upon any of them, except one, who was wearing his;-seeing that a murderer always (?) takes the first opportunity of hiding the weapon which he has used.* In some of the recorded cases of wounding in India, it is distinctly stated that the culprit cleaned the bloody weapon after committing the crime. In many other instances, the bill-hook or sickle has been thrown into a tank or buried. In many, however, stains are found upon the blade or handle of a suspicious weapon, and are sent to the Chemical Examiner for analysis. I only find three instances among the records of that gentleman's office, in which it was satisfactorily proved that the marks on articles sent for examination were those of Blood. In two of these, the stains were found on the blades and within the scabbards of tulwars. It is easy to perceive that stains upon a sheathed weapon would be better preserved and more readily detected than upon almost any other. The following cautions should be observed in sending in weapons and garments supposed to be stained with Blood for chemical analysis. In all cases means should be taken for ascertaining the Identity of the weapon, garment, or other article. A careful inspection of the weapon will sometimes at once lead to the deduction of important evidence. In the case where five persons of one household were found murdered at Baitool, cited at p. 297 (note), one sword was found in an out-of-the-way well, it was notched and bent and was believed to have been that with which the crime was committed. Another tulwar was found in some brushwood near the house,-it had Blood-stains on the handle, as if bloody fingers had grasped it, but its blade was clean and with a scabbard ;-it was, therefore, concluded that the prisoner had placed it there himself. The article (if dry) should be sent precisely in the condition in which it is found, care

*Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., Sept. 22nd 1852, p. 1047.

Taylor, Ed. Cit. p. 901.

being merely taken to remove any living insects which may be upon it, or within its crevices or folds; it should first be enveloped in white paper and then secured in tin. If wet, it should be placed or spread upon white paper over a perfectly clean dish or plank, isolated in such a manner that ants and other insects may not approach it, and dried gradually but completely, not in the sun, but in a room where a brisk draught enters. Should the paper receive any stains, it should also be folded and sent in a separate packet. In India, several insects, and especially the small red ant, speedily fix upon any cloth or other object stained with animal matter, which they rapidly devour, often removing, in a few hours, not only the stains, but the portions of cloth which they occupied. In the case of Blood-stains, it is especially necessary to guard against this, as the removal of the fibrinous portion of a stain by insects will always obscure the inquiry as to whether the hæmorrhage occurred before or after death. As a rude test, however, of the difference between recent Blood-stains and certain other mineral and vegetable stains, exposure of the surface to red ants may, in some degree, aid investigation. It is probable, however, that the stains of sweet fruits, such as of mulberries and oranges, would be equally attacked by insects. Where a suspicious weapon has been found sheathed, care should always be taken to send the scabbard: this should be split open, previous to its dispatch, in the presence of the medical officer; or, in his absence, of the magistrate, who should carefully observe whether the stains within appear to be of old or recent date. To enable the Chemical Examiner to judge fairly whether the hæmorrhage occurred before or after death, and whether it was arterial or venous, stained garments should be sent entire, small strips of stained cloth are rarely sufficient. The principal stains which are liable to be mistaken for Blood in this country are, Iron Mould, Citrate of Iron Stains, Fruit Stains, such as those of the Mul

berry and Sorel, or meesta, &c., the marks of Huli Powder, (Ábir) and Ochre, and of the Catechu in Pán. In a trial at Futtehpore, the prisoner alleged that certain small, but suspicious stains on his clothes were from chewing Betel. Dr. Warneford, however, examined them chemically and proved that they were of Blood.†

In a case tried before Mr. Baynes, a knife which had been found in the house of a confessing murderer bore two or three dark reddish spots, which every body supposed to be Blood; no one credited the prisoner who declared that the murder had been committed not with that, but with another weapon. On examination under a microscope, these spots proved to be small masses of some red-colored leaf which had adhered to the blade, and had there become partially decomposed.‡

DEATHS FROM BEATING.§

Besides the kinds of punishment already noticed, various modes of Beating are practised by the people of India,—of these the chief are, beating with a Shoe, with a Kora, or Whip, (an instrument which appears scarcely ever to have been out of the sight of the Mussulmaun Rulers of India in olden times,) or with a Lathee, or Office Ruler; the last mentioned is, of course, a formidable weapon; it is much in use, and very severe beatings (sometimes involving fractures) are often inflicted with it.

