This goes on more or less in every district, but more especially in those where the magistrate happens to be a man of violent temper, who is always surrounded by knaves, because men who have any regard for their character will not approach him—­or a weak, good-natured man, easily made to believe anything, and managed by favourites—­or one too fond of field-sports, or of music, painting, European languages, literature, and sciences, or lastly, of his own ease.[19] Some magistrates think they can put down crime by dismissing the Thanadar; but this tends only to prevent crimes being reported to him; for in such cases the feelings of the people are in exact accordance with the interests of the Thanadars; and crimes augment by the assurance of impunity thereby given to criminals.  The only remedy for all this evil is to fill up the great gulf between the magistrate and Thanadar by officers who shall be to him what I have described the patrol officers to be to the collectors of customs, at once the tapis of Prince Husain, and the telescope of Prince Ali—­a medium that will enable him to be everywhere, and see everything.[20] And why is this remedy not applied?  Simply and solely because such appointments would be given to the uncovenanted, and might tend indirectly to diminish the appointments open to the covenanted servants of the company.  Young gentlemen of the Civil Service are supposed to be doing the duties which would be assigned to such officers, while they are at school as assistants to magistrates and collectors; and were this great gulf filled up by efficient covenanted officers, they would have no school to go to.  There is no doubt some truth in this; but the welfare of a whole people should not be sacrificed to keep this school or play-ground open exclusively for them; let them act for a time as they would unwillingly do with the uncovenanted, and they will learn much more than if they occupied the ground exclusively and acted alone—­they will be always with people ready and willing to tell them the real state of things; whereas, at present, they are always with those who studiously conceal it from them.[21]

It is a common practice with Thanadars all over the country to connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from their distant expeditions.

They [scil. the gangs] go out ostensibly in search of service, on the termination of the rains of one season in October, and return before the commencement of the next in June; but their vocation is always well known to the police, and to all the people of their neighbourhood, and very often to the magistrates themselves, who could, if they would, secure them on their return with their booty; but this would not secure their conviction unless the proprietors could be discovered, which they scarcely ever could.  Were the police officers to seize them, they would