WHEN a child is once corrupted, it is hard to effect any
improvement. Every means should be tried to instil good principles
into the mind from childhood: the character may then ripen for
good and the mind become more strongly bent towards the right
than towards evil; but if a boy gets hold of bad companions
or receives ill advice in his early boyhood, then, such is the
unsteadiness natural to his age, all will probably go wrong with
him thereafter. So long then as he remains still a boy, with the
mind of a boy, he must be assiduously employed in a variety of
good pursuits. If boys were to receive an education like this
up to the age of twenty-five, there would be no probability of
their following evil courses: their minds would by that time have
become so elevated that the mere mention of evil would excite
anger and loathing. But it is very difficult for children in this
country to receive such a training, owing, in the first place,
to the lack of good teachers, and in the second to the lack of
good books. There is urgent need of works that will promote the
growth of high principles and of sound judgment, but ordinary
people are persuaded that a solid education consists in teaching
the meaning of a number of sounds: then again, very few people
seem to have any idea of the methods whereby good principles
are implanted in the mind; and finally the nature of the home
surroundings of children in this country is strongly against
the implanting of such principles. One boy may have a drunkard
or a gambler as his father, another may have as his uncles men
of immoral life; the mother herself too, being unable to read
or write, may not exert herself for her children's education. A
great deal of evil moreover is learnt from association with the
different members of the household, the men and women servants;
it may be also that from consorting with all kinds of boys in the
village or at the village-school, children get to learn their evil
ways and vicious habits, and so are ruined for life. Even where
but one of the causes mentioned exists, the obstacle in the way
of good education is grievous enough, but where they all exist in
combination, there the drawbacks are simply terrible. It is like
setting fire to straw: let a man only pour _ghee_ where the fire
is beginning to blaze, and within a very short space the flame
is everywhere, and reduces to ashes whatever it finds in its way.
Many people thought that Matilall would have reformed after
the affair of the police court; but the boy who is devoid of
good qualities and high principles, and without any regard for
honour or dishonour, has no particular feeling of abhorrence for
punishments. Evil thoughts and good thoughts alike have their
origin in the mind, and are therefore intimately bound up with
the character: a mere physical affliction or trouble then cannot
be expected to change the wind's direction. Doubtless, when the
sergeant of police was dragging Matilall along through the streets,
he may have thought it at the actual time a trouble and a disgrace,
but the feeling was only momentary: once in the guard-room, he
seemed to have lost ail anxiety or fear or sense of dishonour and
he was such a nuisance all that night and the whole of the next day
to his neighbours, as he sang and imitated the cries of dogs and
jackals, that they put their hands to their ears, and exclaiming
"Ram, Ram!" said to each other: "Why, we are far worse off with
this boy in our neighbourhood than if he were in prison." When
he stood before the magistrate next day, he kept his head bent
down like Shishu Pal, of _Mahabharata_ renown, but it was done
to deceive his father. In reality he recked little whether he
went to jail and was put in fetters, or what happened to him.
Boys absolutely devoid of respect, of fear, and of shame, and
addicted to purely evil courses, are afflicted with no ordinary
disease: their complaint is really mental, and if only the
proper remedies are applied, a cure may in process of time be
effected. But Baburam Babu had no ideas on the subject at all:
he was firmly convinced that Matilall was a very good boy, and
used at first to wax very wrath if he heard him abused. Though all
sorts of people were continually telling him about his son, he was
as one who heard not; and if afterwards from his own observations
a doubt did arise in his mind, he kept his misgivings to himself,
and for fear of being mortified before others, refrained from
expressing them, but simply gave secret orders to the door-keeper
not to let Matilall leave the house. This was no remedy: the
disease had obtained too strong a hold upon the boy, and no
possible good could result from simply keeping him a prisoner
and constantly in his sight. You may put a bar of iron on a mind
once corrupted, without making any impression: on the contrary,
mere repression may only have the effect of intensifying the evil
in the mind. At first Matilall used to get out of the house by
jumping over the walk. On the release of his old companions of Bow
Bazar from jail, they came to live at Vaidyabati, and some of the
boys of the place having joined them, they formed themselves into
a band. Matilall's sense of respect and fear was soon destroyed
altogether by his association with these young scamps, and he
ended by paying no attention at all to his father.
