speedily. The detained ones would sit quiet for several hours where they were, and would then remark, in a wheedling manner, that if the noble tahsildar sahib would accept a quarter of what was due, they had brought so much, and would then calmly proceed to untie a handful of rupees from the girdle of one of the party.

The tahsildar would make no remark till this sum had been received and counted, when he would say, haughtily enough, 'Now, rascals, pay the rest at once!'

The defaulters would forthwith protest vehemently that now the tahsildar had wrung from them the very last farthing; they hadn't another copper coin to buy a mouthful; might they depart? No answer, of course, being received to this, and the afternoon wearing on, another of the party would casually remark that he happened to have brought with him such and such a further sum, which he would proceed to extract from the folds of his turban. More menaces would produce further disgorgements. Another of the party would suddenly bethink him that he certainly had twenty-three rupees tied up in the corner of the cotton sheet which he was wearing at that moment, but that he was badly in want of a pair of bullocks, and was going to purchase them this very day, if the noble tahsildar would kindly represent to the glorious collector sahib the sad embarrassments of his humble servant. The tahsildar would listen to all this nonsense unmovedly, and rejoin with a brief, 'Silence, pig! pay up your revenue at once.' When all that was due had been paid (and perhaps a trifle besides as douceur to the tahsildar and his underlings) the party would get cheerfully up, salaam low to the tahsildar, and march off to their distant village, by no means disheartened at having had to pay, but quite content to have lost a day

in trying hard to get out of some of the burden, and somewhat puzzled that the old severities common enough under native rule had not been employed to make them disgorge earlier. The conversation on the way home would probably allow that the Synd-jee (the tahsildar) was a mild-tempered man, and if he or his satellites had grasped only a moderate douceur, he would be probably highly lauded as unusually benevolent.

This kind of thing is now comparatively rare. All know that mere words of remonstrance are perfectly ineffectual unless grounded on substantial facts.

In case of total inability or determined obstinacy, the tahsildar reports the matter to his superior, the collector of the district, who, after enquiry, can enforce the Govern ment demand by distraint of the defaulter's property, or by lease or sale of the land on which the arrear accrued, or, finally, can proceed against the defaulter's person, and keep him in prison for a moderate period. This latter mode of procedure has, however, for many years past become almost obsolete.

The land revenue, though by far the most important, is, however, not the only source of Government revenue. The excise upon spirits and upon intoxicating drugs, and the revenue from the sale of stamp paper, are two considerable sources of income, and are both managed by officers of the Civil Service.

Various systems have been tried in respect to the management of the excise. The plan of farming out the monopoly of the manufac ture and sale of spirits in each district has been attempted. Latterly an awkward system of Government distilleries has been in vogue. Large enclosures have been erected, and sheds constructed, within which alone the distillers are allowed to erect their stills, and carry on their manufacture. A heavy tax per gallon

is levied and is paid before the manufactured article is allowed to be removed from the distillery by the retail vendors. An attempt was made to engraft upon this system the English method of levying a duty proportionate to the strength of the spirit. The whole plan is complicated and objectionable, and nothing is stranger than to see Sykes' hydrometers manipulated in a dirty mud enclosure, guiltless of chairs or tables, by a native, who barely understands how to read the figures denoting the specific gravity and the temperature. Moreover, the whole method is peculiarly open to fraud, and we believe that these details have now been abolished. The object in view is wisely recognised as being to raise the tax to that height which will most enhance the price without offering inducement enough to encourage smuggling.

The stamp revenue, though a perfectly novel importation from Europe, has been found very productive and easily digestible by native constitutions. Theoretically it is doubtless objectionable, as Mr. Mill has long ago pointed out.

But there are everywhere, and especially in India, an immense number of cases where litigation is resorted to as an exciting occupation and amusement, owing to the faults of both parties, and in such cases it is as fair to make litigants pay for their law as for any other superfluous luxury. Where all the fault is on one side the courts of justice have it in their power to throw the chief burden of the costs on the aggressor, and this power they always exercise. In any case, despite of theoretical objections, it is hardly to be expected that in a country like India a tax which produces so much with so little friction will be speedily relinquished. It is a tax which costs a mere fraction to realise. The stamp paper is consigned to the district collector, who simply pro

vides for its safe custody and for its sale by agents located in different parts of his jurisdiction, who are reimbursed for their trouble by a trifling commission on the sales.

