A person, suspecting his wife of infidelity, after a short dispute, deliberately took a knife, threw her down upon the ground and cut her throat.* A man waylaid one who had intrigued with his wife, knocked him down, and cut his throat from ear to ear.† A person acknowledged that he had cut the throat of one who had intrigued with his wife, and four others confessed that they had been present aiding and abetting; the body, however, was never found,-the prisoners were, therefore, released. Two men cut the throat of their uncle, with a sword, for having abducted their mother, his own sister-in-law.§ A man, suspecting his wife of intrigue, cut her throat and his own with a sword. *Police Report, L. P., 1846, p. 21. + Ibid, 1844, p. 19. Ibid, 1851, p. 56. § Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., Sept. 1 1853, p. 1088. Ibid, Sept. 27th 1853, p. 1199. It may be scarcely out of place to mention here that there are one or two points which appear to render the moral relations of the crime of homicide on account of Sexual Jealousy in India somewhat different from those which lead to the commission of similar violence in more civilized countries. Thus, the sense of disgrace and of outraged honor is certainly as strong among these morally degraded people as it is with any people in the world. This is shown in the singular fact that the adultress sometimes urges her husband to sacrifice her life, to redress his honor. A man put his wife to death, at her own request, in consequence of her loss of honor from having been violated by several persons.* This is intelligible enough. Occurring many years ago in Bengal, it illustrates the extraordinary statement of Ramsuhaee, a man of the North-West tried in 1853, the prisoner whose case is narrated above at p. 287, to the effect that, an improper intimacy had, within his knowledge and observation, existed for some time previously between a certain man and his wife, "who had frequently spoken to him (the prisoner) on the subject, and urged him to kill her to save the honor of the family." Still there was every reason for believing the prisoner's statement that he found this same man in the act of adultery with his wife, and then put her to death! It may appear singular that so jealous a people should, not unfrequently, be willing to overlook, for a time, the unchastity of their wives-this, however, is probably in a great measure owing to the feeling, so common among natives, that it is the exposure which * Nizamut Adawlut Reports vol. i., p. 1. Cases from time to time occur, in which natives inflict wounds upon their own throats, either with a suicidal intention, or with a design to accuse others of the crime. I, some time since, examined the body of a man who, having long suffered from an incurable bowel complaint, was said to have destroyed himself in despair. I found a wound on the throat sufficiently large to account for death, although not involving either carotid: the body was much emaciated, and the bowels showed abundant traces of chronic disease. In 1839, a woman of Mymensing, when suffering from a paroxysm of pain in her stomach to which she had been constitutes the disgrace, and in part also to the severity of the punishment generally inflicted by the Courts in nearly all cases of this kind where the guilty parties cannot be proved to have been discovered in the act. Considering how poor, dishonest and morally degraded the generality of the natives are, it is worthy of remark that I have scarcely found in my reading any instance in which it could be fully proved that a Hindu or Mussulmaun husband connived at his own dishonor with a mercenary motive. An apparent exception to this rule occurred in 1854, in the case of one Oseri, of Bareilly, who, becoming nearly blind, was said to have made over his wife to another man, on condition of receiving food and clothing-they all three lived in one house. The result was that, after frequent disputes, he killed the woman with repeated sword cuts and then surrendered to the police with the bloody weapon in his hand. According to Sir John Malcolm, the Sikhs do not punish a man who murders his wife for infidelity. The Chief says, if he were to punish such a husband-all the women in the country would become unfaithful. Ward mentions that, according to the Hindu scriptures, the merits and demerits of husband and wife are transferable to either in the future state if a wife perform many meritorious works, and the husband die first, he will enjoy heaven as the fruit of his wife's virtuous deeds; and, if the wife be guilty of many wicked actions, and the husband die first, he will suffer for the sins of his wife. "An adulterous wife casts the guilt on her negligent husband."-Menu Chap. VIII. S. 317. A man who had killed his unfaithful wife declared, at his trial, that, owing to the disgrace which she had brought upon him, "he was dead before, but that now he was alive again, and quite indifferent as to what was done to him."-Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 3rd November 1852, p. 1299. for some time subject, took up a sickle and killed her two children, and then endeavoured to cut her own throat.