trace should remain on the 22nd. The Court also considered the midwife's earliest statement to be inconsistent with the assumption of Rape having been fully committed on a virgin child of the immature age of eight or nine. It spoke of little or nothing more than that the girl had recently lost her virginity; slight partial laceration was alluded to, but not swelling or bleeding of the parts, which were additions made in the subsequent examinations of this witness. Further, there was no proof (except the father's statement, not made in his earliest charge,) that the girl's marriage had not been consummated. The Court ordered the prisoner's acquittal and release.* One Kewal was tried, at Delhie, on the accusation of a girl of ten, for an attempt to commit a Rape. Two midwives, who examined the person of the child, deposed that an attempt to commit a Rape on the child had evidently been made, but that the act had not been consummated. The Superior Court called upon the Sessions Judge to report whether the Civil Surgeon was examined as to the comple tion of the offence, and, if not, why the evidence of that Officer was not taken on a point in regard to which it would have been of the highest value. The Joint Magistrate explained that there was no Civil Surgeon stationed on spot, and that it was only in extraordinary cases, requiring particularly great professional knowledge to elucidate them, that the sufferers were sent to the Civil Surgeon at Delhie. He did not consider the rules regarding the examination of European Medical Officers applicable to this case. The evidence of the experienced women, called dhaees, whom he employed, he considered preferable to that of the Native Doctor stationed there. Unless there were an order existing, (which he was not aware of there being, applicable to that * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 20th April 1854, P. 431. the district,) making it necessary to expose the body of a female suffering from Rape to a person of the other sex, he should always think it best to avoid doing so [!] The female herself, if possessed of any modesty, would generally object to such a course as well as her friends; and forcibly to do so, while no direct order applicable to a case occurring so far from Delhie existed, might subject the Government Officer so acting to an accusation of illegal or at least oppressive conduct. The Superior Court considered that the explanation given by the Joint Magistrate for dispensing with the evidence of the Civil Surgeon was satisfactory. The Court do not appear to have taken into consideration that Officer's somewhat questionable opinion that examination by midwives is always preferable in cases of Rape to that by persons of the other sex.* In a large proportion of cases, investigations cannot be made by the Medical Officer, until the lapse of a considerable period from the time at which the offence is alleged to have been committed. Where this delay is believed to have been owing to design or carelessness, or no steps have been taken to obtain the testimony of midwives or medical opinion, the complaint is generally disallowed.† In some instances, this delay, whether unavoidable or intentional, is so great, as to render it impossible that the Medical Officer should give more than a negative opinion. In other instances, however, as in certain cases of young children and of unmarried girls, an approximative opinion may, not unfrequently, be formed, even many days after the commission of the offence. Thus, in two cases of full-grown injured, but not in process of girls, finding the hymen * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 14th February 1833, p. 235. † Reports, vol. i. of 1851, p. 536; vol. ii., part 2 of 1852, p. 87; vol. iv., p. 250. contraction to the form of carunculæ myrtiformes,-I have been enabled to state my belief in the truth of the allegation, that penetration had probably occurred for the first time a fortnight or three weeks previously. As in England, evidences of Emission are not required here, to establish the crime of Rape. I find only one case in which the question of the presence of spermatazoa was referred to the Chemical Examiner. Here the Medical Officer of Umritsur transmitted a portion of wadded rezae (coverlet), suspiciously marked, to Mr. Siddons, but zoosperms could not be detected. As the crime of Rape is often committed with brutal violence on young children in this country, bloodstains are frequently noticed on the clothes of both parties. There are many cases in the criminal records of this Presidency, in which the ravisher sought more or less successfully to destroy the life of this victim. A man of Bhaugulpore, having committed a Rape and being alarmed at the threats of the female to have him punished, attempted to kill her, by cutting her throat, and then tried to escape.* A Sylhet man committed a Rape on a girl of ten, cut her throat, and was sentenced to death.† A girl was found in the fields, at Sarun, with her throat cut; it was supposed that the murderer had first ravished her and then murdered her.‡ her In a trial at Bareilly, a man confessed that he had enticed away his master's daughter-in-law: three others accompanied them, two had criminal connexion with her, and, upon refusing the third, she was thrown down, and killed with a sword.§ A lad of Benares, who stated himself to be eighteen, but who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen years old, con *Police Report, L. P., 1849, p. 18. † Ibid 1845, p. 37. Ibid, for 1850, p. 6. § Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 30th October 1852, p. 1258. fessed at the thannah and Magistrate's Court, that he had carnal knowledge of a child of seven, had caused her death by so doing, and had stolen her ornaments. The body was found concealed in a room, much decomposed, with a stone on the chest, and a cloth wrapped round the neck. Dr. Leckie, on removing the cloth, found that the whole of the soft parts of the neck had been destroyed, from which he inferred that it had been compressed, and that Strangulation was the probable cause of death.* We find a few instances where women of this country have killed those who attempted to ravish them. In 1845, a woman of Monghyr was acquitted of murder by the Nizamut, she having inflicted the wound on the deceased which led to his death, when he was attempting to violate her person.† The readers of Indian History will be familiar with the instance which occurred in 1696, when Soobha Singh, a rebel, having overrun Bengal, killed the Raja of Burdwan, and taken his daughter prisoner, attempted the honor of the latter, when the spirited girl stabbed him to death with a knife which she had concealed, and then pierced her own heart. There is a very important set of cases which, it is to be trusted, are peculiar to this country, examples of which sometimes come under the investigation of medical officers. These are instances in which Fatal Injuries are inflicted on the Persons of Young Girls in the First Act of Connexion. In 1847, there was a trial, at Bancoorah, in which Mr. Cheek, the Civil Surgeon, was questioned whether he thought it possible that a man, having connexion with a girl 11 years of age, could, without unusual or extraneous force, have produced rupture of the perineum from the vagina to near the anus? also whether a wound of eliptical or diamond shape, large enough to admit three * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 24th June 1853, p. 793. fingers, could have been caused by the coition. He replied that he had never simple act of seen a case of the kind,but had every reason to believe that rupture of the perineum might occur from a man having connexion with a child of that age. He considered, however, that the mere act of coition would not produce a wound of the shape described above. He thought that, if a rupture of the perineum had taken place from coition, it would have been in a straight line from the vagina towards the anus. (It would appear that the body was not seen by Mr. Cheek). He considered that a mere rupture of the vagina to the anus is not suffi cient to cause death, although the injury is of a very severe nature. In cases of midwifery, such accidents do occur, and are not necessarily followed by death. With regard to the probability of the girl in question having died from the hæmorrhage attending such a rupture, he considered that there is a great difference in various constitutions. In one case, death might be caused by a loss of blood which would not be fatal in another. There cannot be a doubt, however, that, in many cases, unusual and extraneous force is employed. I am informed by an eminent missionary, thoroughly conversant with the cus toms of the natives in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, that he is assured that means are commonly employed, even by the parents of immature girls, to render them aptæ viribus by mechanical means, especially by the use of the fruit of the plantain! In 1853 a wretch, also of Bancoorah, was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment, upon a charge of having committed a Rape upon a girl about ten or eleven years of age, married, but living apart from her husband. There was every reason to believe the statement of the child that-" he took a small lattee, or stick, which was in her hand, and, after using it, ad deobstruendam viam,' to considerable effusion of blood, succeeded in completing his |