of these ingenious, calm-tempered, indolently pertinacious sensualists.

Faithfully graphic as the above delineations of native character unquestionably are, they still afford but little insight into the deeper and darker recesses of the Bengalee and Hindustanee nature; into those springs of action which develope the criminal characteristics of the people; without a knowledge of which it is impossible that we should acquire the power,—so indispensable to the successful tracing or just weighing of any description of guilt,-of regarding the natives' crimes from those points of view whence they themselves regard them. It is only by thoroughly knowing the people, and by fixing the mind sedulously upon the records of their crimes, that an European can learn how strange a combination of sensuality, jealousy, wild and ineradicable superstition, absolute untruthfulness, and ruthless disregard of the value of human life, lie below the placid, civil, timid, forbearing exterior of the native of India.

When we recollect that all these qualities are ruled by the traditions of custom and of ancient sanguinary laws which, in the absence of what they regard as rightful authority, the people generally still hold to be just and absolute; that the masses have over them a police drawn from their own ranks and, therefore, marked with all the features of the national character; that they are uneducated and borne down by all the temptations and degrading influences of extreme poverty; that the women are even more ignorant and brutalized than the men; that the belief in woman's virtue or man's honesty does not exist amongst them; that, cowardly as the people are, they are all armed, and are often necessitated to act in self-defence;-when we take together these and many other facts which experience will afford, we may gain some insight into the "Pathology" of crime in this country, and into the modes of analysing and of dealing with it.

Between Hindus and Mussulmauns, the disparity is rather in the frequency than in the characters of the offences. The only prevailing crimes that appear to be inconsistent with the habits of the people are the Dacoities (gang robberies), and Dungas (faction fights) so prevalent in Bengal. In these, however, the ring-leaders are mostly Up-country men, or Bengalees of unusual daring, who calculate rather upon the weakness of their opponents than upon their own prowess. To the eye of the experienced official, the distinctions may probably appear sufficiently broad; but, to the ordinary observer, it would certainly seem to be almost impossible to detect any absolutely characteristic differences between the modes adopted by the Hindus and by the Mussulmauns of Bengal Proper in effecting and in concealing the majority of grave crimes against the person. Indeed the lower grades of these two sects are so closely blended together,-not only as regards means, social position, and the operation of surrounding circumstances generally, but even with respect to their origin, their habits, and their religious superstitions,-that they can scarcely be considered as separate races, adopting broadly distinctive trains of criminal action. It can merely be said, with regard to the crimes of both, that they are, for the most part, essentially "Bengalee" in their characters. Certain descriptions of crime occur nearly alike throughout the

* I have not succeeded in discovering any satisfactory data with regard to the comparative frequency of crimes of magnitude among the Hindu and Mahomedan inhabitants of India. It appears, from the Chief Magistrate's Report for 1852-53, that the number of Hindus committed to the Calcutta House of Correction in 1853, was 704, while that of Mahomedans was 718; showing a very large excess against the latter, when it is remembered that the proportion of Mahomedans to Hindus, in Calcutta, is reckoned as 4 to 10. These numbers, however, do not give a fair idea of the comparative frequency of the graver offences among the two classes-A comparison which is much needed.

B

whole of India. The chief of these are Dacoity, Dunga, and Thuggee. Mussulmauns and Hindus have combined to perpetrate each of these atrocities in innumerable instances; and, since the active measures of government have nearly extinguished the profession of Thuggee by strangulation, the drugging of travellers, with a view to robbery and murder, has appeared likely to become an established practice among criminals of both sects in every part of the country. Several of the smaller tribes inhabiting our border districts, however, display very characteristic national traits, both in the motives which lead to crime and in the devices adopted in its perpetration and concealment. The Kole, dwelling in the hills which lately formed the SouthWestern frontier of this Presidency, lays wait for the man whom he believes to have wronged or bewitched him, and effects his deadly purpose without any unnecessary exposure of himself. He shows no anxiety to reveal the crime, which by no means weighs heavily on his conscience; but, upon being distinctly charged with it, he admits his guilt at once, without a shadow of equivocation.* His neighbour, the Khond, with a character full of rude and perverted courage, fidelity and generosity, was wont, until a few years back, to indulge his rapacity and his vengeance to the uttermost, to purchase human victims for sacrifice to his deities, and to perpetrate female infanticide with all the systematic regularity of one who performs a grateful religious duty. Again the Reaug, Cookie or Chuckma,† inhabiting the hills Eastward of Tipperah and Chittagong, with apparently far less developement of the nobler instincts, plunders and lays waste every undefended settlement that attracts his cupidity,

