Reasons for inefficiency of Prohibitory Rules. 33.

they were confided, effect any really valuable end. For,

First, they were accompanied by no penal sanctions sufficient to ensure their observance.

We have already seen what the Securities for maintenance of Children were worth: no punishment whatever has been awarded for not giving notice to the police, and the punishment of all minor offences, whether of the police or of relations and friends (as they are called) were left in the discretion of the Magistrate, who was of course altogether above the law, himself; while to the cognizance of the Upper Courts alone, belonged the grosser cases of delinquency.

A reference to the whole of the nine years Returns, while it proves that the Law Courts have permitted the foulest cases of guilt to pass either altogether without punishment, or without any adequate punishment, will best shew the utter practical uselessness of the higher remedy, and to those Returns I refer.

Secondly, The execution of the Prohibitory Regulations was entrusted to Native agents, themselves devoted to the same superstition, and connected with its priests and people by every tie of a common creed and country-men whose personal character for venality and corruption, I rather choose to report from the Parliamentary papers, than to record in any language of my own. resident Magistrate, describing them in the Parhamentary Returns, says

One

"The negligence of the Native officers, through "whom the English Magistrates obtain their re

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ports, is proverbial. Repeated instances are officially returned, in which the sacrifice takes place "before it is known to the police; and others, be"fore they arrive. The Hindoo officers would "naturally keep out of sight as many cases as they "can, as knowing them to be abhorrent to British "feelings. In many cases the Native officers are "bribed to conceal the act, in order to avoid any "reference to the Magistrate. The distance of the "magistrate from a large portion of the district "over which he presides, is another obstacle. The "dead body is generally burnt within a few hours "after death, and a journey to the Magistrate "sometimes takes a day or more."

· Extract of a letter from Mr. BLUNT, acting superintendant of police in the Lower Provinces, dated 18th April, 1817:

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"The authority which the order conveys to the

police darogahs to interfere on such occasions, is "liable to much abuse, as it obviously leaves it in "the power of a police darogah, by delaying to "make the prescribed report to the Magistrate, or 66 by withdrawing his interference, to permit or allow the performance of the ceremony."-Vol. 1.

p. 46.

Extract of a letter from Mr. SAGE, Judge of the Zillah, 24 Pergunnahs, dated 31st March, 1817:

"My motive was to prevent the police officers "from making the power vested in them a source

35

Corruption & indifference of Native Police. "of oppression and emolument, by undue exac"tions, either for their acquiescence or forbear"ance to interfere in all applications that might be "made to them in cases of Suttee."-Vol. 1. p. 49. Extract of a letter from Mr. WATSON, Judge, dated Allypore, 16th April, 1816:

"The reports of the Police darogahs in such "matters are not much to be trusted." Vol. 1. p. 99.

The Governor General in Council observes, in his letter of 3d Dec. 1824:

"The Zemindars and others will naturally with"hold information when they only suffer inconve"nience from communicating it, and therefore he "is not surprised at the rarity of the reports of impending Suttees received by the police officers. "THE EVIL BELONGS TO THE SYSTEM."-Vol. 4. p. 154.

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To these arguments, drawn from the corruption and indisposition of the agents employed, ought also, in justice to them, to be added the physical impossibility of their exercising such a superintendance as was professed to be expected of them. It appears from WHITE'S Considerations on the state of British India, that the Bengal Presidency alone, is divided into above 50 districts, each containing an average population of nearly 100,000 souls, the civil government of which is entrusted to one European, designated a magistrate, and that each district is divided into departments of twenty square miles, the superintendance of the police being en

trusted in each department to a native officer, the jurisdiction of each of whom extends over at least 50,000 or 60,000 individuals.

No wonder, therefore, that we perpetually read in the Returns, that the Suttee took place before the arrival of the Police officers.

Mr. BIRD, the Magistrate of Ghazeepore, addressing the Court of Nizamut Adawlut, (under date of 31st July, 1817,) says-" In no instance "which has come under my notice of the occur"rence of a Suttee since I have had charge of this "district, have the Police ever been informed of it "in time to make the inquiries enjoined by the Or"ders*" Vol. 1. p. 136.

it

If it should be urged against this representation, that no other than Native Officers could be employed in such a service; the argument is valid as far as goes, but the obvious answer to it is, that, with no better agency than Hindoos and Mahometans, thus notoriously corrupt and profligate, the attempt to regulate an acknowledged system of crime at the risk of aggravating its evils, and prolonging its existence, never ought to have been made by any good or wise Government.

* Should any one desire further information on the venality and corruption of the Native police of India, he has only to refer to a valuable Treatise on the subject, which is contained in the wellknown periodical Work, entitled, "The Friend of India," written by the most intelligent Europeans who have long resided in India, and have enjoyed the best opportunities of observation; the principal Treatises in which Work have been since reprinted in this country by Messrs. KINGSBURY and Co. Leadenhall-street.

Widows not apprised of the nature of their own Law. 37

The whole nine year's Returns fully demonstrate a result, which might, indeed, have been easily anticipated, namely, the utter hopelessness of what, in the language of LORD AMHERST, the present Governor-General himself in 1824, may be termed "the evil of the system," a system under which such incongruous and inadequate materials were brought into action as could never reasonably offer the remotest hope of advantage to those who employed them, who could not but know, from accumulated experience, the impossibility of placing such agents above corruption, especially when arraying them against their own superstitions. It is true, that in promulgating these Prohibitory Rules, it was professed, by authority, to be hoped they would have a beneficial influence in check"ing the frequency of the instances of voluntary Suttee, by lessening the sense of obligation under "which there was reason to believe many women "were induced to make this sacrifice of their lives, "and by shewing that the practice was far from "being inculcated as such," (that is, as an obligation)" by the most approved authorities of the "Hindoo law," [Vol. 4. p. 19.] but on this it may be observed,

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First-The Government Regulations have never brought before any victim the fact that the sacred law of the Hindoos does not command, but only permits, the Rite, nor is any one obliged to inform her of this fact; much less, that the best interpreters