Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-12-05

two of the City Of Palaces colleges. These nation
al institutions for spending money under false pre-
fences, are worth a passing glance;inasmuoh as they
are the means of filling several hundred pages of
letter press, annually, IN the shape of Reports on
Palatial Education. The halls and rooms are vast
enough the ~punkahs swing lazily enough the
professors-with one or two exceptions-d do little
enough the classes are select enough and truly
the cost is heavy enough, to satisfy the most high
ly gifted Of the Covenanted. Consequently, these
expensive gardens for cultivating the Great Sahara
tree of knowledge, are cminently successful in
their way,
1t is true there is one or two Certainly not more)
gentlemen Of distinguished ability and character
filling the chairs, but the bulk Of toe Seated are
worthy of the covenanted head of the department;
who, not long since maintained .hat chcmistry is u
branch of electricity! The salaries of the profes.
scrs and principals range between twelve hundred
pounds and four hundred pounds per
per tanum the highest rate securing the
least amount of labor, namely four hours a week
the average toll for each professor being eight
hours weekly. The ordinary instruction impaired,
is, by means OF reading aloud, and a few questions
asked by the chair upon the subject in hand
Sometimes one or two sentences mag be given the
youths of the class, who write their construction
of taem on slips of paper. A professor of litera-
ture was recently desired by the head of the de-
partment who has such original IDEAS concerning
chemistry ito undertake the geological class, in adj
dition to his own. The gentleman pleaded his ut
tVi iShoThuCc VI ScUlOSy, UuI was aSSuTeu tnnt MS
non-acquaintance with the science did not in the
least disqualify him in the eyes of the department.:
he could very easily cram and read lectures from
books, Of which there were plenty in the library.
All this accounts for the immense proficiency at
tanned by the pupils who 60 to school in the City of
Palaces.
The General Post'OAice, the Post-OHice for oil
Eastern, Central and Northern India-with branch
Offices two thousand miles distant, ct the foot of
the snowy Himalayas, in the remotest corner of
cold Assam, on the borders of Cabai, next door to
the Vale Of Cashmere, round the corner of the Bay
Of Bengal, amidst the golden padodas of Burmah;
is, indeed, a remarkable establishment an institu.
ton worthy of our closest attention There it
stands, opposite to Metcalf Hall, close to the mud
dy banks of the Hooghly. Round the old rickety
pair of gates, are q number of Indo-H ibernian
jauntingcars. very dirty, very DID,; and very crowd
ed, with dirty old Arabs, or Hindoos. or Assamese.
: 1t is not easy to tell who they are, bedecked with
shabby may coulored robes of green, blue, red and
D yellow. These are the Calcutta local postmen.-
Within the neglected gates you gaze about tho mar.
u row crowded court yard searching for the Lahore
$ mail, or the express for the Himalayas. Is it q
D camel cart, an elephant coach, or q buffalo spring
wagon? Nothing of the kind is to be seen within
n these queer pent up premises. You perceive no.
thing but q crowd of dirty carts, some light and
e very weak vans, and no end of broken tin cases
and wooden boxes, scattered about in all directions.
Along one side and end of the yard are q series
o of d%isjointed tiled buildings low decent looking
e sheds with small doors and wooden barred windows
D No two of them are alike. They appear to have
e been built by masons of a multiplicity of tastes
Y and were it not for a number of a2ertures for Let.
tiers stamped and unstamped, and Newspapers for
y Europe in various odd corners of the yard under
, small verandahs and behind dwarf windows, no
one could for a moment imagine that any postal
( transactions were carried on within tie premises.
e In one small dark room n Bengalee clerk is busily
$ occupied at a rickety table. The floor is scattered
in every part with parcels enveloped in yellow wax.
