‘Sure, sir, there was not the leastest bit of harrum in the song at all, at all. It was a very good song, all about ould Oireland. I'll just sing you a verse of it that you may see for yerself.'
A Eurasian boy in the school at Trichinopoly thus described the British soldier in an essay:
‘The soldier has to learn how to fight and how to shoot and how to drill. He works all the morning in the guard-room. When he is not on duty, he and five other soldiers take a carriage and drive round the town. This is their favourite amusement. They stop many times to drink, and at the end of the afternoon they are quite drunk. Then they fight the natives in the bazaar until the police take them away. It takes many police-peons to catch and hold them. Ten peons on each side are hardly sufficient for one English soldier when he is drunk. When his time is up in this country he returns to England and is made a lord.'
