communities—­they perjure themselves in all manner of ways, without shame or dread; and there are so many men about these Courts, who understand the ‘rules and regulations,’ and are so much interested in making truth appear to be falsehood, and falsehood truth, that no man feels sure that right will prevail in them in any case.  The guilty think they have just as good a chance of escape as the innocent.  Our relations and friends told us, that all this confusion of right and wrong, which bewildered them, arose from the multiplicity of the ‘rules and regulations,’ which threw all the power into the hands of bad men, and left the European gentlemen helpless!”

“But you know that the crime of murdering female infants, which pervades the whole territory of Oude, and brings the curse of God upon it, has been suppressed in the British territory, in spite of these ‘aens and kanoons?’”—­“True, sir, it has been put down in your bordering districts; but the Rajpoot families who reside in them manage to escape your vigilance, and keep up the evil practice.  They intermarry with Rajpoot families in Oude, and the female infants, born of the daughters they give in marriage to Oude families, are destroyed in Oude without fear or concealment; while the daughters they receive in marriage, from Oude families, are sent over the border into Oude, when near their confinement, on the pretence of visiting their relations.  If they give birth to boys, they bring them back with them into your districts; but if they give birth to girls, they are destroyed in the same manner, and no questions are ever asked about them.”  “Do you ever eat or drink with Rajpoot parents who destroy their female infants?”—­“Never, sir! we are Brahmins, but we can take water in a brass vessel from the hands of a Rajpoot, and we do so when his family is unstained with this crime; but nothing would ever tempt us to drink water from the hands of one who permitted his daughters to be murdered.”  “Do you ever eat with the village or family priest who has given absolution to parents who have permitted their daughters to be murdered, by eating in the room where the murder has been perpetrated?”—­“Never, sir; we abhor him as a participator in the crime; and nothing would ever induce one of us to eat or associate with him:  he takes all the sin upon his own head by doing so, and is considered by us as an outcast from the tribe, and accursed!  It is they who keep up this fearful usage.  Tigers and wolves cherish their offspring, and are better than these Rajpoots, who out of family or clan pride, destroy theirs.  As soon as their wives give birth to sons, they fire off guns, give largely in charity, make offerings to shrines, and rejoice in all manner of ways; but when they give birth to poor girls, they bury them alive without pity, and a dead silence prevails in the house; it is no wonder, sir, that you say that the curse of God is upon the land in which such sins prevail!”