Boys who have not been accustomed from their childhood to innocent
and harmless amusements, are apt to take to diversions of a low
kind. The children of Englishmen are instructed by their parents
in a variety of innocent pastimes, in order that they may have
sound minds and sound bodies: some draw and paint: some cultivate
a taste for botany: some learn music: some devote themselves
to sport and gymnastics: each takes up the form of harmless
enjoyment most congenial to him. Boys in this country follow
the example that is set them: their one wish is to be dressed in
gorgeous attire, with a profusion of gold embroidery and jewels:
to make up picnic parties of their chums and gay companions, and
to live luxuriously in all a Babu's style. Fondness for display
and extravagance naturally characterizes the season of youth: if
care is not very early exercised in this matter, the desire grows
in intensity, and a variety of evils result, by which eventually
body and mind alike may be irretrievably ruined.
Matilall gradually threw off all restraint: he became so depraved
that continuing to throw dust in his father's eyes, he now openly
spoke of him in the most unfilial and atrocious manner. The
constant burden of his talks with his companions was: "Ah, if my
old father would but die, I could then enjoy myself to my heart's
content!" Any money he demanded from his parents they gave him:
if there was any hesitation on their part, he would at once say:
"Very well, then, I will go hang myself, or else take poison." His
parents in their alarm thought: "Ah, what must be, must! Our
life is bound up with the boy's life, he is our _Shivratri_[19]
lamp: let him live and we shall have our libations when we are
gone[20]."
Matilall spent his whole time in riotous living: he hardly spent
a minute of his day at home: at one time he would be engaged at a
picnic, taking part in a theatrical entertainment, or making one
of a party of amateur musicians: at another, he would be running
about getting up a procession in honour of some local deity, or
else absorbed in contemplating a nautch: or again, he would be
creating a disturbance, and making unprovoked assaults upon other
people. His appetite for stimulants, whether it were _ganja_,
opium or even wine, never failed him, and tobacco of course was
in constant demand.
They carried foppery to an extreme, these young Babus, wearing
their hair in curls and using powder for their teeth. Their dress
was of fine Dacca muslin embroidered with gold lace: on their
heads they wore embroidered caps; carried in their hands silk
handkerchiefs perfumed with attar of roses, and light canes; and
smart English dress shoes with silver buckles adorned their feet.
As, moreover, they had no spare time for their regular meals,
they carried about with them all sorts of dainty sweetmeats.
Unless an evil disposition is checked at the very outset, it
grows worse every day, and in time becomes quite brute-like
in its nature: just as when a man has once become enslaved to
opium, the quantity he takes tends constantly to increase, so
when a man has become addicted to evil habits, the craving for
still more grievous courses comes naturally of itself. Matilall
and his companions soon began to think the amusements they had
hitherto been indulging in too tame: they no longer gave them any
special pleasure; so they set to work to devise means for more
solid pleasures. They now started sallying forth in a band late
in the evenings, setting fire to and plundering houses, setting
the thatch of poor people's huts alight, visiting the houses of
loose women and creating a disturbance, pulling their hair about,
burning their mosquito curtains, and plundering their dresses
and ornaments. Sometimes, they would even insult a respectable
girl. The people of the place were terribly annoyed at all this,
but the young men only snapped their fingers at them in derision,
and consigned them all to perdition.
Baburam Babu had been for some time in Calcutta on business. One
day towards evening, a zenana _palki_ was passing the Vaidyabati
house. As soon as the young scoundrels saw it, they at once ran
out, surrounded it, and commenced beating the _palki_-bearers,
who thereupon set the _palki_ down and ran for their lives.
Opening the _palki_, they saw a beautiful young girl inside.
Matilall ran forward, seized the girl's hand, and dragged her out
of the _palki_ trembling all over with confusion and fear. In
vain she looked around her for help: she saw only pitiless
dark space. Then weeping bitterly she called on the Almighty:
"Oh Lord, protect the helpless young orphan! I am content to die,
only grant that I may not lose my honour." As the young Babus were
all struggling together to get possession of her, she fell to the
ground; they then tried to drag her by main force into the house.
Matilall's mother hastened outside in some trepidation when she
heard the sound of the girl's weeping, and the miscreants thereupon
took to their heels. Seeing the mistress of the house, the young
girl fell at her feet and said in her distress: "Oh dear lady,
protect my honour! You must be a devoted wife yourself." None
but a faithful and virtuous wife can understand the danger of a
virtuous woman. Baburam Babu's wife at once lifted the girl off
the ground and wiped away her tears with the border of her _sari_,
saying as she did so: "My dear child, do not weep, you have no
further cause for fear; I will cherish you as my own dear child:
the Lord Almighty always protects the honour of the woman who is
faithful to her vows." With these words she dispelled the girl's
fears, and when she had soothed and consoled her, accompanied
her to her home, and left her there.