A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II eBook

William Henry Sleeman
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 902 pages of information about A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II.

A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II eBook

William Henry Sleeman
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 902 pages of information about A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II.
during one season; the contractor who bids highest gets the services of the best for the season or the occasion; the purchase-money is divided between the minister and the Court favourites, singers, &c.  These are really efficient corps, and the others might soon be made the same.  The men are as fine-looking and brave as those of our, regular infantry, for Oude teems with such men, who have from their boyhood been fighting against contractors under the heads of their clan or families.

7.  The rest are for the most part commanded by boys, or Court favourites, who seldom see them, keep about two-thirds of what are borne on the rolls and paid for, and take about one-third of the pay of what remain for themselves.  The singer, Rajee-od Dowla, the prime favourite above named, has two regiments thus treated, and of course altogether inefficient, ragged, hungry, and discontented.  It will be easy to remedy all this, get excellent men, and inspire them with excellent spirit by instituting a modified pension establishment for men disabled in the discharge of their duties, and providing for their regular pay and efficient command.

8.  This would prevent the necessity of employing British troops, except on rare and great occasions; the settlement of the land-revenue, and knowledge that they would be employed if required, would keep the great landholders in obedience.  It would be well to have back the corps of infantry and two guns that were taken away from Pertanghurh, in Oude, in 1835.  This is all the addition that would be required to secure an efficient Government; and the scale to which our troops in Oude had been reduced up to that time (1835) was generally considered the lowest compatible with our engagements.  A regiment of cavalry had been borrowed from Pertanghurh for the Nepaul and Mahratta wars in 1814 and 1817; it was finally withdrawn in 1823.

9.  The judicial Courts would be well conducted while the presiding officers felt secure in their tenure of office, which they would do when their dismissal depended upon proof of guilt or incompetency sufficient to satisfy a Board guaranteed by our Government.

10.  The police would soon become efficient under the supervision and control of respectable revenue-officers, having the same feeling of security in their tenure of office.  All the revenue-officers would, of course, be servants of Government instead of contractors.  There would be grades answering to our commissioners of divisions, say four; 2nd, to our collectors of revenue, say twenty-eight; 3rd, deputy-collectors, say twenty-eight; all under the Board, and guided by the member intrusted with that branch of the administration:  all would be responsible for the police over their respective jurisdictions.

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A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.