influential man at Court, who could
if he chose deprive him of his contract or place, never presumes to
interfere, and the agent gives the poor bullocks no grain at all. The
collector, or officer in charge of the district, is, however, obliged
every month to pay the agent of the contractor the full market price
of the grain supposed to be consumed--that is, one seer and half a-
day by every bullock. The same, or some other influential person at
Court, obtains and transfers in the same way the contract for the
feeding of the elephants, horses, camels, bullocks, and other animals
kept at Lucknow for use or amusement, and none of them are in much
better condition than the draft-bullocks of the artillery in the
remote districts--all are starved, or nearly starved, and objects of
pity. Those who are responsible for their being fed are too strong in
Court favour to apprehend any punishment for not feeding them at all.

In my ride this morning I asked the people of the villages through
and near which we passed whether infanticide prevailed: they told me
that it prevailed amongst almost all the Rajpoot families of any rank
in Oude; that very poor families of those classes retained their
daughters, because they could get something for them from the
families of lower grade, into which they married them; but that those
who were too well off in the world to condescend to take money for
their daughters from lower grades, and were obliged to incur heavy
costs in marrying them into families of the same or higher grade,
seldom allowed their infant daughters to live.

"It is strange," I observed, "that men, who have to undergo such
heavy penance for killing a cow, even by accident, should have to
undergo none for the murder of their own children, nor to incur any
odium among the circle of society in which they live--not even among
Brahmins and the ministers of their religion."

"They do incur odium, and undergo penance," said Rajah Bukhtawur
Sing; "do they not?" said he to some Brahmins standing near. They
smiled, but hesitated to reply. "They know they do," said the Rajah,
"but are afraid to tell the truth, for they and their families live
in villages belonging to these proud Rajpoot landholders, and would
be liable to be turned out of house and home were they to tell what
they know." One of the Brahmins then said, "All this is true, sir;
but after the murder of every infant the family considers itself to
be an object of displeasure