However, though there may be individual exceptions to every rule, the mind of the British public is tolerably well made up that Mr. Colepepper is a genuine specimen commissioner of the Indian Civil Service, and we are content to leave them in that belief. But the title of commissioner conveys no sort of distinct idea to the English mind. It is curious how wanting many Indian titles are in precision, or even in affording any suggestion of their meaning. We remember a story where a good-natured old commissioner was sitting at dinner next the colonel of a regiment which had just come to Calcutta from the North-West Provinces. The commissioner casually said to the colonel, “I am the animal which is called a commissioner in this part of the world.” The colonel was immensely delighted. He had been accustomed to their high mightinesses the commissioners of the North-West Provinces; and it was a strange thing to him to find a commissioner speaking almost disrespectfully of his own title. But there are commissioners and commissioners. The commissioner in Bengal is the officer in chief executive charge of a territorial division, each division containing six or seven separate districts, with a total population of about eight or ten millions inhabitants. There are some divisions in which for geographical reasons the area is smaller, and the population of the division less numerous. The commissioner is usually an officer in what may be called the prime of Indian official life, about forty years of age, and of about twenty years’ standing in his service. He is usually selected by Government from the executive officers known as collector-magistrates of districts, and the selection not unfrequently causes considerable jealousy and dissatisfaction, especially if the selected commissioner happens to be junior to any of the collector-magistrates in the division to which he is appointed. The commissioner is the local representative of Government in his own division. The Government sends its orders to him, and he passes them on to the collector-magistrates. On the same principle the collector-magistrates submit their reports to Government through the commissioner. He is the chief local authority, save that the district judges are entirely independent of him; and the judicial independent authority thus established is the recognised constitutional safety-valve, which is intended to provide against any injudicious or casual stretch of authority on the part of the executive. The commissioner is the head of the police throughout his division; but here again there are some subtle niceties of discipline and practice. The commissioner receives written reports from the police, through the district-magistrate, of the progress of their investigations in all heinous and important cases. But his power is limited. He cannot issue direct orders to the actual police officers investigating a case, so as to bid them arrest one suspected person or release another. He may offer