Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Glossary
“Les Miserables.”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Glossary
Summary
Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 28 August 1886.
Attribution: In Scrapbook 3 (28/3, pp. 43–4).
Text: Civil and Military Gazette.
Notes: For RK's several exercises in Frenchified English, see the headnote to ‘The History of a Crime’. The decline in the exchange value of the rupee was a standard topic for most of RK's years in India.
Reprinted in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets and in Harbord, ii, 1081–3.
“The rupee grows each week more worthless for any purpose but that of immediate spending. Under these circumstances, who could wonder if a spirit of recklessness should have taken possession of the Anglo-India community; if the text of to-day should be ‘let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we fast.’”
––See yesterday's Simla letter.To be virtuous one must be happy.
This is a fact. More. It is a fact which can be proved.
And to be happy, it is necessary to be rich. How rich, do you ask?
Enormously – Vanderbiltonically! As were once Messieurs les Anglais in the land of Dupleix and Plassey.
Ces Anglais who have now disappeared.
You smile? It is not so then?
I have with my proper eyes seen them abolished – assimilated – blotted out – these Consuls and Pro-Consuls so arrogant. Listen to my tale.
The Roupé was a coin abnormal – monstrous.
It wavered.
Have you ever seen a franc waver? A Napoleon? No, ten thousand times.
The English are a nation of drunkards. All drunkards waver. The Roupé caught the contagion. Voila the explication. Let us return to our sheep.
I abhor the involutions of Finance. They are to me detestable. And why? Alas, I am poor always.!
But this Roupé.
It wavered. It flickered. It sank. It descended.
It contracted itself as a lady in her corsage.
Have you, my pupil so virtuous, ever seen a lady in her corsage?
She contracts marvellously.
She is also lovely.
The Roupé contracted. But it was not lovely.
It was one schelling and eight pence.
It was one schelling and five pence.
It was one schelliing and two pence.
These English, once so arrogant, had been despondent.
They now laughed. It was the laughter of the Pit.
They grew reckless. It was the ferocious abandon of the unpitied.
The Englishman reckless, is the brute bestial.
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- Information
- The Cause of Humanity and Other StoriesThe Cause of Humanity and Other Stories Uncollected Prose Fictions, pp. 61 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018