There is a similar clan of organized robbers and murderers known as Sonoriaths, whose special business is to steal cattle, and the Mina tribe, which lives in the district of Gurgaon, on the frontier of the Punjab Province, has 2,000 members, given up entirely to robbery and murder.  They make no trouble at home.  They are honest in their dealings, peaceable, charitable, hospitable, and have considerable wealth, but between crops the larger portion of the men disappear from their homes and go into other provinces for the purpose of robbery, burglary and other forms of stealing.  In the Agra Province are twenty-nine different tribes who from time immemorial have made crime their regular occupation and, like all those mentioned, look upon it as not only a legitimate but a religious act ordered and approved by the deities they worship.

Special laws have been enacted for restraining these castes or clans, and special police officers now exercise supervision over them.  Every man is required to register at the police headquarters and receive a passport.  He is required to live within a certain district, and cannot change his abode or leave its limits without permission.  If he does so he is arrested and imprisoned.  The authorities believe that they have considerably reduced the amount of crime committed by these clansmen, who are too cunning and courageous to be entirely suppressed.  No amount of vigilance can prevent them from leaving their villages and going off into other provinces for criminal purposes, and the railways greatly facilitate their movements.

Nevertheless, if you will examine the criminal statistics of India you will be surprised at the small number of arrests, trials and convictions for penal offenses.  The figures demonstrate that the people are honest and law abiding.  There is less crime in India than in any other country in proportion to population, much less than in England or the United States.  Out of a population of 300,000,000 people during the ten years from 1892 to 1902 there was an annual average of 1,015,550 criminal cases before the courts, and an average of 1,345,667 offenses against the criminal laws reported, while 870,665 persons were convicted of crime in 1902, with the following penalties imposed: 

Death                                  500
Penal servitude                      1,707
Imprisonment                       175,795
Fines                              628,092
Over two years’ imprisonment         7,576
Between one and two years           39,067
Between fifteen days and one year   86,653
Under fifteen days                  34,517

The following were the most serious crimes in 1902: