However, notwithstanding that disaster the meeting was a great success, and now, after ten years, that is the principal event I remember of my three years' administration. It stands out in my memory, and I think that probably if the people ever remember me at all it is as the convener of the first regatta for many years. There was an amusing sequel to this defeat by Mandalay. For months afterwards whenever I had an insolvent case in my Court the debtor attributed his failure to this race. The district was "stony broke" in consequence, at least so the insolvents in my Court said. The conversation would run as follows: _The Judge_ (myself). Well, I have read your schedule, and you are five hundred rupees out. How is that? Explain. _Debtor_. I am a honest man, your Honour, and never in debt before. _Myself_. No doubt. How did it happen this time? _Debtor_. Well, your Honour will remember that last October your Honour got up boat races here. _Myself_. Certainly. _Debtor_. And Mandalay sent us a challenge. _Myself_. Well? _Debtor_. Naturally I believed in _our_ boat. (Note the "our"--his and mine). I was sure it must win, and for our [his and my] credit I wagered all I could get on it. _Myself_. Hum! _Debtor_. We lost. _Myself_. There was always a possibility of that. _Debtor_ (indignantly). Not with a fair race. But they drugged our steersman. I call it a swindle, but I had to pay, and consequently am now insolvent and in your Honour's hands. Was there any truth in this? There was no truth, of course. These debtors became insolvent through the action of two or three newly arrived firms of money-lenders. That was clear enough. Possibly they had a rupee or two on the boat race, but that would hardly affect matters. They made this appeal to try to get at me--the man--behind the law in which I was encased. They will do anything to achieve that. Like all human beings they are terrified at law and want to touch humanity, no matter what it does. They can bear from a man what they cannot from a law. This is manifest all through one's official life. People, for instance, will not come to see you in Court, but come to your private house. That is to try to get at the humanity they know you possess. That is what they want--your personality; for it will understand; whereas a law--what can it know of anything? Then there are the dancing troupes for girls. What other amusements have girls but these troupes? They love them. Many girls have told me that it was the practising for the dances which gave a meaning and an interest to their girlhood. It taught them what lessons could never do--grace and elocution and style. It collected the villagers together; it gave a village something to be proud of. There should be such troupes in all big villages, and when the village system is restored there will be no doubt a renaissance of these and other amusements.