* See Lieutenant Tickell's memoir on the Hodésan (improperly called Kolehan.) Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. ix., p. 709. These tribes are now much divided, but have evidently sprung from a common stem.

employs poisoned weapons against those whom he fears, slaughters every opponent whom he is not desirous to steal, and pours out the blood of his human sacrifices before his gods like water.* Until the advent of European power among them, the Kasias of the hills East of Sylhet, practised human sacrifice and polyandry (which, of course, involved infanticide), even now they employ poisoned arrows in the chase. Still, with all their distinctive traits of barbarity, the crimes of these four nations would alone be sufficient to stamp them as branches of one great aboriginal family, inhabiting the hill districts of Lower Bengal, who have always remained perfectly distinct from the people of the Delta. Again, certain rather marked characteristics distinguish crime in several of the other districts of India. In his own country, the Ooriah criminal betrays but little craft in effecting his nefarious designs, and displays a singular propensity to confess. Many of the Hindustanee's greatest crimes are committed in moments of ungovernable rage; indeed the frenzy which reproachful language is apt to evoke in these people is so well understood, that the law has provided accordingly ; at the same time, it would appear that the weak are usually the victims of their fury. The Hindustanee usually strikes with the sword (tulwar) or iron-bound cudgel (lohar ki latthee). The Bengalee's readiest weapons are the dhao (bill-hook) and the bamboo (bans ki latthee). Class and local position, of course, have their effect in determining the comparative prevalence of various crimes. Sexual jealousy is probably the most frequent cause of homicide among the Mussulmauns; Criminal Abortion and Child Murder are rifest among the unhappy class of Hindu widows. Dungas

* See the case of Joodhomonee and others,-Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. ii., part 1 of 1852, p. 899.

Macnaghten's Reports, vol. i., page 53.

occur principally in the great indigo districts, in spots where the estates of rival Zemindars are crowded together; and in situations where, the means of irrigating the land being defective, water rights are mainly insisted upon; Dacoits and other robbers, of course, infest those tracks which are most frequented by natives, and those districts where the probabilities of resistance are least.

Although the proportionate frequency of certain crimes varies much in the two states, I can find no very marked distinction in the characteristics of crime as practised in Bengal and in the North-West Provinces.

Altogether it would certainly appear that, neither in the planning, the effecting, nor the concealment of great crimes, does any class of the natives of India display that remarkable subtlety, calmness and power of baffling investigation which might be expected on observation merely of the tact, duplicity and finesse which characterise their minor rogueries of every-day occurrence.-The timid nature cannot rise with the occasion, it fails under the terrific weight of enormous crime

A deep and cautious investigation into the habits and opinions of the people of India, in their relation to Crime, would afford to any judicial officer an almost untrodden path of research, leading to practical results which would abundantly repay the labour employed. Hitherto, the attention of Magistrates in India has been sufficiently occupied in the difficult tasks of detecting crime and of regulating punishment. The time has now arrived at which the true nature or "Pathology" of crime in India may be investigated with advantage both to the people and to their law-givers. The officially printed Police Reports, and the Reports of the Courts of Nizamut Adawlut of Bengal and the North-West Provinces afford abundant materials for a HISTORY OF CRIME IN INDIA. Such a work, ably and carefully compiled, while it would materially aid the daily investigations