away from guns is the only form of the death penalty which has the same effect. It was a not unusual punishment under the old dynasties, but from its apparent barbarity was disused by the English government until the recent atrocities called for some speedy and efficacious means of discipline. I say its apparent barbarity; for of course the suffering is no greater than, or not so great as, in hanging, or execution by the military plan of shooting.

The lowest form of punishment is confinement in prisonall corporal penalties, as flogging or mutilation, which are prescribed by the old laws, having been abolished. The objection made to the "Model Prison," at Pentonville, that the prisoners were made more comfortable than they would be out of jail, used to apply with great force to the Indian prisons. So great regard was formerly paid to the feelings of the prisoners, that they were allowed to purchase and cook their own food; and a proposal to make them eat at a common table excited the greatest outcry among that class of persons who think the prejudices of the native are matters of so great importance that they should be suffered to interfere with the well-deserved punishment of the horrible crimes which they commit. Fortunately, however, economical considerations counterbalanced the opposition alluded to, and the food of the prisoners is now all cooked and served out to them in common. Smoking, too, which was formerly allowed, has been lately abolished. It may now be hoped that the prisons of India, while they continue to afford the convict every reasonable comfort, will be a "terror to evil doers" from the destruction of caste incurred by entering them, and from the deprivation of his habitual luxury, the hookah, to which the prisoner will henceforth be subjected.*

*It would appear from what Dr. Duff says, that the provisions above alluded to have not been thoroughly carried out. He gives an instance where "In an English clergyman visited one of the large jails about a year ago. one of the rooms was a large circular platform made of wood. On this platform two men were busily engaged in kneading bread. A little girl, one of the party, accidentally touched this platform with her foot. She did not touch the meal, or go within a yard of the men. But they at once became insolent,

I have now spoken of offences against life and property, and of one crime against morality, namely, lying. With respect to other offences against morality, and, in particular, the awful forms of licentiousness which are common, I cannot speak. They are such horrors as pollute the mind of him who only hears them mentioned. Bayard Taylor says of the Chinese: "Forms of vice which, in other countries, are barely named, are, in China, so common that they excite no comment among the natives. They constitute the surface-level, and below them there are deeps on deeps of depravity so shocking and horrible that their character cannot even be hinted. There are some dark shadows in human nature which we naturally shrink from penetrating, and I made no attempt to collect information of this kind, but there was enough in the things which I could not avoid seeing and hearing-which are brought almost daily to the notice of every Chinese resident-to inspire me with a powerful aversion to the Chinese race. Their touch is pollution," &c. From this Mr. Taylor concludes that "the Chinese are morally the most debased people on the face of the earth." Had he remained stationary as long in India as he did in China, he might have found reason to modify his opinion, and he would, no doubt, without "attempting to collect information," have become aware of facts which would have induced him to give to the natives of India the evil preeminence which he attributes to the Chinese, and he might even have concluded, as I did, that the Chinese were a moral race in comparison. It is quite impossible, without utter violation of decency, to give a full idea of the enormities which are common in India. If the reader can suppose the horrors of Sodom to be magnified and perfected by thousands of years during which they have been practised; if he can imagine that putrifying sore not to have been utterly consumed by the hot fires of an offended God, but to have been permitted by His long-suffering to pollute the earth, and to have gone on rotting and festering to the present time, then he may

refused to prepare the bread, and complained to the governor of the jail. The governor ordered all the meal to be thrown away and fresh to be given."

