The Civil Service Commissioners are authorised by the Secretary of State for India in Council to make the following announcements:

(1.) Selected candidates will be permitted to choose,* according to the order in which they stand in the list resulting from the open competition as long as a choice remains, the Presidency (and in Bengal the division of the Presidency) to which they shall be appointed, but this choice will be subject to a different arrangement, should the Secretary of State or Government of India deem it

necessary.

(2.) No candidate will be permitted to proceed to India before he shall have passed the final examination, and received a certificate of qualification from the Civil Service Commissioners, or after he shall have attained the age of twentyfour years.

(3.) The seniority in the Civil Service of India of the selected candidates shall be determined according to the order in which they stand on the list resulting from the final examination.

(4.) It is the intention of the Secretary of State to allow the sum of 501. after each of the three first half years of probation, and 150l. after the last half year, to each selected candidate who shall have passed the required examinations to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, and shall have complied with such rules as may be laid down for the guidance of selected candidates.

(5.) All selected candidates will be required, after having passed the second periodical examination, to attend at the India Office for the purpose of entering into an agreement binding themselves, amongst other things, to refund in certain cases the amount of their allowance in the event of their failing to proceed to India. For a candidate under age a surety will be required.

(6.) After passing the final examination, each candidate will be required to attend again at the India Office, with the view of entering into covenants. The stamps payable on these documents amount to 11.

(7.) Candidates rejected at the final examination of 1879 will in no case be allowed to present themselves for re-examination.

OPEN COMPETITION, 1877.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE OPEN COMPETITION OF 1877.

Arrangements.

NOTICES.

1. This paper should be carefully preserved, and produced when required during the course of the examination.

2. It is requested that the candidate will acknowledge the receipt of these instructions by writing his name on the outside of the enclosed envelope, and returning it through the post.

3. It is requested that any candidate intending to withdraw will give early notice of such intention, and return this paper.

4. On the first day of the examination, candidates will be required to state on a form which will be placed before them their addresses during the examination, and they are requested thereafter to keep the Commissioners informed of all changes in their address until they have received the announcement of the result of the examination.

5. The result of the examination will be communicated by letter to each candidate, probably early in May. The successful candidates will be required to attend in London, immediately after

*This choice must be exercised immediately after the result of the open competition is announced, on such day as may be fixed by the Civil Service Commissioners.

OPEN

COMPETITION, 1877.

Arrangements.

this announcement, for the purpose of being medically examined, of exercising their choice of presidency, and of receiving instructions as to the special studies to be pursued during their two years of probation.

6. Candidates will be required to leave their hats, overcoats, umbrellas, and any books or papers which they may have brought with them in the room provided for this purpose, before proceeding to the examination rooms.

7. The examination on paper will in each case begin at the time named in the following list, but the door of the examination room will be kept open for half an hour afterwards, in order that candidates may not suffer from accidental delays. Candidates arriving after the expiration of that half hour will not be admitted.

8. No candidate will be allowed to quit the examination room on any day until the expiration of half an hour from the time fixed for the commencement of the examination.

9. It is requested that the number placed in the margin hereof (and not the name of the candidate) be placed outside each book sent in to the Examiners.

10. No candidate who has left the examination room during the hours assigned to paper work will be permitted to return to the paper which he has quitted.

11. Candidates wishing for explanation of the meaning of any of the questions before them may apply to the Examiners. With this exception perfect silence is to be preserved in the examination room; and any candidate guilty of disorderly or improper conduct in or about the room will be liable to be excluded from the examination.

12. Any candidate detected in the use of a book or manuscript brought with him for his assistance, or in copying from the papers of any other candidate, or in giving or receiving assistance of any description, will be regarded as disqualified, and his name will be removed from the list.

N.B.-At this examination 30 candidates will be selected, if so many shall be found duly qualified. Of these, 18 will be selected for the Presidency of Bengal (10 for the Upper Provinces, and 8 for the Lower Provinces), 5 for the Presidency of Bombay, and 7 for the Presidency of Madras.

Civil Service Commission,

Cannon Row, London, S.W.,

March 1877.

TIME TABLE OF THE EXAMINATION ON PAPER.

To be held at the University of London, Burlington Gardens,
Old Bond Street.

There will be a rivâ voce examination in each subject, and in Moral Sciences each examiner will examine each candidate.

OPEN COMPETITION, 1877.

ENGLISH COMPOSITION. (1.)

T. ARNOLD, Esq.

Tuesday, 20th March 1877. 10 A.M. to 1 P.M.

Write an Essay on one of the following subjects :—

1. On the connexion between Ignorance and Crime.

2. On the various kinds of Courage.

3. "The age of Chivalry is past." Expand the meaning of these words of Burke, and criticise the sentiment which dictated them.

4. The province of Ambition in a constitutionally governed country. N.B.-Candidates are desired to bear in mind that their exercises will be valued according to the quality rather than the quantity of what they write.

ENGLISH COMPOSITION. (2.)

J. G. FITCH, Esq.

Wednesday, 21st March 1877. 10 A.M. to 1 P.M.

1. Distinguish carefully between the provinces of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric respectively, and give examples of rules or principles which belong exclusively to any one of them.

2. Discuss the varieties of figurative language employed in Composition, and their uses. Say when, in your judgment, such language is most appropriate, and when least appropriate; and give illustrations.

3. Place each of the following words in some sentence of your own, in such a way as to show that you discriminate exactly between its meaning and that of the word with which it is allied :

Endue, Endow.

Demonstrative, Demonstrable.

Sinful, Criminal, Vicious.

Benevolent, Beneficent, Philanthropic.

Genius, Ingenuity, Wisdom.

4. Take one of the following passages as a theme for paraphrase, and if necessary for expansion and comment :

"Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my

bed :

And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

That ever I shall breathe. Heaven knows, my son,

By what by-paths, and indirect crook'd ways,

I met this crown; and I myself know well

How troublesome it sat upon my head:

To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation;
For all the soil of the achievement goes

With me into the earth. It seemed in me

But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand;
And I had many living to upbraid

My gain of it by their assistances:

Which daily grew to quarrel, and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fears,
Thou see'st with peril I have answered:

For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument; and now my death
Changes the mood for what in me was purchas'd
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort:

So then the garland wear'st successively,

Yet then thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;

And all thy friends, which thou must make thy friends,
Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out,
By whose fell working I was first advanced,
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displaced: which to avoid

I cut them off and had a purpose new
To lead out many to the Holy Land;

Lest rest and lying still might make them look
Too near unto my state.

How I came by the crown, O Heaven forgive!
And grant it may with thee in true peace live."

SHAKESPEARE.

OPEN COMPETITION,

1877.

I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men ; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them, as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that Soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man, as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image: but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed,-sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression a kind of massacre whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life.

MILTON.