To expect that any Governor should be able totally to annihilate every bad practice, would be to consider him as vested with supernatural powers; but, it is assuredly within the reach of every person bearing that high office, to chace the abandoned into their secret recesses, and to render them at least timid, if not innocent. By removing such characters from office, and by persevering in resolution not to give employments of emolument to any but the most assiduous, and correct, of the Company’s servants, much may be, much has been, done. Common sense points out the impropriety of allowing a gambler to occupy any office in which either great trust, or particular application, and vigilance, might be requisite; therefore, as the generality of the posts held under the Company are of either one or other of those descriptions, or may perhaps blend both, it stands to reason that a man whose brains are ever casting the dice, and whose carriage rolls upon the four aces, never can with safety be trusted.
Those who are partial to cards, as an amusement, may find abundance of parties during the evenings, where, for the most part, tradrille and whist (the favorite games) are played at such low stakes as not to be productive of regret, or inconvenience. Quadrille is barely known in India, nor are what we term ‘round-games’ much in use: cribbage is played in some families, and, occasionally, loo. In all the above games, the European inhabitants of Calcutta, as well as those dispersed over the country, are generally proficient; far more so than we find persons of the same description among us: a large portion are well acquainted with chess, and back-gammon; and many excellent players at fives, billiards, &c., are to be found in every quarter. Cricket is not much in vogue; being confined principally to a club at Calcutta, and to some occasional Christmas matches at the several army stations. On the whole, though far less violent, as an exercise, than fives, it is less adapted to the climate; the alternate successions of exertion, and of inactivity, rendering the players liable to severe colds, and to consequent obstructions.
Music, it might be thought, would prove a great source of gratification in a country where _ennui_ is so much to be dreaded; but the climate is unfavorable to instruments of every kind, especially to pianos, and offers a most formidable bar to the indulgence of a musical ear. No persons can be more liberal in their purchases of instruments, or of select music, than the ladies of India; they often giving two hundred pounds for a good grand-piano; but the incessant apprehension of warps, and cracks, is a tremendous draw-back on the interest they feel in the possession of even the best of its kind. Repairs, of every sort, whether of violins, pianos, flutes, &c., are exorbitantly dear, and, even at Calcutta, not always practicable; either owing to dissipation, the want of some essential article, or the quantity of work in hand. Nor is it easy to obtain the temporary accommodation of an instrument while one is repairing, unless at such a rate as utterly precludes all of moderate income from availing themselves of such an opportunity, when it may chance to offer.