and the Dholpur people none?’ ’When the Dholpur people get hold of a thief, they make him disgorge all that he has got of our property for us, and they confiscate all the rest that he has for themselves, and cut off his nose or his hands, and turn him adrift to deter others.  You, on the contrary, when you get hold of a thief, worry us to death in the prosecution of your courts; and, when we have proved the robbery to your satisfaction, you leave all this ill-gotten wealth to his family,[6] and provide him with good food and clothing for himself, while he works for you a couple of years on the roads.[7] The consequence is, that here fellows are afraid to rob a traveller, if they find him at all on his guard, as we generally are, while in your districts they rob us where and when they like.’

’But, my friends, you are sure to recover what we do get of your property from the thieves.’  ‘Not quite sure of that neither,’ said they, ’or the greater part is generally absorbed on its way back to us through the officers of your court; and we would always rather put up with the first loss than run the risk of a greater by prosecution, if we happen to get robbed within the Company’s territories.’

The loss and annoyances to which prosecutors and witnesses are subject in our courts are a source of very great evil to the country.  They enable police-officers everywhere to grow rich upon the concealment of crimes.  The man who has been robbed will bribe them to conceal the robbery, that he may escape the further loss of the prosecution in our courts, generally very distant; and the witnesses will bribe them to avoid attending to give evidence; the whole village communities bribe them, because every man feels that they have the power of getting him summoned to the court in some capacity or other, if they like; and that they will certainly like to do so, if not bribed.

The obstacles which our system opposes to the successful prosecution of robbers of all denominations and descriptions deprive our Government of all popular support in the administration of criminal justice; and this is considered everywhere to be the worst, and, indeed, the only radically bad feature of our government.  No magistrate hopes to get a conviction against one in four of the most atrocious gang of robbers and murderers of his district, and his only resource is in the security laws, which enable him to keep them in jail under a requisition of security for short periods.  To this an idle or apathetic magistrate will not have recourse, and under him these robbers have a free licence.

In England, a judicial acquittal does not send back the culprit to follow the same trade in the same field, as in India; for the published proceedings of the court bring down upon him the indignation of society—­the moral and religions feelings of his fellow men are arrayed against him, and from these salutary checks no flaw in the indictment can save him.  Not so in India.  There no moral or religions feelings interpose to assist or to supply the deficiencies of the penal law.  Provided he eats, drinks, smokes, marries, and makes his offerings to his priest according to the rules of his caste, the robber and the murderer incurs no odium in the circle in which he moves, either religious or moral, and this is the only circle for whose feelings he has any regard.[8]