It is not at all uncommon for a sipahee to obtain leave of absence from his regiment three or four times to enable him to prosecute the same case in person at Lucknow, though he might prosecute it just as well through an attorney.  He often enjoys himself at his home while his attorney prosecutes his claim, if he really has any, at Lucknow.  The commanding officers of his regiment and company of course believe all he says regarding the pressing necessity for his presence at Lucknow; and few of them know that the cases are derided in the King’s Courts, and that the Resident could not possibly decide them himself if he had five times the establishment he has and full powers to do so.  If the Resident finds that a sipahee has lent his name to another, and reports his conduct, he makes out a plausible tale, which his commanding officer believes to be true; the Commander-in-Chief is referred to; the case is submitted to the Governor-General, and sometimes to the Court of Directors, and a voluminous correspondence follows, till the Resident grows weary, and the sipahee escapes with impunity.  In the mean time, troops of witnesses have been worried to show that the sipahee has no connection whatever with the estate, or thing claimed in his name, or with the family to whom his name was lent.  Many a man has, in this way, as above stated, been robbed of an estate which his family had held for many generations; and many a village which had been occupied by an honest and industrious peasantry has been turned into a den of robbers.  In flagrant cases of false claims, the Resident may get the attorney, employed by the sipahee in prosecuting it, punished by the Durbar, but he can rarely hope to get the sipahee himself punished.

In a case that occurred shortly before I took charge, a sipahee complained that a tallookdar had removed him, or his friends, from their village by over exactions, demanding two thousand eight hundred rupees a-year instead of eight hundred.  An ameen was sent out to the district to settle the affair.  Having some influence at Court, he got the sipahee put into possession, at the rate of eight hundred, and obtained from him a pledge to pay to him, the ameen, a large portion of the two thousand profit!  The tallookdar, being a powerful man, made the contractor reduce his demand upon his estate, of which the village was a part, in proportion; and the contractor made the Government give him credit for the whole two thousand eight hundred, which the estate was well able to pay, in any other hands, and ought to have paid.  The holder continued, I believe, to pay the ameen, who continued to give him the benefit of his influence at Court.  Cases of this kind are not uncommon.  The Resident is expected by commandants of corps and companies to secure every native officer and sipahee in the possession of his estate at a fixed rate, in perpetuity; and as many of their relations and friends as may contrive to have their claims presented through the Resident in their names.  He is expected to adjust all disputes that may arise between them and their co-sharers and neighbours; or between them and their landholders and Government officers; to examine all their complicated accounts of collections and balances, fair payments, and secret gratuities.