negatived by apparent prevarication or falsehood you have no right to treat him as a rogue because his evidence happens to be against your side. By all means test to the utmost his accuracy of observation and his memory, and if reasonable occasion arise test also his veracity and shake his credit-this you must do in the interests of your client-but do not unnecessarily injure or insult him. He comes into Court for the purpose of speaking to the matter in dispute, and not for the purpose of having the secrets of his life laid bare to the common gaze. Above all, when addressing the Court on the evidence do not draw unwarrantable inferences from his words, and then vilify him for what he has neither said. nor suggested. In a word, follow faithfully the principles laid down in our admirable Indian Law of Evidence. A violation of these principles may buy a cheap notoriety in the least desirable quarters-but in the minds of all whose opinion is worth having it grievously besmirches that professional purity which you have to-day promised to maintain, and it seriously interferes with the ends of Justice by making the very name of cross-examination a terror, by making honest folk afraid to enter the witness box.

of Journalism.

Many of you will doubtless enlist in the ranks of journalism, The yearly in- a yearly increasing force-you will find the life creasing force arduous and exacting. It is a service which makes no allowance for private convenience. You are the master, but at the same time the slave, of the public. You must be ready at any moment to give an ex cathedra opinion on any subject, familiar or unfamiliar. Nothing is too great for your attention, nothing too small. You are the Nasmyth hammer

The Nasmyth hammer of literature.

power.

of literature. You must work in season and out of season. Are you sick?-rise from bed and dash off a leading article on the latest political telegram. Are you in domestic trouble?-put grief on one side while you review in appropriate style the new book of comic stories. But to compensate for this life of endless work and worry you will You will have have power-godlike power. The influence of a power, godlike newspaper in England is enormous, incalculable, and even in India where there is sometimes an affectation of poohpoohing the Press it is very great. Question it who will, the Press is a great power for good-it is also unfortunately a great power for evil. It can expose and insist upon the remedy of wrong-it can also do wrong. Reflect on this fact that your first essential is to interest the public. No amount of industry or cleverness can avail without this. You must interest. Now reflect on this other fact that nothing interests the majority of people so much as adverse criticism,

which costs you nothing to write may cost the victim much to read.

especially if they are acquainted with the subject of it. A scathing account of a man or of a measure is read with the greatest eagerness, a favourable account is passed over with indifference. A sad confession for poor humanity, but so it is. And lastly reflect on this third fact-that nothing is so easy as to find fault. Combine these facts, and it is evident that the journalist is under constant temptation to write sarcasm and abuse, especially the journalist whose lines are cast in a small society. Yet to its great credit be it spoken the better part of the Press steadily resists this temptation. Do you resist it also. Consider this matter The line seriously for it is of the gravest moment. The line which costs you nothing to write may cost the victim much to read. Do not unlace a reputation in mere wantonness. It is no doubt excellent to have a giant's strength, but remember that it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. By no means refrain from lashing when the lash is deserved, but make sure that it is deserved. Beat the greatest pains to understand the actions and motives of the man you attack. And on this point let me refer you to a wise writer. Dr. Holmes happily says that when two persons are talking it is only natural there should be misunderstandings among the six; and in explanation he points out that when Thomas and John are together there is first Thomas as he really is, then Thomas as he exists in his own imagination, and lastly Thomas as John thinks him to be, all three very different persons-and that similarly there are three Johns, making a total of six. So when you, Journalist John, propose to scarify Thomas, remember that there are three of him and be quite sure you get hold of the right one; and if Thomas is an official remember also that there are behind him, unseen by you, other officials Peter and Paul pulling him different ways and that he is not a free agent.

A few words of homely counsel to all.

And now to all of you, whatever your profession, a few words of homely counsel. Be independent. The plan of reaching the top of a hill by hanging on to the coat tails of a stronger brother is no doubt often successful, but it is never dignified. More satisfactory to climb to a lower level by your own unaided exerBe independ- tions. Go your own way in life. Respect yourself, and that you may do so respect others. Be ever courteous to inferiors and deferential to superiors. Be cheerfully submissive to those set over you in your work. One of the worst signs of the present age is impatience of constituted authority. A large class of ill-conditioned persons take for their motto-Whatever is,

ent.

One of the worst signs of the present age.

is wrong. Be not you of them. Believe me there is nothing noble, there is certainly nothing sensible, in giving grudging obedience where unhesitating obedience is due. And how can you in turn expect to be obeyed when you have set a contrary example yourself? Be assured that those below you will closely watch your actions, and will when the time comes better your instruction. There is an old and very true saying, that he who has never learned to obey will never learn to command. But beyond your immediate superiors, be deferential to your social superiors also whoever they may be. This is a point on which there has been bad teaching. The times seethe with theories to the effect that all are equal and that therefore deference from one man to another is misplaced. This sorry nonsense is not new, it has been aired at many stages of the world's progress, it is unworthy of serious refutation, and you will have read history to little purpose if you do not see its hopeless impracticability; but still a word of warning may be useful. Face the world as it is, not as dreamers of bad dreams would make it. The man who is above us may owe his position to accident, to merit, to age, to interest, to wealth, nay even to demerit, it matters not. He is above us, and it is our duty to recognize him accordingly with the customary signs of deference. To do so costs nothing. To say "Sir" to a superior involves no loss of dignity or selfrespect, but on the other hand to adopt a familiar tone and affect an equality which does not exist is a contemptible practice and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. No, in this sense men are not and cannot be all on one level, the whole scheme of the Universe repudiates the idea, and even the preachers of the doctrine do not usually carry it about in every-day life; let an inferior apply it practically to themselves and he will soon find that the latter end of their commonwealth forgets the beginning. But there is another

