the Thugs are our own countrymen. To conquer them is your and my work. So long as we fear our own brethren, we are unfit to reach the goal.
Chapter IX
The Condition of India (Continued)
Railways
Reader: You have deprived me of the consolation I used to have regarding peace in India.
Editor: I have merely given you my opinion on the religious aspect, but when I give you my views as to the poverty of India you will perhaps begin to dislike me, because what you and I have hitherto considered beneficial for India no longer appears to me to be so.
Reader: What may that be?
Editor: Railways, lawyers and doctors have impoverished the country, so much so that, if we do not wake up in time, we shall be ruined.
Reader: I do now indeed fear that we are not likely to agree at all. You are attacking the very institutions which we have hitherto considered to be good.
Editor: It is necessary to exercise patience. The true inwardness of the evils of civilization you will understand with difficulty. Doctors assure us that a consumptive clings to life even when he is about to die. Consumption does not produce ap-
