Edward Lear to Thomas Baring, First Earl of Northbrook, Viceroy of India, 1872:
Does your Excellency know that in various places in your Empire the Dobies fill shirts, drawers, socks, etc. with stones, and then, tying up the necks, bang them furiously on rocks at the water's edge until they are supposed to be washed? Surely, no country can prosper where such irregularities prevail.
Lear was a personal friend of Thomas Baring and travelling in India as his guest.
