The _Sircar_ is a genius whose whole study is to handle money, whether receivable or payable; and who contrives either to confuse accounts, when they are adverse to his view; or to render them most expressively intelligible, when such would suit his purpose. These rogues are pretty nearly the same as the Madras _debashes_: I believe all, who have experienced the kind offices of either, will readily confess that no compleater knaves are to be found in any part of the world. And this under the most sedulous appearance both to please, and to serve, those whom they are about to plunder. As _peons_ and _hirkarahs_ rise to be _chobe-dars_, and _jemmadars_; and as _khedmutgars_ succeed to the appointment of _kansamahs_; so may _sircars_ in time become _banians_, _dewans_, _darogahs_, _gomastahs_, &c. Many of them even set up as _shroffs_, or bankers, and establish such an extent of credit as would astonish the inhabitants of Lombard Street. There are _sircars_ of all ages, and of all degrees; from the shrewd lad of twelve, to the superannuated monster, whose sixty, or seventy, years of worldly intercourse, may be considered a record of fraud and extortion. Nothing can perhaps be more forcible in exposing the characteristic traits of _sircars_, than the fact of their ordinarily tendering their services to young men, under the declaration that _they seek for no pay_; nor for remuneration in any form, beyond the _pleasure_ of laying out master’s money to the best advantage. I should premise, that, on account of the immense variety of coins current in India, it is customary, whenever any large sum is to be received, to employ an examiner, called a _podar_; who, having confined his pursuits to the acquirement of a most accurate knowledge of their several values, at once decides upon the correctness of a payment. The precision, quickness, and touch, of these persons, are beyond description. I have been assured that many of them can, even in the dark, distinguish between several kinds of money, whose size and weight bear no great dissimilarity: besides, even those coins that bear the same value, and come from the same mint, differ greatly in both those particulars; some being broad and flat, like a shilling, though not defaced; while others are more dumpy, and, though of purer metal, not so ponderous.