, known as the Great Gambling Case to this day, in which there was something to do with unfair play. The demonstration which Sir Charles made about this affair had a very wholesome effect; and his general razzia against the drunken and indebted cleared the service of those who had brought upon it disgrace. After that time there was a marked improvement in military manners in India; and at present there is no reason for supposing them worse than the manners, military or civil, of our countrymen elsewhere. Brandy-panee, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master, and there are not wanting men of all classes in India who submit themselves to its dictation with too much amiability ;but decidedly fewer scandals arise from this cause than of yore; and those who indulge, do so for the most part decorously, and destroy their constitutions with some regard to gentlemanlike deportment.
        Of the serious scandals which from time to time arise in India, most may be traced more to the familiar terms of intercourse upon which our countrymen live together, and the limited range of association, which begets gossiping and narrows the moral perceptions, than to drinking or even gambling. The original offence may arise, as in the Hills is usually the case, from the causes which I have already assigned—exuberant animal spirits, and the want of something better to do. But let the affair once come before authority, and the parish view of its importance, which is sure to be taken, displays it in the most conspicuous light, lays it bare before the public for months perhaps together, and in short makes the most that could possibly be made of it if the purpose were scandal itself. This is to a great extent the fault of the machinery devised for dealing with military transgressions, and to some extent the fault of authority which employs it without sufficient discretion. If it be otherwise, why do we not hear of civilians getting into scrapes at least with some approach to the frequency of military men? There are reasons why they should not get into quite so many. They have more work to keep them out of mischief, and more money to keep them out of debt. But they have the same tastes, the same passions, the same weaknesses of every kind; and some of them do occasionally get into trouble in consequence. But in their case the affair is quietly arranged; there is no necessary resort to peculiar forms of procedure, which puzzle those who have to conduct them as much as any body else, and of which the consequences are arbitrary and inevitable, admitting of no modification which circumstances might dictate.
        A civilian, ranking as a gentleman, is as jealous of his honour as a military man. He is not called upon to fight for the State; he is not allowed by law, nor of late years by society, to fight for himself; yet no man may impugn his courage without having to answer, in one way or another, for the consequences. Somehow a civilian, even in India, manages to keep his honour intact without any special machinery for the purpose. Even if he bring himself within reach of the law, the consequences are not unnecessarily scandalous. He is tried by a competent tribunal, which disposes of the case by means of intelligible forms, framed for the purpose of promoting justice. But the military man never knows when he is safe. The court that tries him is of such an anomalous kind, that neither its president, members, nor the judge-advocate himself, are certain of the extent of the powers they exercise. Every individual engaged feels that he is himself on his trial, and may be excused if his first object be to keep out of harm's way. The consequence is that the majority of verdicts are given against the prisoners. It is the easiest course, and one usually understood to be most acceptable to authority.
        And here, without endorsing for a moment what appears to be the popular idea, that when a great man and a small man fall out, the great man must be in the wrong, I cannot forbear remarking that military authority in India is not quite the same as military authority in England, or in a colony where there is any thing like a public: If the civil service takes the lead in society, as it professes to do, the military service has naturally enormous power and importance. In all matters affecting its own administration it is independent of the civil authority; and every officer in command, from the Chief downwards, is a despot as far as his range extends. This necessity of discipline leads to occasional scandals in this country, and must do so any where, until officers are more perfect than other men. But in India the evil is aggravated by the absence of healthy restraint, and the natural tendency of any one class who live apart, or nearly so, from the rest of society, to think themselves very much more important persons than they really are.
        This delusion does not sit very gracefully upon the smaller people, and when it takes possession of the larger, is decidedly unbecoming. Moreover, a Captain who thinks Colonels of himself, or a Lieutenant whose idea of his own consequence is measured at least by a majority, are comparatively harmless persons. But a Colonel commanding a regiment, or a General commanding a division—when officers of that kind of rank get it into their heads that they are greater men than they be, their capacity for mischief is immense. And if a colonel or a general can do so much, what are we to say for a commander-in-chief? Let him once entertain an idea of himself as a cleverer and more important person than other people think him or he really is, and his power enables him to do incalculable harm. The responsibility is something akin to that of a man whose dreams should, whether he wished it or not, all come to pass in real life. The effect would be very pleasant while he was in good health and a happy frame of mind, and was conferring fantastic forms of delight and out-of-the-way kinds of happiness upon people right and left. But let any thing go wrong with him; let him have too great an opinion of his own superiority to other people; let him only derange his system temporarily by such a thing as a crab-supper, and what enormous miseries might he not inflict upon his fellow-creatures! That things will sometimes go wrong with men possessed of enormous powers in a country where they can exercise them with impunity, is only to be expected; and the effects of their conceit or crab-suppers, as the case may be, are sometimes very serious.
        As regards the quarrel between the Commander-in-Chief in India and his Aide-de-Camp—which I may as well say suggested these remarks—there has certainly been a most reckless use of power on the only side which had any power to use. The contest was of course hopeless from the first, as far as Captain Jervis was concerned. It may be tyrannous for a giant to use his strength like a giant; but it is too much to expect that he will use it like a dwarf. With the instincts which seem to have animated Sir William Mansfield throughout the proceedings, he could no more have moderated his force than the Irish gentleman could help making a noise with his pistol, though he promised to "fire as softly as he could."