As Government banker of his district, the collector has another very important and responsible duty to perform. As the Government revenues are paid in to the tahsildars, they forthwith despatch the amount in hard cash to the collector at head-quarters, where it is at once deposited in the Government treasury. Every coin that comes in is tested by professional testers, who with wonderful rapidity and accuracy daily pass large sums, all in silver. The treasurer is a native officer of known respectability, who gives heavy security for his fidelity, but the collector is himself personally responsible for the safety of the entire sum in his charge. The treasury buildings are usually constructed with great solidity. Each treasure chest is under double locks, the keys of which are kept, the one by the collector, the other by the native treasurer. A guard of armed police keep watch over the treasury night and day, a not unnecessary precaution when it is learnt that sums of 100,000l. to 200,000l. in silver are not unfrequently lying at one time. in a single district treasury.

Periodical reports are duly sent to the superior revenue authority in the province, the Board of Revenue, as to the progress made in realising the Government demands.

All Government payments in the district are made by its collector. The pay of all the Government establishments, the expenditure of the Army, Commissariat, and Public Works Departments, all passes through the collector's hands. Of course voluminous accounts are requisite, and are daily kept up.

The treasury accounts are regularly submitted to the AccountantGeneral of the province. This officer knows the the approximate

requirements of each district, and is kept constantly informed of its actual cash balance. With him accordingly is left the decision as to the movement of bullion from one district treasury to another, or to the metropolis of the province. Some idea will now have been gained as to the duties of a 'collector' as Government banker. It is obvious that here, again, he requires a number of subordinates. Accordingly he has usually under him a deputy-collector, acquainted with accounts, who is placed by him in charge of the treasury, but subject to his own general control. He has besides a competent staff of clerks, English or English-speaking and native.

For the accuracy and punctual preparation of the accounts, as for the safety of the treasure itself, the collector is personally responsible. Personally he has, in most cases, little to do with the work of the accounts, but he must strictly super

vise those who do it, and must therefore thoroughly understand this as all other departments of his duty.

We shall not deal here with the chief remaining sources of Imperial income, viz. the customs, the opium monopoly, and the taxes on salt and saltpetre, as these departments do not fall within the category of du ties performed by the Civil Service, properly so called.

How the duties of Collectors, at first purely fiscal, gradually and necessarily developed into functions of a quasi-legal character, and at last became avowedly judicial, remains to be explained.

A brief discussion of this subject -of the functions of the district officer as chief magistrate and head of police, and of the relations of district officers to the supervising authorities-revenue, judicial and administrative-must be reserved for future papers.

Y.

IN

Nthe modern Roman Martyrology we find on July 1 St. Symeon Salos given as a confessor, approved by Rome as a model for Christians to take example by. M. Wratislaw has lately drawn attention to St. John Nepomucen, and has shown how careless Rome has been in her assertions about the circumstances and the date of his martyrdom. The case of St. Symeon Salos also deserves attention.

The life of this saintly personage comes to us on excellent authority. The patron of Symeon in Edessa, and the witness of his acts, was a certain simple-minded John the Deacon. Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, whose Apology for Sacred Images was accepted and approved by the Second Council of Nicæa, was acquainted with this John the Deacon, and from his account of the doings of Symeon wrote the life, in Greek, which has come down to us entire. It is one of the most curious and instructive of early Christian biographies.

Evagrius, the historian, also a contemporary of Symeon, makes mention of him in his Church History (lib. iv. c. 34).

The story of Symeon is as follows: In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, two young Syrians came to Jerusalem to assist at the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The name of one was John, and the name of the other was Symeon. John, a young man of two and twenty, was accompanied by his bride, a beautiful and wealthy girl, to whom he had been very lately married, and by his old father. With Symeon was his widowed mother, aged eighty.