* The coloring matter of this is the powder of the Casalpinia Sappan which, according to O'Shaughnessy, contains a principle much resembling Hæmatin.

† Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W, P., 8th May 1852, p. 424.

Op. Cit. p. 48.

§ If a person be killed by successive blows with a whip or stick, retaliation for murder is not due, according to the opinion of Aboo Huneefah. Other Mahomedan authorities seem to hold that homicide by these means incurs Kisas-Sale.

It would appear, from the Madras Report on Torture, that a Belt of thick leather worn by chuprassies, is often used with much severity in that part of the country. The peons' Belts in Bengal, are usually made of softer materials. Flogging with Switches, as of the Bambu or Tamarind Tree, or with the stinging Bichattee, (Tragia Involucrata,) is a not unfrequent practice; but, in the present day, the latter appears generally to be considered as a punishment for school boys, commonly in use by the masters of the more remote Patshallas, or hedge schools, of Bengal. In the last century, however, it was regarded by Burke in a much more serious light.*

Beating with the heavy Shoes worn by Mussulmauns is usually considered merely as a sharp punishment involving great disgrace. One of these Shoes, wielded by a powerful and enraged man, is, however, a very dangerous weapon, and fatal injuries must, not unfrequently, have been inflicted with it.t

In a case tried in 1817, it was proved that a police darogah had caused his dhanuk to strike an aged man three or four times with a Shoe. It was also stated, but not proved, that the prisoner had struck the deceased on the head with a mukh, or pin, as thick as a man's wrist. The man died seven days afterwards. The darogah was, consequently, dismissed from office, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment.

In 1853, one Kadir Buksh, of Tirhoot, having preferred a complaint against persons who had grazed their cattle in his

* "For others, exploring with a searching and inquisitive malice, stimulated by an insatiate rapacity, all the devious paths of nature for whatever is most unfriendly to man, they made rods of a plant highly caustic and poisonous, called Bechettea, every wound of which festers and gangrenes, adds double and treble to the present torture, leaves a crust of leprous sores upon the body, and often ends in the destruction of life itself."

† Allusions to "Beating with Slippers" will be found in the Madras Report on Torture, Append. C., No. 15, p. clxiv.

oat field, a punchayet was convened by the gomasthas of the estate. The punchayet found him guilty of false complaint. Upon this, the gomasthas ordered two men to tie his hands and give him twenty blows with a Shoe on the back of the neck and head. This they did, after taking off his turban. Upon seeing this, his friends called out dohaee!-on which the executioners decamped. He then tried to make his way to the thanna; he was overtaken, and beaten and dragged along, and poked with lattees until he became senseless. He expired early the following morning. Dr. Kinsey found that death had ensued from congestion of the brain, the result of a beating about the head, neck, and back. There was a contusion on the chest, apparently from a lattee blow, the lungs were also in a state of great congestion, and the heart full of blood. There were no marks about the head; but, from the above appearances, it was, he considered, evident that the man died struggling for breath, in consequence of exhaustion of all nervous energy, resulting from great efforts to free himself.*

In 1849, Dr. Ross, then of Hooghly, reported upon the case of a woman whose death was alleged, as he considered with probability, to have been caused by beating with Shoes. He found that blood had been effused into the chest and

servant.

* Nizamut Adawlut Reports, October 18th 1853, p. 649. In the same year certain men of Lohardugga (Chota Nagpore,) who were parties in a feud of very long standing, were tried for the murder of one Beegna, their opponent's A witness stated that, the deceased and another having been seized by the prisoners, one of the latter ordered that "Mungra should be beaten sixty stripes and Beegna twenty-five stripes with a Shoe, and one Aubuck began to beat Beegna, upon which Bhoopnath said, 'What, is he your father, that you beat him so gently?' and Bhoopnath himself then began to beat him with a shoe. Beegna then seized Bhoopnath's arm, whereupon Samsoonder got up in a rage and knocked him down, with an iron-bound club." It was said that he died from the effects of this blow, and that his body was thrown into a disused well in Bhoopnath's garden. The case was not considered to be proven. Nizamut Adawlut Reports, Jan. 12th 1853, p. 52.