On the whole, the modern Indian police system may be said to operate well. The police have numerous duties over and above those of the prevention and detection of crime. A Government so paternal as that of India finds the machinery of the police exceedingly useful in keeping in touch with the great masses of the population. The constable is the agent through whom the Government issues its orders or conveys its wishes. If the people are wanted in any large numbers, such as for the identification of bodies found, and if foul play is suspected, it is the police who beat the drum and call them in. When supplies are needed, such as carts, camels, bullocks, or forage, for any military expedition, it is the police who work upon the men of the villages and gather in what is required. When a high functionary had discovered a cure for snake bites, it was the police who were entrusted with its distribution through the districts most troubled with poisonous reptiles. The particular panacea was liquid ammonia, which had to be applied at once and in a particular way. It was not only necessary, therefore, to issue supplies of the useful drug, but all the headmen of villages had to be taught how to use it; this was the duty of the police. Again, when the Government once seriously attempted to exterminate snakes, and offered a reward for every dead reptile brought in, the machinery of the police was at once set in motion to encourage natives to hunt up and kill the snakes, and afterwards to distribute the rewards. When the plague of locusts overran the length and breadth of the land, the police were sent out to organise beaters and instruct the villagers how to destroy the terrible pest. Another plague, that of rats, the jerboa rat, which travels like a kangaroo by leaps and bounds and eats up everything it meets, was to be grappled with by the police, and though they do not seem to have been very effective in destroying the pest, it became their business to pay out the rewards for all the vermin killed. An interesting detail in Government methods may be mentioned in this connection. The rats, when destroyed, were buried or burnt, but the tails were first cut off and tied up into neat little bundles like radishes, which were produced as vouchers for the numbers destroyed. A police official records that the travelling police superintendents were called upon to make entries in their diaries such as: "Visited Bangalpore, counted 10,000 rats' tails, paid the reward, burnt the tails." The police have also rendered very valuable services during famines, when their labours increase ten-and twenty-fold. Not only does crime multiply in these dread seasons, but the force is actively employed in helping to establish relief camps, in hunting up and bringing in the starving population, in passing on supplies of grain from the railway stations to the out-districts, and so forth.