The times., 1899-05-07
THE cuRzoNs 1N NprA.
The Wonderful Popularity of the
Nicerefne.

The Wonderful Popularity of the
Vicercfne.
(From Harper's weeklyl
1t was at the Viceroys palace in Calcutta
that / first heard Lady Curzon Of Kedles-
ton spoken OF as "the Vicereine" The IL
tie is not official, for the charming Ameri-
can consort of the ruler Of India has added
nothing to her name in assuming the high
position at her husbands side which his
talents have gained for both. Though
Lady Curzon is now attached to the house
hold of the Queen Empress, and has been
made member of the Order of the Crown
of India, the tactful English could not have
been expected to endow consort OF q
Viceroy with prominence in land where
wives are what they are in India.
Well indeed is 1t for the people to speak
OF her as the Vicereine, since she is not
only their sole visible and fleshly queen,
but Is queen over scores of native queens
as her husband is ruler over scores of In
dian kings still enthroned over greater or
lesser dominions as feudatories OF the
British Grown. But the love and pride
with which Lady Curzon is everywhere
spoken of are more to be esteemed than
the rank and title which cannot be with
held from this first of our countrywomen
to hold SO high station. The affectionate
tone with which / everywhere heard her
referred to was but one of thousand evil
dences of the extraordinary impression she
made upon the people of Bombay and CAL
cutta Immediately after her arrival in In
dia. Even In small cities In the Interior
and among Hindoos who might not have
been expected to interest themselves in a
Viceroy's wife, the praises and compli
ments showered upon her here by press
and public were joyously echoed in my
hearing. They have reached London as
well. and been accepted there, as l see by
the periodicals that are already received in
India.
Though Lady Curzon has no formal or
official title applying to her new position.
she has achieved. by her relationship TO
Lord Curzon, the highest and most power
full place which any American woman has
gained by marrying out of her own coun
try.
1t is doubtful whether many Americans
realize the extent of a Viceroy's power,
the prestige which accompanies the place,
the pomp, parade, and ceremony with
which it is accompanied, or the splendor
of the official residences and retinue which
help to support its impressiveness. There
is SO much of very hard work connected
with the Office, and the swarming millions
OF Indian subjects have of late been SO
comparatively placid and content under
British rule. that the tendency Of recent
Viceroys have been to shear the post Of
much of its former splendor. Less and less
has been thought of the value of pomp and
pageantry in impressing the native mind;
and, weighed down by the daily burden of
routine toll and anxious responsibility, the
latter representatives Of the crown have
been content to become very dull and pro-
sale characters. as compared with the gilt
tering and gorgeous figures cut by the old
East India governors and the earlier Vice
roys, whose regal progresses through the
empire were arranged to surprise even
Oriental expectation.
But there Is to be measurable revival
of the outward impressiveness of the place.
The era of deadly dullness in government
has passed. The exaggeration of the value
of night oil and closet labor and the blind
ness to the great importance Of display in
Oriental statecraft are mistakes which will
not be continued. Our American vicereine
is to be nearer to queenhood than her i'm
mediate predecessors-vice Queenhood, of
course, yet undivided sovereignty on its
own ground and in the eyes of. its imme-
diate beholders.
Our first American sovereign and her
iiege. Lord Curzon, rule more subjects
than are combined in the sum total of the
populations of all the nations of Europe,
omitting Russia. In size, India, with It's
one and half million square miles OF
surface, ranks among the greatest empires
of the earth with Russia and Siberia and
with the United States and her Territories.
In length and breadth India's greatest
measurements are each nearly two thous-
apd miles. Two hundred and forty mil
lions of subjects acknowledge the rule OF
the Empress Yictoria's Viceroy. What this
signifies has been most strikingly put by
the writer who has pointed out that these
subjects of England in India exactly
double Gibbons estimate of one hundred
and twenty millions for all the races and
nations which obeyed imperial Rome"
Between the fur-clad turbulent warrior
folk and shepherds who stalk the rude
streets of unruly Quetta and Peshawar in
the north and the fanatic Arab descend
ants in the south, whose women clothe
only their lower limbs, the Viceroy over
looks continent. Attached to Asia though
it is. it lacks nothing to make it as com
| plete a world in itself as Australia OF
| America. Mountains of the first magni-
| tude. rivers only second to the largest
| plains of vast extent. and a coast line like
! our own distinguish this minor world
Every climate between the arctic and the
| trOpic is found there-intense cold and al
| most tropic heat come TO it simultaneously
! and dozen dozen different native rulers
bow to the Vieeroy as their lord yet keeI
their own gaudy and bejeweled courts, anG
! inhabit the splendid palaces Of their an
| cestors.
| AS | write this Lord Curzon is squarine
| his strong back to the dead weight of rou-
| tine work. His secretaries tell me that ht
keeps at his desk far into each night, anC
| returns to it at early hours each morning
| Yet he will. If he lives restore to the vice
regal throne more lustre of the patiently
| perceptible sort which Orientals value
| highly than it has shown under his nearest
| predecessors. AS far as his means permit
| his clear judgment dictates, and his sense
of dignity sanctions the reform. he will re.
vive such external show as is needed t
| restore what the great office has lost. LORI
| Curzon knows India He has visited it fiv,
| times. Young as he is in mere years, h,
has made himself an acknowledged anC
| high authority upon Indian subjects
| Especially well does he know what may b.
called the Indian In the rough, as he il
seen in the troubled northern border lands
| To this knowledge he adds an optimisti
mind, a sanguine temperament, warn
sympathy easily stirred, and suffcien
| poetry. sentiment, and humor to make III
the very strong character which has s.
| impressed his countrymen. So far as h
can do so he will give his Oriental subject
what the Eastern masses prize, and tn
; first of these in Importance is external evi
dence of authority.
l found a sure key to the Viceroy's char
acter in between the lines of a dozer
| speeches that he made in India in Jan
| uary and February. Some of his qualitie
more especially his quick sympathy, hu
NOR, and the sentimental or romantic in
clnation-are rather more American thai
| English; at least they are more commonl.
found in our public leaders than in thos
of England. 1t is consoling to us Ameri
cans to find that the man who has at
tracted so much beauty and talent ava
from our country is himself the next thin