+ cloth and, amongst them seated ON their baunch.
es, are a brace of half-clad coolies, melting, on the
Q parcels, numberless small Jumps of dirty sealing
g wax-very leisurely, as though the post was not
going out before the week after next. This is the
despatching room. Within the unlettered GRASP
a of those two coolies is placed the correspondence
d of Europe, Africa, and America, with the north
n west Of India and Punjaub. You inquire of tn,
Hindoo scribe at the small table. where the Over
land Letter-box is? He has grown grey in posta
duties, yet pleads utter ignorance of any such re
ceptacle. lie does not even know what ofice il
next to his own small, dark room: so small is hi
own dark intellect. All he knows, is, that the larg
e est bundle of yellow, buttoned over with Jumps o
ST wax, is for Agra that the long thin parcel is fol-
10 Lucknow and that the Punjaub claims the three
dunpy packets.
In q little narrow v%erandah, before a series o
n barred ap%ertures, sits a turbaned youth ut q desk
retailing postage-stamos, from the value of three
~farthings to one shilling. In no part of the worlt
~ are letters conveyed more cheaply than in British
n India. A %halfanna, or three farthing postage STAN
le will frank a letter of the proper weight, from thu
northernmost post Office in the Punjaub to the mos
on southern village Of Cape Comorin, how many hun
nj dreds of miles such an epistle would have to trave
III the reader may soon satisfy himself by reference tt
Is a map of Asia. And over all this distance, from
north to south, the dispatches, letters, chits, boon
~ dies, and other documents making up an In6iar
letter'bag, or ''dauk' parcel" are conveyed, not by
~ fleet horses, or camels, not in coaches, mail.cart,
III or gAps. The yellOW. WaX.clOth hun1lea in III.
% rainy season smeared all over with resiuous matter
are slung at the opposite ends of a bamboo or 9th
ne or elastic stick, and are so carried across the shout
ne dprs by the Dauk-runners, or letter.carriers, whC
m travel at an easy run for seven or eight miles ,wher
they pass the load to the next Runner in waiting
for it. In this way the dauk.coolies convey tn,
] Indian correspondence across lofty mountains, san
'ot dy plains, fierce rivers, deep ravines, and dens,
GIT jun giles and swamps; by day and by night, in fai
es weather or foul. The Dauk never rests vet i
rarely has happened that any losses have occurred
TIA Our Calcutta Post-Ofice comprises one or tw,
long low Offices in which the accounts are kept ant
Vs. the correspondence is carried on, These office
a form a strange collection of little square court
~ with a few shrubs and a little grass growing ii
them, each surrounded by its own particular dust,
- verandahs, heaped up with wooden boxes, oil
lie chairs, cart.axles. wagon wheels, and, in short
a anything belonging to Il brokers' shop or a furni
w ture store. In one ROOM, a knot of Bengalese ar
40 squatting on the ground, cropping amidst a rey
thoushhus VI ueau ietters, without any percept
ible object in view. In a cool secluded room. a
'n' the dusky extremity of the brokers' yerandah Their
is a group Of Dauk officials listlessly watching tn
nu opening of n packet Just in from the north west
eis The portly Baboo at their head, with his eyes hal
lSr closed land nodding on his post, famed by a it'll
~ boy. is not a bad illustration of the energy pervad
no ing most Of the public departments Of Calcutta,
'er Leaving the PostOliee, we pass along the Strand
'K busy scene of import and export trade the Gus
" tom house is on our right, the river and the shin
ne ping are on our left. Thimbuctoo asserts its SAY
a age sway along our road. Merchandise of ever,
90 description manufactures from Lancashire an,
SO Yorkshire; beer, wine, porcelain, pianofortes clock
Gu glassware. jewellry all are brought to this Londo,
We of the East, in endless p~rofusion. From shin 4
ne boat, from boat to shore, the precious goods az
ne sent; tumbled over broken anchors, stone ballast
and old chain cables. the cases, boxes, and barrel
ne are piled in bewildering confusion, and remain o,
so the muddy beach until the coolies, who are enioy
KY ing their noon day hlnmher unnn a cnnsiannAasy.