But the whole policy of this great and vigorous ruler, by a curious irony of fate, had steadily prepared the minds of the Indian races for a revolution. Dalhousie had covered India with railways, canals, roads, and telegraphs. He had introduced a cheap postal system by which a letter from Peshawur to Cape Comorin, or from Assam to Kurrachee, was carried for three farthings--one-sixteenth of the old charge. He had reformed the Civil Service, he had improved education and prison discipline, he had passed laws that went to the root of family life, such as those permitting Hindoo widows to marry again, and relieving persons who changed their religion from forfeiture. As for his wars and his annexations, he had the “tyrant plea, necessity.” When leaving Calcutta he said mournfully, and with a trace of misgiving, as he looked back on his brilliant achievements, “I have played out my part, and while I feel that in my case the principal act in the drama of my life is ended, I shall be content if the curtain should now drop on my public career.” But the great work done by Dalhousie had not been done without friction between the paramount power and its subjects and vassals. It was, indeed, thought in England that Dalhousie handed India over to Lord Canning in a state of profound tranquillity. Yet, looking deeper than the surface, says an able writer on Indian history, “there were latent causes of uneasiness which largely pervaded the minds of the Native classes of all ranks and creeds.”[332] Dalhousie’s system of progressive education was detested by Hindoo and Moslem alike, because it undermined the whole fabric of their faith. The Moslem youth, it is true, did not frequent the English schools. But young Hindoos flocked to them with an eager thirst for knowledge, and they went to the missionary seminaries, where Christianity was taught, quite as freely as to State schools, where its teaching was prohibited. In their homes, they spoke of what they were taught to their parents, who regarded the whole system of English education as a diabolical device for corrupting the faith and morals of their children. This suspicion was strengthened and confirmed by the aggressive proselytism of the missionaries, to whose zeal one of the soundest and best informed of Native civilians has directly traced the origin of the Mutiny. The entire scheme of Dalhousie’s policy was based on the assumption that the Natives would greet with loyalty and gratitude the new era of progress that he ushered in. On the contrary, as Colonel Meadows Taylor says, “the material progress of India was unintelligible to the Natives in general. A few intelligent and educated persons might understand the use and scope of railways, telegraphs, steam-vessels, and recognise in them the direction of a great Government for the benefit of the people; but the ancient listless conservativism of the population at large was disturbed by them. ‘The English,’ it was