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was ordered to be given to Mr. Potter for establishing a farm. Advantage has been taken of the appointment of the torture commission to revive their dispute, by tacking to it a charge of torture, in which the complainants did not scruple to implicate the collector, who had supported their cause! The case is thus amply suggestive, and it is made complete by the collector, who is represented as refusing all redress to the tortured and aggrieved parties, being Mr. J. D. Bourdillon, the Indian reformer, one of the authors of the well-known report on public works in the Madras presidency, and the model collector and magistrate of Mr. J. B. Norton's newspaper.

Petition No. 13 E, complains of two kinds of torture being used by a tahsildar, for the recovery of an arrear, and yet the arrear was due, not to Government, but to a Pagoda, with which the Government and its servants have no concern.

In No. 49 E, an allegation of torture for the collection of an arrear of revenue is made, and the complainant, like numerous others, was obliged to admit that he had made no complaint to the European officers of his district. To account for this, he says, that the collector always dismissed such complaint with the observation, "you had better pay the money." This again was Mr. Bourdillon's district, and notwithstanding his well-known zeal against abuses, and his exertions to trace out any relics of torture, which are conspicuous in the Report, his name is thus brought forward by this petitioner, apparently to annoy an adversary, or obtain his travelling expenses.

Nos. 21 E and 22 F, are from the same person, and relate to the same subject—a piece of ground for a shop-regarding which it is shown that petitioner was righted by the local assistant magistrate.

Nos. 15 and 27 F. It apppears that these complaints were made to the magistrate, who summoned the parties and appointed a day for their investigation, when the complainants did not take the trouble to attend.

No. 23 F. is presented by a carnum or village accountant who had been dismissed for fraudulent misconduct. In his applications to the collector for restoration to office, no mention of illusage is to be found. But those applications were unsuccessful, and he now addresses the Commissioners, declaring, for the purpose of gaining their attention, that he was beaten and pinched by the tahsildar to make him give up his public accounts of the village, which, it need hardly be said, are the property of Government! Could satire go further regarding these petitions?

No. 28 F. This is a petition from a few discontented persons in Canara, who avail themselves of the notification inviting complaints, to indulge in a general rabid attack on Government.

Like several others of these printed petitions, it will be found to contain no mention of any personal ill-treatment, and the Commissioners, in Para. 58 of their report, notice Canara as a model for other provinces in respect to light taxation, and a sound system of administration-yet it has been thought fit to swell the report with this production, and thus give it official currency.

Here we stop, as our object is only to show, by a few patent examples, the real value of uninvestigated native complaints, especially when they have been called forth by a proclamation, and promises of travelling expenses. Even without such stimulants, the majority of Indian complaints are found to be exaggerated and untrue, and in vouching for the credibility of all the petitions presented to them, without investigating their truth, the Commissioners have shown how little reliance is to be placed on their experience and judgment.*

The Times newspaper recently published a letter from Mr. Dickinson, secretary of the India Reform Society, containing the lamentation of Mr. J. B. Norton, that the report, "after being a nine days' wonder," was forgotten, and had led to no results. As the Commissioners had neglected the particular duty assigned to them of "investigating alleged cases of torture," and

*The official printed Report of criminal justice in the Madras presidency for 1855, shows that accusations and convictions are usually as follow:

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had avowedly written their Report before their enquiries "were brought to a close" (P. 33), such a termination would not have been surprising ; but an important result did follow, and confirms the remarks here written. Impressed at first with the Report, Government ordered an investigation of the complaints left unexamined by the Commissioners, and directed that in these and all other similar charges, the papers were to be laid before them. From the information thus acquired, Lord Harris, whose zeal against torture or any other form of misrule will not be disputed, has found it necessary, "in justice to the individuals accused and the public interests," to issue circular instructions to officers in the provinces that charges of torture and violence require careful and full scrutiny," that opportunity must be afforded to the accused of proving their innocence," and "that the evidence, both against them and in their favor, must be closely sifted and carefully weighed," lest the servants of Government "should be sacrificed to mere clamor, or caught by plots concocted purposely to entrap them."*

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Having touched on the above fallacious parts of the report, we come to consider the general question, whether many relics of coercion or torture do still really linger in the provinces, either in the police or revenue departments; and this leads us to notice briefly the "evidence" on which the Commissioners formed their conclusion that torture still extensively prevails, and their remarks on the European servants of Government. First, as regards the actual evidence, we find the pursuit of it to resemble much the chase of a shadow. It is divided ostentatiously into five heads, but when attempted to be grappled with, dissolves generally into a mass of opinions and unsubstantiated statements. The first head is styled "the old authorities," and only proves that before the commencement of the Company's rule, violence and abuses prevailed, which the Government was immediately anxious to suppress. When, however, the Commissioners finish their detail on this head, and remark (P. 19) that they have thus cleared their way, "and ascertained the existence of torture at any rate down to a comparatively recent date," we find on referring to their history, that their most recent instance of torture occurred twenty years ago. The next head of evidence, or "the modern authorities," consist of the opinions and general information given on the subject by European servants of Government, and other residents in the interior; an we have already shown how they differ from the Commissioners as to the comparative prevalence of "torture,"

See the printed Circular Orders of the Court of Foujdarry Adawlut and the Revenue Board for August, 1856.

