We met, near our tents, a party of soldiers belonging to Rajah Ghalib Jung, a person already mentioned, and at present superintendent of police, along the Cawnpoor road, escorting a band of thieves, who robbed Major Scott some ten months ago on his way, by dawk, from Lucknow, and an European merchant, two months ago, on his way, by dawk, from Cawnpoor to Lucknow.  They had been seized in the Sundeela districts, and the greater part of the stolen property found in their houses.  They are of the Pausie tribe, and told me that thieving was their hereditary trade, and that they had long followed it on the Cawnpoor road with success.  The landholder, who kept them upon his estate and shared in their booty, was also seized, but made over to the revenue contractor, who released him after a few days’ imprisonment for a gratuity.

Of these Pausies there are supposed to be about one hundred thousand families in Oude.  They are employed as village watchmen, but, with few exceptions, are thieves and robbers by hereditary profession.  Many of them adopt poisoning as a trade, and the numbers who did so were rapidly increasing when Captain Hollings, the superintendent of the Oude Frontier Police, arrested a great many of them, and proceeded against them as Thugs by profession, under Act III. of 1848.  His measures have been successfully followed up by Captain Weston, his successor, and this crime has been greatly diminished in Oude.  It prevails still, however, more or less, in all parts of India.

These Pausies of Oude generally form the worst part of the gangs of refractory tallookdars in their indiscriminate plunder.  They use the bow and arrow expertly, and are said to be able to send an arrow through a man at the distance of one hundred yards.  There is no species of theft or robbery in which they are not experienced and skilful, and they increase and prosper in proportion as the disorders in the country grow worse.  They serve any refractory landholder, or enterprising gang-robber, without wages, for the sake of the booty to be acquired.

Many of the sipahees of the Mobarick Pultun, on detached duty with the king’s wakeel in attendance upon me, were this morning arrested, while taking off the choppers from the houses of villages along the road and around my camp, for fuel and fodder, in what they called the “usual way.”  The best beams and rafters and the whole of the straw were fast moving off to my camp; and when seized, the sipahees seemed much surprised, and asked me what they were to do, as they had not received any pay for six months, and the Government expected that they would help themselves to straw and timber wherever they could most conveniently find it.  All were fined; but the hope to put a stop to this intolerable evil, under the present system, is a vain one.  The evil has the acquiescence and encouragement of the Government and its functionaries of all kinds and grades throughout the country.  It is distressing to witness every day such melancholy proofs of how much is done that ought not to be done, and how much that ought to be done is left undone, in so fine a country.