* Further remarks upon this curious subject will be found in the chapters on Suicide and Insanity. In certain cases of cut throat, the fingers are found to be injured, thus furnishing most convincing evidence of the fact that homicide has been committed,-as in the following instances: In January 1852, a Mussulmaun was tried at Mymensing for cutting the throat of his step-mother, and separating the head from the body, with a long knife used for killing animals. The evidence of the Civil Surgeon showed that the body presented fifteen other wounds-six on the back, one on the head, three on the right side of the face and chin, one in the bend of the arm, and the rest on the hands. He stated that his mother-in-law (a woman of notoriously illtemper) denied him food and a fire when he was suffering from ague, and endeavored to kill him with the knife, which he then turned against herself.† In the case of a poor child six years old, whose throat was cut from ear to ear and to the spine, by a wretch who stole his ornaments, one slight incised wound was also found on the back of the left hand.‡ It happens very much more frequently, however, that, although the characters of the wound are such as to render it a matter of certainty that the individual did not perish by suicide, the hands are perfectly free from any trace of injury whatever. This is often accounted for by the fact that, as in the case of Lord W. Russell, who was murdered by Courvoisier in 1840, the victim receives the first *Police Report, L. P., for 1840, p. 67. + Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. ii., part 1, p. 140. Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 2nd October 1852, p. 1121. blow while sleeping ;* and, should the murderer purpose to repeat it, he refrains from doing so until hæmorrhage has precluded all power of resistance or movement. Dahoo Joolaha confessed, upon his trial at Behar in 1852, that, his wife having abused him in the evening, he waited until mid-night, and then, deliberately lighting a lamp, cut her throat with the common knife of the house.† About a year since, I examined the exhumed body of a Mussulmaun girl 14 or 15 years of age. The throat had been severed by enormous wounds, evidently inflicted by repeated chops with a rather blunt instrument (a small but heavy sickle was produced). The vertebræ were completely divided. All that could be clearly ascertained was, that she had gone to rest with her husband, that he had absconded, and her body was found in the above condition. The hands were uninjured. The records show that this mode of committing murder is of considerable frequency. When the fingers are uncut, and when the nature of the wound is such as to prove that it could not have been self-inflicted, or the murdered person is so young that all suspicion of suicide must be out of the question, it will be necessary to institute minute inquiries, as to whether the deceased was or was not asleep when the fatal blow was struck. When it is probable that the deceased was not asleep or insensible when attacked, the absence of wounds on the hands must afford a strong presumption that the murderer was aided by accomplices, as in a case tried at Bhaugulpore in 1853, where it appeared certain that a discharged servant had enticed his late master's son into a field, and there, aided by three other persons, * There was, however, a wound on the thumb of Lord W. Russell's right hand, which must have been instinctively raised before the stroke was finished. † Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. ii., part 1 for 1852, p. 34. had cut the child's throat, and stripped the body of its ornaments.* A man, of Rungpore, having been too intimate with a female in the service of the same employer, and she proving with child, he was afraid that, when the intrigue was discovered, he would be punished. He accordingly inveigled her out one night to a place where two of his friends were ready. They seized her, each holding an arm and leg, and the third cut her throat. They then threw the body into a well, which they filled up.† In a case tried at Moradabad, in 1852, it appeared that a boy eleven years old, had been murdered by stabs in the throat, apparently inflicted with a knife, which had passed from the right side clean through the throat to the left. The child's great-grand-mother declared that she had seen one man holding him down while the other stabbed him, but the evidence of the chief witnesses was discrepant, and the accused were acquitted.‡ In the following cases, however, a presumption—founded upon the uninjured state of the hands-that the deceased had been held, or had been murdered while sleeping would probably have been erroneous. In February of the previous year, one Shamchand confessed, on trial, as follows: "I had given the deceased rupees six to keep. On the day of the * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. iii., part 1 1853, p. 152. See also a case in which the throat of a woman was cut by two persons-others holding her. Ibid, p. 177. Also Reports of the Nizamut Adawlut, N. W. P., for August 1854, p. 287. + Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 2nd August 1852, p. 773. The murderers appear to have been tempted to the crime by the poor child's only ornament, a silver huslee, which was worth one rupee, eight annas. The Sessions Judge remarked that his experience told him that the natives of India will murder for even a less valuable article.* * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 2nd August 1852, p. 773. |