was not the usual place where Tookaram slept.
He usually slept inside the room. The
body of the deceased remained on the loft when I went
to sleep. The room in which we slept was
locked, and I heard that my paramour, Tookaram,
was restless outside. About 3 o’clock the
following morning Tookaram knocked at the door,
when both myself and my mother opened it.
He then told me to go to the steps leading to the
quarry, and see if any one was about. Those steps
lead to a stable, through which we go to the
quarry at the back of the compound. When
I got to the steps I saw no one there. Tookaram
asked me if any one was there, and I replied that
I could see no one about. He then took
the body of the deceased from the loft, and having
wrapped it up in his saree, asked me to accompany him
to the steps of the quarry, and I did so.
The ‘saree’ now produced here was
the same. Besides the ‘saree’, there
was also a ‘cholee’ on the body.
He then carried the body in his arms, and went up
the steps, through the stable, and then to the
right hand towards a Sahib’s bungalow,
where Tookaram placed the body near a wall. All
the time I and my mother were with him.
When the body was taken down, Yessoo was lying
on the cot. After depositing the body under the
wall, we all returned home, and soon after 5
a.m. the police again came and took Tookaram
away. About an hour after they returned and took
me and my mother away. We were questioned
about it, when I made a statement. Two
hours later I was taken to the room, and I pointed
out this waistband, the ‘dhotur’,
the mattress, and the wooden post to Superintendent
Nolan and Inspectors Roberts and Rashanali, in the
presence of my mother and Tookaram. Tookaram
killed the girl Cassi for her ornaments, which
he wanted for the girl to whom he was shortly
going to be married. The body was found in the
same place where it was deposited by Tookaram.”
The criminal side of the native has always been picturesque, always readable. The Thuggee and one or two other particularly outrageous features of it have been suppressed by the English, but there is enough of it left to keep it darkly interesting. One finds evidence of these survivals in the newspapers. Macaulay has a light-throwing passage upon this matter in his great historical sketch of Warren Hastings, where he is describing some effects which followed the temporary paralysis of Hastings’ powerful government brought about by Sir Philip Francis and his party:
“The natives considered Hastings as a fallen man; and they acted after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen, in India, a cloud of crows pecking a sick vulture to death—no bad type of what happens in that country as often as fortune deserts one who has been great and dreaded. In an instant all the sycophants, who had lately been ready to lie for him, to forge for him, to pander for him, to poison for him, hasten to purchase the favor of his victorious enemies