The only one suspected within the two and a half
years that I have been in the province was, I grieve to say, a
Christian; and he has been removed from office, to the great
satisfaction of the people, and is never to be employed again.[14]
The only department in which our native public servants do not enjoy
the same advantages of security in the tenure of their office,
prospect of rise in the gradation of rank, liberal scale of pay, and
provision for old age, is the police; and it is admitted on all hands
that there they are everywhere exceedingly corrupt. Not one of them,
indeed, ever thinks it possible that he can be supposed honest; and
those who really are so are looked upon as a kind of martyrs or
penitents, who are determined by long suffering to atone for past
crimes; and who, if they could not get into the police, would
probably go long pilgrimages on all fours, or with unboiled peas in
their shoes.[15]
He who can suppose that men so inadequately paid, who have no
promotion to look forward to, and feel no security in their tenure of
office, and consequently no hope of a provision for old age, will be
zealous and honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very
imperfectly acquainted with human nature--with the motives by which
men are influenced all over the world.
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