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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Glossary
Deputating a Viceroy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Glossary
Summary
Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 8 November 1887.
Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, p. 11).
Text: Civil and Military Gazette.
Notes: Unreprinted and unrecorded. ‘His Excellency’ is the blasé, courtly and unflappable Lord Dufferin. The occasion of RK's comic piece is the state tour that Dufferin made to the frontier stations in the west of India (now Pakistan), including Karachi, the Bolan, Lahore, Peshawar and other points, from 3 November to 15 December. At Karachi, Dufferin received several deputations concerning the railway then being sought by the Karachi merchants. Lady Dufferin, who accompanied the Viceroy, wrote that Karachi ‘has a railway question … The address at the station was full of it, and all other addresses have continued to be full of it’ (Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, Our Viceregal Life in India, 1884–1888, new edn, London, 1893, p. 324). What was said to the Viceroy in Karachi is reported in more detail in the CMG, 14 November 1887. He was presented with ‘an address of welcome’ in which the municipal authorities referred to the falling off in the trade of Karachi, and to the fact that, for want of more extended railway communication, the trade of Karachi was doomed to recurrent periods of stagnation. They regretted to learn that their representations regarding the Hyderabad–Pashpadra Railway had not been favourably received by His Excellency's government.
No doubt the immediate impulse for the piece was given by a telegraphic item in the CMG of 7 November describing an excited meeting in Karachi and its resolutions regarding the railway question, the first of which resolved ‘That the Viceroy be requested to receive a Deputation on the subject of railway extension.’
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care
They sought it with forks and with Hope!
They threatened his life with a railway-share –
but there was no charming with “Smiles and soap.” On the contrary they held a public meeting and demanded the head of T.C.H. in a waste-paper basket. The meeting were unanimously of opinion that “he who was responsible for the statement that two and two were anything other than four was totally unfit to live.” This resolution together with the others, appeared in most of the leading newspapers, and was finally laid on H[is]. E[xcellency].'s table
“Most embarrassing!” said His Excellency unofficially to the Keeper of the Conscience. “Where's Karachi?” “Don't know.
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- Information
- The Cause of Humanity and Other StoriesThe Cause of Humanity and Other Stories Uncollected Prose Fictions, pp. 164 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018