h upon the
concealment of crimes. The man who has been robbed will bribe them to
conceal the robbery, that he may escape the further loss of the
prosecution in our courts, generally very distant; and the witnesses
will bribe them to avoid attending to give evidence; the whole
village communities bribe them, because every man feels that they
have the power of getting him summoned to the court in some capacity
or other, if they like; and that they will certainly like to do so,
if not bribed.

The obstacles which our system opposes to the successful prosecution
of robbers of all denominations and descriptions deprive our
Government of all popular support in the administration of criminal
justice; and this is considered everywhere to be the worst, and,
indeed, the only radically bad feature of our government. No
magistrate hopes to get a conviction against one in four of the most
atrocious gang of robbers and murderers of his district, and his only
resource is in the security laws, which enable him to keep them in
jail under a requisition of security for short periods. To this an
idle or apathetic magistrate will not have recourse, and under him
these robbers have a free licence.

In England, a judicial acquittal does not send back the culprit to
follow the same trade in the same field, as in India; for the
published proceedings of the court bring down upon him the
indignation of society--the moral and religions feelings of his
fellow men are arrayed against him, and from these salutary checks no
flaw in the indictment can save him. Not so in India. There no moral
or religions feelings interpose to assist or to supply the
deficiencies of the penal law. Provided he eats, drinks, smokes,
marries, and makes his offerings to his priest according to the rules
of his caste, the robber and the murderer incurs no odium in the
circle in which he moves, either religious or moral, and this is the
only circle for whose feelings he has any regard.[8]

The man who passed off his bad coin at Datiya, passed off more at
Dholpur while my advanced people were coming in, pretending that he
wanted things for me, and was in a great hurry to be ready with them
at my tents by the time I came up. The bad rupees were brought to a
native officer of my guard, who went with the shopkeepers in search
of the knave, but he could nowhere be found. The gates of the town
were shut up all night at my suggestion, and in the morning every
lodging-house in