DEC. 1857.

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in collecting the revenue, and the inapplicability of such a term as "torture" to the petty acts of coercion or indignity which are occasionally employed by impatient native underlings towards a few recusant defaulters. The next head of evidence consists of "eye-witnesses," whom the Commissioners have discovered. These are twelve in number, though one, Lieut. Tireman, speaks from hearsay only; another, the Rev. L. Verdier, merely heard flogging which might have been the legal punishment of offenders, and the Rev. H. A. Kanudinga alludes to police, not to revenue officers. There thus remain nine individuals who speak of having witnessed acts of oppression, principally blows of a stick, during a period extending over thirteen years, throughout twenty-one large provinces, with a population of twenty-two millions. This infinitesimal quantity of evidence in an extensive presidency, must be considered to give small weight to the "sweeping" assertion of the Commissioners' belief" in the general existence of torture for revenue purposes." Nor will its weight be increased when other witnesses are heard, whose testimony is valuable from their acquaintance with the people and their language, and from their having passed a large portion of their lives in districts where, according to the Commissioners, " torture" extensively abounds. Thus the Rev. Mr. Addis, a missionary clergyman, writes, (Appendix C.): "I have resided in the province of Coimbatore since 1830, which is of considerable extent, nearly equal to North and South Wales, containing about 8,000 square miles, with a 'population of 1,53,862. During the time of my residence here, I have mingled freely with the natives of all classes and in different parts, visiting their public places of resort, frequently sleeping in their midst, in choultries, and also in their villages 'for weeks together, and where unrestrained communications are common, and I flatter myself as possessing their confidence and friendship, but I do not recollect ever having seen torture applied for the purpose of collecting the revenue of Government, nor hearing of its being applied for the purpose." Regarding the populous province of Tanjore, the Rev. C. Ocks observes, (Appendix C.) that, "during twelve years' residence, he has not been impressed with an opinion, that torture is made ' use of in collecting the revenue. The only mode of enforcing the revenue of which he has heard is that of lodging a peon on the premises of the defaulters, who have to pay him batta." The Rev. D. Spommere, a Roman catholic missionary who resides in the same province, has also never had his attention called to the subject; and other similar testimony might be adduced; but it is needless, as the Commissioners themselves are obliged to admit how scanty this description of

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proof is. "Few of the civil engineers," they remark (P. 20) "few of the missionaries, can testify to the existence of torture, and again, "it may be thought singular that but few of the merchants or Europeans engaged in agriculture, have detailed instances of torture as coming under their personal expe"rience." Also "few of the medical men attached to zillah stations, have any experience of the practice. When it is remembered that they have charge of the jails, that it is their duty personally to inspect the prisoners, and that from being at the head of public dispensaries, they must necessarily become acquainted with great numbers of the poor suffering from bodily ailments, it cannot but excite surprise to find al'most every one of them declaring that neither do their records 'show, nor does their own experience furnish them with cases of complaints of personal violence." But the public are not likely to share the Commissioners' surprise, and follow them in trying to discover reasons to reconcile this phenomenon with their assertion that torture is still generally prevalent. Unbiassed minds will take the more common-place course of supposing that where a thing is not seen or heard of it does not exist; especially when they observe that during the recent danger to our empire, the Government officials in the Madras presidency have mixed with the people as before, respected and unarmed, and that no instances have occurred of oppressed provinces rising against their rules, or Government Legrees, either white or coloured, falling the victims of an outraged and infuriated people. If the report was true, a jacquerie was to have been expected, but all has been tranquillity and order.

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The fourth head of evidence is termed "evidence taken by the commission," and consists of ex parte statements taken from some of the persons who brought petitions or complaints. We have already exposed the manifest injustice of publishing as true a large collection of uninvestigated complaints, and our indignation is not lessened, because in some instances the Commissioners took down ex parte statements from the petitioners without subjecting them to any test. No cross-examination has been held, no witnesses have been examined, and no defence has been heard. Whatever the petitioners chose to say to the Commissioners, was accepted without hesitation, and all who are acquainted with India, will understand the mass of rubbish which has thus been palmed off by parties who used the temporary outcry about torture, to annoy a rival or enemy, to bring forward in a new shape disputes already decided against them, or to claim their travelling expenses when wishing to visit the Presidency.

But the report of the Commissioners is open to another

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