ll September, 1837, and troops did not assemble before
the conclusion of the treaty with the Sikhs in June, 1838. The army
crossed the Indus in January, 1839. The conversation in the text is
stated to have taken place 'some time after the journey herein
described', and must, apparently, be dated in November, 1839. The
author was in the North-Western Provinces in that year.

10. Some of Mrs. Smith's suitors entered into a combination to
defraud a suitor in his court of a large sum of money, which he was
to pay to Mrs. Smith as she walked in the garden. A dancing girl from
the town of Jubbulpore was made to represent Mrs. Smith, and a suit
of Mrs. Smith's clothes was borrowed for her from the washerman. The
butler took the suitor to the garden, and introduced him to the
supposed Mrs. Smith, who received him very graciously, and
condescended to accept his offer of five thousand rupees in gold
mohurs. The plot was afterwards discovered, and the old butler,
washerman, and all, were sentenced to work in a rope on the roads.
[W. H. S.]

Penal labour on the roads has been discontinued long since. Similar
plots probably have often escaped detection. The whole conversation
is a valuable illustration of Indian habits and modes of thought.

11. The subject of the police administration is more fully discussed
_post_, in Chapter 69.

CHAPTER 59

Concentration of Capital and its Effects.

Kosi[1] stands on the borders of Firozpur, the estate of the late
Shams-ud-din, who was hanged at Delhi on the 3rd of October, 1835,
for the murder of William Fraser, the representative of the Governor-
General in the Delhi city and territories.[2] The Mewatis of Firozpur
are notorious thieves and robbers. During the Nawab's time they dared
not plunder within his territory, but had a free licence to plunder
wherever they pleased beyond it.[3] They will now be able to plunder
at home, since our tribunals have been introduced to worry
prosecutors and their witnesses to death by the distance they have to
go, and the tediousness of our process; and thereby to secure
impunity to offenders, by making it the interest of those who have
been robbed, not only to bear with the first loss without complaint,
but largely to bribe police officers to conceal the crimes from their
master, the magistrate, when they happen to come to their knowledge.
Here it was that Jeswant Rao Holkar gave a grand ball on the 14th of
October, 1804, while he was with hi