Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 17 September 1886.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 3 (28/3, p. 49).

Text: Civil and Military Gazette.

Notes: An Indian Finance Commission was at work on the matter of ‘retrenchment’. RK had made fun of it earlier in the uncollected poem ‘Parturiunt Montes’ in the CMG, 26 April 1886: ‘Let the fat Departments blench, We are yearning to retrench / In a clip-and-cut and skin-removing style!’ (Poems, iii, 1705). ‘What Came of It’ is another burlesque of the Commission's efforts.

Reprinted in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets and in Harbord, ii, 1093–5.

Being extracts from the diary of Orion Golightly, formerly of the Bengal Civil Service, now:– Employé No. 1159 in the service of the Government of India, Limited.

April 14 th.––, 1902––The recommendations of our thirty-fourth Retrenchment Committee have been published, and come in force next month. They seem rather drastic. I didn't mind the regulation about washing nibs to prevent expense, because my mehter helped me; but I do not like the order enforcing the use of one's shirt front as a blotting pad and pen-wiper. Besides writing resolutions on the back of used D.O. covers is smudgy work. I recollect the time when we used to do our work on white paper with a Government stamp. Heighho! They are going to appoint a permanent Retrenchment Committee with absolute powers. Don't quite see where they can retrench further. I've put in twenty-three years’ service, and I'm drawing Rs. 210 a month. Have to do my own bazaar before office, and stuffed bullock's heart is cheap but indigestible.

April 24 th.––Government of India let out by contract to the lowest tenderer. Economical, but doesn't strike me as likely to be pleasant. Hear that a man of the name of Dowler has arrived from England offering to “run the blooming show” for five hundred a month and vittles. Don't quite like the allusion to blooming show. It seems disrespectful. However, the Retrenchment Committee say it's all right, and I'm a “haristocrat” for objecting. I'm supposed to be Finance Minister, I believe; but I look after the Burdwan, Delhi, and Orissa Sections as well, when I can get travelling allowance to go there.