The Shadow of Great Britain

225: Chapter 152: The Business Secrets of the East India Company (4K7) 225: Chapter 152: The Business Secrets of the East India Company (4K7) Across from the University of London, a café housed a table simply adorned with a few dishes of snacks, where four young men with time to spare gathered for casual conversation on their day off.

Eld, with one hand casually draped over the back of his chair, asked the two sitting opposite, “So, you two are not students of the University of London?”

Both shook their heads, and Mil began, “We are friends, who met at the London Debating Society.”

“The Debating Society?”

Arthur added some milk to his coffee, stirring it as he inquired, “Why would the Debating Society come to debate on the campus of the University of London?

Our college is noisy enough as it is.

You might not know what it’s like to cram Protestants, Catholics, atheists, and a whole bunch of strangely shaped things into the same campus.”

Robuck teased, “Can it be worse than Oxford?”

Eld immediately felt a connection, his tone warming considerably, “You don’t fancy Oxford either?”

Dispensing with any pretense of respect, Mil retorted, “How many utilitarians have a good impression of Oxford?

Even Mister Bentham, an Oxford graduate himself, frowns at the mention of it.

We heard him mention it while we were working at the ‘Westminster Review’.”

He said that when he was studying at Oxford, his tutor’s greatest pleasure was to deny students any enjoyment; as soon as he enrolled, the tutor made Bentham read Cicero’s ‘Speeches’ until he knew them by heart, yet he was still made to recite them every day.

And during classes, it was simple rote learning—the so-called geography lesson consisted of hanging a map on the blackboard and telling you where places were located.

In that kind of classroom, you had to rely entirely on yourself if you wanted to learn anything.

Oxford tutors were always indifferent to their students, who found it difficult to foster any emotional connection with each other.

To use Bentham’s exact words, ‘The tutors engage in boring daily tasks in the morning and play cards in the evening.

The senior students are either dissolute and extravagant, or depressed and eccentric, the majority are lifeless.’

Upon hearing this, Eld couldn’t help responding, “No wonder when I was at the school, I heard Mister Bentham harshly criticize Oxford at a meeting, saying, ‘I believe that lies and hypocrisy are the inevitable results of British university education, and also the only inevitable results.

That’s why we must establish the University of London—that we cannot let Britain’s outstanding youths be ruined by the hands of Oxford and Cambridge.”

Having heard this, Mil asked with a smile, “So where do you both work?”

Eld replied with pride, “I serve in the Royal Navy, and this gentleman here, Arthur Hastings, is an impressive figure.

Barely over a year since graduating, he has already become an inspector at Scotland Yard.”

Robuck was taken aback at first, then exclaimed in surprise, “He rose to such a high position just a year after graduation?”

Upon hearing the name Hastings, Robuck seemed to remember something and nudged Mil, saying, “Don’t you remember?

That Hastings, Mister Bentham even published two articles about him on the ‘Westminster Review,’ discussing that theft case with the young boy.”

Once reminded by his companion, Mil recalled and laughed, “So you are that Officer Hastings?

The revision of the Bloody Code owes much of its success to you.”

Faced with such a compliment, Arthur modestly said, “Actually, Sir Peel had long wanted to push for the Bloody Code’s revision.

My case was just an opportunity.”

But Robuck shook his head, “You can’t say that, Mister Hastings.

You should understand, many of Britain’s issues just lack an opportunity.

Without it, even the best preparations are worthless.

“Take parliamentary reform as an example, although it’s been discussed for decades, there has never been a time when it came so close to success as today.”

“And all this because the Duke of Wellington supported the progressive Catholic Emancipation, leading to the Tory split.

Now, even the most conservative of the Tories, who were once staunchly opposed to reform, are calling for it.

Isn’t that comical?”

Hearing this, Mil also spoke enviously, “Honestly, Mister Hastings, I envy you.

The work you do is more meaningful and much more socially beneficial.

You may not know, but the reason I stopped writing for the ‘Westminster Review’ a couple of years ago was that I fell into a fog of confusion.

“I felt like the work I did was meaningless, as if I was just frittering my time away, wasting my life.

“It’s like that poem by Coleridge: to work without hope is to pour your spirit into a sieve, and to hope without an object cannot live.

“I felt like I could no longer exist.”

Arthur looked sympathetically at the early 19th-century sufferer of depression, “You sound quite like another friend of mine.”

“Really?” Mil asked, “What’s his name?

I might know him, as I have indeed met some people with the same symptoms as me.”

Arthur didn’t hide the fact, “Benjamin Disraeli, candidate number 4 for the Westminster constituency.

God help him, he’d best be elected to Parliament this year, otherwise I reckon I’ll have to listen to him complain all afternoon.”