Page:Baboohurrybungsh00anstiala.djvu/208

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186
BABOO HURRY BUNGSHO

populated and productive than the most ordinary districts of Bengal.

Oh, you pusillanimous Highland chiefs and other misters! how long will you tamely submit to such offhanded treatment? Will the day never come when, with whirling sporrans and flashing pibrochs you will rise against the alien oppressor, and demand Home Rule, together with the total abolition of present disdainful British insouciance?

When that day dawns—if ever—please note this piece of private intelligence from an authorised source: Young Bengal will be with you in your struggle for Autonomy. If not in body, assuredly in spirit. Possibly in both.

I say no more, in case I should be accused of trying to stir up seditious feelings; but, as a patriotic Baboo gentleman, my blood will boil occasionally at instances of stuck-up English self-sufficiency, and the worm in the bud, if nipped too severely, may blossom into a rather formidable serpent!

As, for instance, when, in the course of an inoffensive promenade, I am addressed by an underbred street-urchin as a "blooming blacky," and cannot induce a policeman to compel my aggressor to furnish me with his name and address or that of his parents, or even to offer the most ordinary apology.

Enough of these rather bitter reflections, however. I omitted to mention that I am also the