their powers,
and the King and his minister relied entirely, as heretofore, upon
the reports of the news-writers, who attend officially upon all
officers in charge of districts, fiscal and judicial Courts, corps
and establishments of all kinds, for the facts of all cases on which
they might have to pass orders; and remained as ignorant as their
predecessors of the real state of the administration and the real
sufferings of the people, if not of the real losses to the Exchequer.

The news department is under a Superintendent-general, who has
sometimes contracted for it, as for the revenues of a district, but
more commonly holds it in _amanee_, as a manager. When he contracts
for it he pays a certain sum to the public treasury, over and above
what he pays to the influential officers and Court favourites in
gratuities. When he holds it in _amanee_, he pays only gratuities,
and the public treasury gets nothing. His payments amount to about
the same in either case. He nominates his-subordinates, and appoints
them to their several offices, taking from each a present gratuity
and a pledge for such monthly payments as he thinks the post will
enable him to make. They receive from four to fifteen rupees a-month
each, and have each to pay to their President, for distribution among
his patrons or patronesses at Court from one hundred to five hundred
rupees a-month in ordinary times. Those to whom they are accredited
have to pay them, under ordinary circumstances, certain sums monthly,
to prevent their inventing or exaggerating cases of abuse of power or
neglect of duty on their part; but when they happen to be really
guilty of great acts of atrocity, or great neglect of duty, they are
required to pay extraordinary sums, not only to the news-writers, who
are especially accredited to them, but to all others who happen to be
in the neighbourhood at the time. There are six hundred and sixty
news-writers of this kind employed by the King, and paid monthly
three thousand one hundred and ninety-four rupees, or, on an average,
between four and five rupees a-month each; and the sums paid by them
to their President for distribution among influential officers and
Court favourites averages above one hundred and fifty thousand rupees
a-year. Many, whose avowed salary is from four to ten rupees a-month,
receive each, from the persons to whom they are accredited, more than
five hundred, three-fourths of which they must send for distribution
amo