nvested with magisterial powers, Honorary
Magistrates, District Superintendents, and Inspectors, and yet all
the old games still go on merrily. The reason is that the character
of the people has not changed. The police must have the power to
arrest, and that power, when wielded by unscrupulous hands, must
always be formidable.

21. A magistrate who can find in his district even one man, official
or unofficial, who will tell him 'the real state of things', and not
merely repeat scandal and malignant gossip, is unusually fortunate.

22. The Thugs were suppressed because a special organization was
devised and directed for the purpose, the English rules as to the
admissibility of evidence being judiciously relaxed. The ordinary law
and methods of procedure are of little effect against the secret
societies known as 'criminal tribes'. These criminal tribes number
hundreds of thousands of persona, and present a problem almost
unknown to European experience. The gipsies, who are largely of
Indian origin, are, perhaps, the only European example of an
hereditary criminal tribe. But they are not sheltered and abetted by
the landowners as their brethren in India are.

23. The magistrate, of course, was the author.

24. These motives all retain their full force, and are unaffected by
Police Commissions and reorganization schemes. Some people think that
the character of the police will be raised by the employment as
officers of young Indians of good family. I am sorry to say that I
found these young men to be the worst offenders. They are more daring
in their misdeeds than the ordinary policeman, and no better in their
morals.

25. This is quite true; and it is also true that our police
administration is the weakest part of our System. But the fault is
not entirely that of the police. In some provinces, especially in
Bengal, the action of the High Courts has almost paralysed the arm of
the Executive.

26. 'M. Claude Maille, of Bourges. As we shall see in Book I, chapter
18, a man of this name, who had escaped from the Dutch service, was,
in the year 1652, a not very successful amateur gun-founder for Mir
Jumla; he had, after his escape, set up as a surgeon to the Nawab,
with an equipment consisting of a case of instruments and a box of
ointments which he had stolen from M. Cheteur, the Dutch Ambassador
to Golconda. Tavernier throws no light upon his identity with this
physician.' (Tavernier, _Travels_, ed. Ball, vol. i, p. 11