The Humour and Pathos of Anglo-Indian Life: Extracts from his brother's note-book, made by Dr. TicklemoreMayer, J. E.
General
The Humour and Pathos of Anglo-Indian Life: Extracts from his brother's note-book, made by Dr. Ticklemore
Mayer, J. E.
British -- India; India -- Social life and customs
'Thank you, sir, for your advice; but, really, unless the Colonel and
yourself resolve to burn my house over my head and me in it, I don't see
what is likely to happen. I am a British subject, sir, although an
unprotected woman. You threaten to break open my doors, and to expose my
property outside the house, to be spoiled by sun and rain and
night-dews; try it, sir, and lay yourself and your gallant chief open to
a civil action in the Supreme Court. There the judges, thank Heaven!
care not two pins for your cantonment law. You cannot bring me, being a
woman, to a court-martial for disobedience to orders; and I am advised,
by those who do know something of law, that as I came here before your
new rules were made, and besides hold a lease granted under cantonment
law five years ago, you cannot legally turn me out. Go home, sir, and
think of some cunning way by which, as gentlemen, and men of honour, you
can show courtesy and respect to an unprotected lady, the widow of a
brother officer; turn over in your generous minds how by violence and
intimidation you can effect that which you cannot effect by law.'
Here Captain Pomposo, all but frantic, called out: 'Mrs. G.--Mrs. G.,
pray consider what you say, pray have----' But Mrs. G. refused to
consider anything, or to hear anything; she shut down the window and
pulled down the blinds. The 'immortal' had nothing for it but to ride to
Colonel L.'s house and report the success of his undertaking.
When Colonel L. heard the result of Captain W.'s attempt to take
possession of the bungalow, he was utterly confounded--I might say
almost horror-struck. Resistance to military authority in a military
cantonment had never, even in his dreams, assumed a tangible shape, or
appeared even as a distant or possible contingency; and now he had to
face it as a positive, undeniable reality. Actually in a cold
perspiration he said, after pausing a minute or two: 'But what are we to
do? I never met with such a case before, and never heard of such a case;
the thing is so preposterous and unnatural, as well as unprecedented,
that I am really at a loss. If it was a man I had to do with I should
know what to do; but really, independent of the scandal and absurdity of
the thing, to engage in a contest with an old woman, and to run the
chance of getting the worst of it, places me in a position I never for a
moment contemplated. I am fairly perplexed, and truly would rather again
face "la Vieille Garde" with Ney at their head than face this dreadful
Mrs. G. Great pity women were ever admitted into cantonments; they
always give trouble and always cause trouble.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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