        If a Commander-in-Chief quarrels with a Captain, and the affair gets to a court-martial, the Captain must be ruined if the Chief chooses to use all his authority; for if the court acquits, the Chief can refuse to confirm the proceedings; and if they will not alter their decision, the Chief can declare the prisoner guilty on his own authority, and inflict upon him what punishment he thinks proper. This has been practically done in the present case, for the recommendation to mercy amounted to an acquittal.
        Now without disputing the Horatian maxim about not changing your nature with your skies, it may be safely said that this last "Hill Scandal" would not have occurred in England, though the Commander-in-Chief and his Aide-de-Camp had occupied the same relative positions. In this country the great man would not have made the little man a mere servant; and the little man, on the other hand, would not have assumed unwarrantable freedoms. The kind of service which Sir William Mansfield expected from his Aides-de-Camp was not very different from those which Aides-de-Camp are accustomed to render, except so far as keeping regular household accounts and managing a farm are concerned; though as a general rule the duties are placed upon a friendly footing. But Sir William Mansfield seems to have been always complaining of not getting enough respect and attention, with regard to which I should think him rather more exacting than most of the crowned heads in Europe. His written regulations for the guidance of his staff would be worthy of the court of France in the latter days of Louis XIV. Not only are the substantial duties all strictly defined, but provision is made for the deportment of the Aides-de-Camp to the guests—when they are to rise from their seats at the dinner-table, how soon they may leave the drawing-room, and so forth. Moreover, they are enjoined to consider themselves as much under the command of the Commander-in-Chief's wife as of the Commander-in-Chief himself. I will say nothing worse of all this than describing it as Indian—explainable by the causes pointed out. And Captain Jervis's free-and-easy use of the stores was Indian also. The proceeding sounds strange in this country ;but the assumption that the prisoner intended to pay is quite justified by custom in India, where people continually lend one another wine or beer or mutton, or other articles of domestic requirement, when at out-of-the-way stations, where supplies are precarious. His undertaking the management of the farm is Indian again. All people who care for good mutton up the country join together—generally in parties of four—and keep a flock of sheep, the management of which is assigned to one of the number. In this and many other ways Indians take a practical part in their domestic affairs. How far the care of the farm was consistent with the duties of an Aide-de-Camp is quite another matter. I am only explaining how Captain Jervis got into cette galère.
        Half the Indian scandals, in fact, would never occur in England. Take, for instance, those in the Inniskilling Dragoons. The officers of the regiment would probably have found much more pleasant employment than getting up a conspiracy against their Colonel. The Colonel, if he chose to adopt such a course as imprisoning an adverse witness, would never have been able to do so for months together with impunity. And supposing that he did, the witness would not be likely to die of the confinement in this country.
        One of the thoroughly Indian signs in all these scandals is the deadly animosity which actuates people when they begin to quarrel—the proverbial result of the dearest friends falling out. There is no quarter given or expected. It is war to the knife. It is fortunate that Sir William Mansfield and his Aide-de-Camp met only in court, or a personal encounter of some kind would have been more than probable. As it was, a violent scene took place between the Chief's counsel and the Aide-de-Camp ; nor could the latter resist a tempting opportunity which offered to horse-whip a hostile witness.
        In illustration of the intimate relations of society which give intensity to these quarrels, I may mention that a high official at one of the hill stations once' told me that he had great difficulty through "grass-widows" neglecting to pay their bills—the fault doubtless of the "grass-widowers" in the plains for not being more punctual with remittances. These ladies can apparently be sued—for debts relating to necessaries, I suppose—in the absence of their husbands; for the complaint made was, that whenever my friend ordered them to pay, he always received a pretty little note from the interesting defendant, saying that as he had been so unkind as to decide against her, he must lend her the money to meet the claim ; it was his own fault, she could not help it, &c. With responsibilities like these, the judgment-seat becomes a post of danger as well as a post of honour.
        The mention of "grass-widows" brings me to a fruitful source of Hill Scandals. The separation of husbands and wives—inevitable where the one wants health, and the other wants leisure—is objectionable, if only for the reason that the experiment of seeing how they can do without one another may be attended with success. Of late, however, it must be admitted that we have not heard of any very grave consequences arising from this cause; and one reason may be that the railways not only expedite, but lessen the fatigue of travelling, so that married people—whether in health or not—may manage to meet oftener, though condemned to be apart for a time. In these days, too, a lady in the position in question has at least very few bad examples about her, and must be irreproachable in her conduct, if she wishes to be an ornament of the Viceregal Court. The strictest propriety indeed is the fashion in India in all high places; and such is the care taken to prevent people from being out of the mode, that I heard of a lively lady (who always says more than she means) declaring the other day: "The clergyman is always telling us that it is difficult to be good; for my part I think that up here it is difficult to be bad." This, too, was at Simla. I promised to make some moral reflections, but perhaps this remark will do instead.