form some conception of the fearful excesses now daily prac tised in India.*

Officials in India are blamed for the tone assumed by them toward natives of education and position. It is alleged that too little consideration, too little respect is shown them. This allegation is unfounded. So far as regards courtesy in public, not only the orders of the government, but the gentlemanly feelings of the officers themselves, induce them to treat with every attention those natives of standing-native gentlemen they are called-with whom they are brought into connection, either officially or socially. But English officers cannot look upon these natives with any respect; they cannot look upon them as in any sense their equals, or worthy to mix in the society of themselves, and especially of their wives and families; and it is not very wonderful that the disgust, which courtesy forbids them to show in public, should be occasionally visible in the coldness of their manners, and that the utter contempt which the rough-mannered but honourable soldier feels for these whited sepulchres, these polished villains, should find an open and frequent expression in private. In fact, what a perversion of terms is it to apply to such men the name of gentleman—a term of which we are so justly proud, because no other language has for it an equivalent. What do we mean by a gentleman? We mean, in the first place, a man of position and of polished manners— these are possessed to the highest extent by those natives to whom the term is applied. But do we not mean something more? Do we not associate with the word the possession of those higher qualities, the respect for which has descended to us from the age of chivalry? Must not a gentleman be a man of honour, of truth, of courage? Must he not have a certain respect for what is weak and helpless; a detestation of all unfair advantage, a chivalrous respect for women; and must he not shrink from all that is mean, low, cowardly, and

*The lower classes, the mass of the population in India, are not, I think, as licentious as the same class in China. This frightful depravity is found de veloped in the higher orders, and especially among the Mahommedans, nearly all of whom, in all ranks, are more or less liable to the charge above named.

degrading? In fine, must not every gentleman be a man in the fullest and highest sense of the term? and will any amount of wealth, power, or refined manners, make up for the utter absence of truth, honour, and every ennobling moral quality? Now, when we consider that, in addition to all this treachery, lying, moral cowardice, and degradation, a native gentleman lives in the habitual practice of crimes so loathsome that no convict in our prisons would not shrink from the charge of them if made against himself, I am sure it will be a subject of wonder, not that all who know their character should despise them, but that any man who respects himself should be willing to mingle with them in society on terms of equality.

In ending this examination of crimes and their punishment, which is necessary to a right understanding of the native character, I must allude to the remarkable fact that convictions for various offences have undergone a progressive increase under the Company's government. In Bengal, for instance, there were in 1838 twenty-six thousand convictions, while in 1844 there were forty-five thousand. The only reasonable explanation is to be found in the greater perfection of the machinery of justice, which brought to light crimes that otherwise would have gone unpunished, and classes of offenders whose existence had not been suspected. English magistrates had administered justice for fifty years in India before they became aware of the wide-spread system of Thúggee, and it was only in 1842 that a large caste were found to be devoted by birth to the crime of Dukoitee. There is, unfortunately, in India, a wall of mystery, ruse, lying, and indifference to good and evil, which surrounds all the details of the inner life among native communities, and defies every effort made by the most active and intelligent magistrates. To this great obstacle may be added the unreliable and corrupt character of the native police, whose exactions and oppressions are so great as to deter the sufferers from applying to the authorities for protection. This last difficulty is the most formidable obstacle which the magistrate meets with in the discharge of his duty; and, what is worse, it is a difficulty to which no efficient remedy can be applied so long as the

administration of justice involves the employment of native subordinates.

Of all the machinery of the Indian government, the police system certainly works worst. The police are of two kinds. First, the village police. This is an institution which has existed in India from time immemorial, under all sorts of governments, and has never been abolished by the Company. This is an indubitably native institution, and has existed from all time; and yet it is one of the most fatal curses that blight the prosperity of this unhappy country. The village police are the obedient and ready tools of every zěmindar or rich native who will pay for their services. For money they will plunder the poor, will torture the obstinate, and will turn a blind eye to every offence, or will aid in the commission of any crime however atrocious. The outrages which they daily commit under the nominal authority of the law, either for their own purposes or in the interest of wealthy natives, are enough to draw down the execrations of the nation on any government, however well intentioned, which lends them the protection of their authority.

This is the first class, the old native police of the country, a thoroughly Hindoo institution. Besides these there are the government police, who number only about one-thirtieth of the first class. They are immediately under the authority of the magistrate, and are supposed to aid him in the administration of justice. In reality, however, they are but little better than the village police, and serve only to defeat the ends of justice, and protect the guilty, if rich.

The police connive at all sorts of villainy, and share the proceeds of the most horrible crimes. They take advantage of their position to blind the eyes of the European magistrate and divert his suspicions. When the crime of Thúggee was discovered, it was also found out that the police everywhere had long been aware of the existence of this crime, that in many places they were accomplices, and, in particular, the chief police magistrate of Delhi was actually a regular member of a band of Thugs. The same thing is true of Dukoitee and other crimes.