The Smith
Administration

Introduction



Notes edited by David Page.


[October 16th 2008]

Background

Kipling has added a footnote on the first page which reads:

The following are newspaper articles written between 1887 and 1888 for my paper.—R.K.
Of this series of eighteen stories, collected in From Sea to Sea, vol.II, only the first six listed below are to do with “Smith” and his household staff.

In November 1887 Kipling was transferred from the Civil and Military Gazette (or CMG for short) in Lahore to the Pioneer in Allahabad.

First Publication of the Individual stories

The Cow-House Jirga 4 November 1887 CMG
A Bazar Dhulip 21 November 1887 CMG
The Hands of Justice 15 July 1887 CMG
The Serai Cabal 8 August 1887 CMG
The Story of a King 17 October 1887 CMG
The Great Census 9 January 1888 CMG
The Killing of Hatim Tai 12 May 1888 CMG
A Self-Made Man 10 May 1888 CMG
The Vengeance of Lal Beg 3 November 1887 CMG
Hunting a Miracle 10 October 1887 CMG
The Explanation of Mir Baksh 1 June 1888 CMG
A Letter from Golam Singh 10 September 1886 CMG
The Writing of Yakub Khan 18 January 1888 Pioneer
A King's Ashes 30 December 1887 Pioneer
The Bride's Progress 8 February 1888 Pioneer Mail
'A District at Play' 27 August 1886 CMG
What it Comes To 5 November 1888 CMG
The Opinions of Gunner Barnabas 7 October 1887 CMG


Publication History of the Collected Series

In 1891 a volume of this title was published in India but that was immediately suppressed. It contained the same 18 stories now collected in “The Smith Administration”, From Sea to Sea, Volume II, together with two additional stories, neither of which were subsequently collected.

The Critics

Andrew Lycett in his Rudyard Kipling (p.229. Phoenix) identifies that the six “Smith” stories were satirising the activities of the official Private Services Commission which had:

concluded a lengthy report on the condition of farming labourers with the complacent view that there was no cause for ‘any anxiety at present’. Rudyard had already attacked the ‘side-show’ of the Commission in the CMG and had satirised its activities in a series of stories, known as The Smith Administration about a man’s efforts to run his household of squabbling Indians in a suitable dose of paternalism.
The few critics who do mention this series tend to concentrate on one particular story, that one being “The Bride’s Progress”, and the relevant comments will be included in the notes to that story.

Commentary

The Private Services Commission is referred to in three of the “Smith” stories. In order of publication they are “The Hands of Justice”, “The Serai Cabal”, and “The Great Census”.

It is worth noting that for this collection of articles, Kipling has inserted the English meaning of the various Indian terms that he uses in the original articles. It has therefore not been thought necessary to define these and subsequent occurrences of the terms in these notes.


[D.P.]

©David Page 2008 All rights reserved