The festival having terminated, the pilgrims started on their return

to Edessa, and had reached Jericho, when John, reining in his horse, bade the caravan proceed, whilst he and his comrade Symeon tarried behind. The two young men flung themselves from their horses on the coarse grass. In the distance, near Jordan, glimmered the white walls of a monastery, and a track led towards it from the main road followed by the caravan.

'What place is that?' asked Symeon.

It is the home of angels.' 'Are the angels visible?' Symeon enquired.

'Only to those who elect to follow their manner of life,' answered John, and descanted to his companion on the charms of a monastic life. 'Let us cast lots,' he said, 'whether we shall follow the road to the convent, or that which the caravan has pursued.' They cast lots, and the decision was for the life of angels.

So they turned into the road that led to Jordan and the monastery, and as they went they encouraged each other. For, we are told, John. feared lest the love Symeon bore to his old widowed mother would draw him back, and Symeon dreaded the effects of the remembrance of the fair young bride on John.

On reaching the monastery, which was that of St. Gerasimus, the abbot, named Nicon, received them cordially, and gave them a long address on the duties and excellencies of the monastic life. Then both fell at his feet and besought him at once to shear off their hair. The abbot hesitated, and spoke to each in private, urging a delay of a year, but Symeon boldly said, 'My compa nion may wait, but I cannot. If you will not shear my head at once,

I will go to some other monastery where they are less scrupulous.' Then he added, 'Father, I pray thee, ask the Lord to be gracious to and strengthen my comrade John, that the remembrance of his young wife, to whom he has been only lately married, draw him not back.' And when the abbot spoke to John, 'My father,' said he, 'pray for my comrade Symeon, who has a widowed mother of eighty years, and they have been inseparable night and day; he dearly loves her, and has been wont never to leave the old woman alone for two hours in the day. I fear me lest his love for his mother make him take his hand from the plough and look back.'

So the abbot cut off their hair, and promised on the morrow to clothe them with the religious habit. Then some of the members crowding round them congratulated the neophytes that on the morrow 'they would be regenerated and cleansed from all sin.' The young men, unaccustomed to monastic language, were alarmed, thinking that they were about to be rebaptised, and went to the abbot to remonstrate. He allayed their apprehensions by explaining to them that the monks alluded to their putting on the 'angelic habit.'

John and Symeon did not long remain in the abbey before a wish came upon them to leave it. Accordingly, in the night, they made their escape, and rambled in the desert to the east of the Dead Sea, till they lighted on a cave which had once been tenanted by a hermit, but was now without inhabitant. The date-palms and vegetables in the garden grew untouched, and the friends settled in the cave to follow the lives of the desert solitaries.

Their peace of mind was troubled for long by thoughts of the parent and wife left behind. 'O Lord, comfort my old mother,' was the

incessant prayer of Symeon; ‘0 Lord, dry the tears of my young wife,' was the supplication of John. At length Symeon had a dream in which he saw the death of his mother, and shortly after John was comforted by a vision which assured him that his wife was no more.

After a while Symeon informed his comrade that he could not rest in the cave, but that he was resolved to serve God in the city. He felt there were souls to be saved in the world, and that he had a call to labour for their conversion.

This announcement filled John with dismay. He wept, and intreated Symeon not to desert him. 'What shall I do, alone, in this wild ocean of sand? O my brother, I thought that death alone would have separated us, and now thou tearest thyself away of thine own will.

Thou knowest I have forsaken all my kindred, and I have thee only, my brother, and will my brother desert me ?'

'Do thou, John, remember me in thy prayers here in the desert, whilst I struggle in the world; and I will also pray for thee. But go I must.'

"Then,' said John, solemnly, 'be on thy guard, brother Symeon, lest what thou hast acquired in the desert be lost in the world; lest what silence has wrought, bustle destroy. destroy. Above all, beware lest that modesty, which seclusion from women has fostered, fail thee in their society; and lest the body, wasted with fasting here, surfeit there. Beware, also, lest laughter take the place of gravity, and worldly solicitude break up the serenity of the soul.'

He had good cause to give this advice, as the sequel proves; but Symeon gave no heed to the exhortation, answering, 'Fear not for me, brother; I am not acting on my own impulse, but on a Divine call."

Then they wept on one another's