The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal may be said to be the permanent head of the social system in Calcutta. It is to him that the native community especially look as the fountain of honour, and as the dispenser of patronage in his province. Nor are the European portion of the public by any means backward in seeking His Honour’s favour and patronage on behalf of themselves and their young friends and relations who are sent out to India to find a livelihood. It is a fact that there is hardly a member of Her Majesty’s Government or of Her Majesty’s Opposition who has not an application lying before the Lieutenant-Governor for an appointment to be given to some connection or acquaintance. If such applications come all the way from England, it may be imagined how much more numerous they must be from those persons who live in India, and have more or less a personal acquaintance with the Lieutenant-Governor’s existence. For every appointment that he bestows he has the satisfaction of knowing that the old proverb is true, and that whilst the successful candidate is probably ungrateful, there are at least nine other disappointed men who henceforth look upon the Lieutenant-Governor as an enemy. It must not be supposed that the Lieutenant-Governor is unprotected against the swarm of applicants for places and patronage. He has his official secretaries and his private secretaries to guard the outworks, and with good reason “_difficiles aditus primos habet_.” The inexperienced applicant may be baffled in many ways. He may be informed that he has not applied through the proper channel. He has knocked at the private door when he ought to have gone to the official gateway. If he succeeds in effecting an entrance, and in obtaining an interview with the private secretary, he is met with courteous words, but he must be very fortunate or very strongly backed up if he is permitted to get a glimpse of the Lieutenant-Governor. He is requested to leave his papers and his address, and to await an answer. The young man departs, feeling confident that he has effected a lodgment, and that he has created a favourable impression, and so he goes away with a light heart. He little knows that as soon as his back is turned, the private secretary, in an unimpassioned and business-like manner, passes on the papers to a clerk, with an order, “Give this gentleman our No. 1 form.” There are three or four stereotyped forms of letter in the private secretary’s office ready for issue to all candidates. When a neatly-written letter in a fine official cover stamped “On Her Majesty’s Service,” reaches the candidate’s address, he finds, not the appointment which he coveted, but an intimation that his name will be inserted in the list of candidates for it, and that the Lieutenant-Governor regrets that he can hold out no immediate hopes, &c. &c. There is sometimes an unfortunate person who treasures a letter of this kind, and is weak enough after a short