ABSTRACT
The light verses collected in Alec McMillan's Divers Ditties, Chiefly Written in India had, in many cases, first made their appearance in the Pioneer newspaper of Allahabad several decades beforehand. McMillan’s poetry may be read as a complaint about the changing nature of British India. In McMillan’s work, however, the main preoccupation of the British bureaucrat is the presence of Indians within the ranks of the civil service. McMillan’s career in the Indian Civil Service, which had started in 1868, was also over: he retired in 1894. His experience as district judge in the latter years of his career is reflected in the satirical treatment of the legal system and its procedures in works such as ‘Trial by Assessors’, and the ‘Appeal of the Elders in the Strange Case of Susanna’, a parodic law report,.
