How Few Will Scruple To Point Out To Others The Follies
And Foibles Of Their Dearest Friends, Weaknesses Which They
Have
discovered during long and familiar intercourse; and how few will
hesitate to impute the very worst motives for actions
Which may spring
from a laudable source, or be merely the result of thoughtlessness!
In our most Christian country, the spirit of the Christian religion is
still to be sought, and until we see stronger proofs of its influence
than can at present be shown throughout the United Kingdom, we must
not single out a remote colony as a specimen of the indulgence of a
vice common to us all.
The great evil, which Bombay must share with other communities
similarly constituted, is the want of family ties, and the consequent
loss of all the gentle affections which spring amid a wide domestic
circle. Neither the very old nor the very young are to be found in an
Indian colony; there are few connecting links to bind the sojourners
of a foreign land together; each has a separate interest, and the
result is seen in a general want of sympathy; no one seems to enter
into the views, feelings, hopes, or objects of another. I employ
the word seems, since, as a stranger, I can only give my first
impressions upon the subject.
The style of living is more easily described, and its relative
advantages determined. The Anglo-Indian residents of Bombay are,
for the most part, scattered all over the island, living in very
comfortable houses, of no great pretensions to exterior elegance,
yet having for the most part an air of home enjoyment, which suggests
pleasing ideas.
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