The

which men may

be equal.

sense in which men may be equal. If you do your ense in work in life honestly and diligently, owing no man anything, then you may in a very high sense be the equal of every one, King or Kaiser. Equally with superior and inferior cultivate a pleasant manner, which is by no means the same thing as a servile manner. A young man may wrap himself in no better cloak for life's journey. And be modest. In an age of charlatanism and self-advertisement this may seem a suicidal policy: but you have in this town, among your own countrymen, a living proof that the greatest abilities and the greatest industry may go hand in hand with extreme modesty, and may yet win not only the highest personal esteem, but also the highest official rewards.

Be manly.

Be manly. Book-learning alone never yet made a nation and never will. Be manly. Thanks to the untiring efforts of certain gentlemen to whom the youth of Southern India can never be sufficiently grateful, at the head of whom is now His Excellency the Governor, you have ample opportunity for athletics and gymnastics, and for all games from cricket down to epicene lawn tennis, opportunity of which many take advantage. The reproach cast in the teeth of your brother of the Ganges would be idle in your case. But even though you should cultivate the body till it reaches the perfection aimed at in Greece that would not be enough. There would then be the machine and the brain to direct the machine, but the motive power would still be wanting. You must have the manly spirit. Look for noble examples, and follow in their footsteps; they may be found in the living world, in history, in art. Both by precept and practice discourage petty squabbling and quarrelling. Discourage appeals to the Police Court on every trifling occasion. Possibly the very excellence of the Penal Code does harm in this direction. Its provisions are so elastic and so easy of application that they must often present irresistible temptation to an aggrieved person. This was put very nicely by a candidate at a law examination some years back. I had asked what safeguard there is against the excessive litigation that would arise if the provisions of the Code were literally enforced, and the young man replied "there is no safeguard so long as one lives in society, the only way is to retire from the world and become a hermit." So melancholy a solution of the difficulty suggests much unhappy experience.

Be brave.

You come of a land that has bred brave men. The fables of antiquity tell of no nobler exploits Be brave. than those performed by the Madras Army. Not alone Amboor, Arcot, Assaye, and such familiar instances; but numberless deeds of heroism, endurance, self-denial, done by knots of men all over the Presidency, deeds so common in their day as to pass almost unnoticed, and which now live only in obscure chronicles forgotten by all but the curious. These things should however find a place in your memories, for it is the Madras Army which has made your presence here to-day possible.

Be thorough. Whatever you are doing, do it with all your might. Strive to earn the character of always tryBe thorough. ing your best, and thus beget a confidence which no amount of mere cleverness can ever hope to win. Then if yo fail, as all must fail sometimes, there will be no disgrace. Now

to do thoroughly everything which you undertake it is plain that you must not undertake too much, and here comes opposing counsel. There is a maxim often quoted with approbation and held up for general guidance, "Know something of everything and everything of something," but I venture to think it a most dangerous piece of advice, especially to young men, even allowing that it is not meant to be taken literally. It has a fine antithetical ring, and is just the sort of phrase to catch the ear, but it will not bear scrutiny. No man, however gifted, can in these days know something of everything, and the attempt to do so will certainly result in knowing nothing of anything. The prodigy thrives in fiction no doubt. The muscular hero, who carelessly crumples up the fire irons with the finger and thumb of his left hand, is matched by the intellectual hero, who is ready at any moment to correct a bishop in a quotation from the less known patriotic writings or to give the details of the population of Turkestan according to the latest census. But he does not exist in fact. Then Bacon is held up as an example. Well it is not wise for a youth to start in life with the notion of rivalling Bacon. Ambition is a good spur, but like other spurs the inexperienced will find it safer when of moderate length. And after all what does Bacon's case prove? He was perhaps the most marvellous genius that ever lived. Perhaps no other man has mastered so large a share of the learning of his own age. But the times have marched. Discoveries, inventions, the accumulated labours of students, have immensely enlarged the field of learning. The area of possible human knowledge, the area of knowledge which it is open to one man to acquire, increases year by year-and it increases not in arithmetical progression, but in geometrical. He who could take all knowledge to be his province at the end of the 16th century would find that province occupy but a small corner of the map at the end of the 19th. If I persist in driving this nail home it is to save you from a very fatal error. Try a simple test. Take three subjects at haphazard from different branches of study-say, Hydraulics, Spanish Literature, the Botany of South America-and ask the best educated man of your acquaintance, not actually engaged in teaching these subjects, to pass an elementary examination in them. Yet here are only three, and all tolerably familiar. Instead of three take three hundred-double three hundred and then treble that-where will the man be who tries to know something of all? That way madness lies.

To criticize is ever easier than to create, and while it is one thing to warn you against undertaking more than a reasonable