perhaps, the very instruments, by whose means it was extorted." Mr Watson farther goes on to say, that "In every case of decoity which came before him at the Sessions, to which his letter relates, the proof rested on a written mofussil confession, given in evidence on the trial; and all these confessions bore the marks of fabrication."
There is something truly horrible in the contemplation of such scenes. That the lives and liberties of men should thus be placed at the mercy of such persons as the Darogahs are represented to be, was one of the most extraordinary spectacles which the annals of universal legislation are capable of bringing before us. Nor is this all. It has just been noticed, that persons sentenced to a few months' imprisonment, may be detained in confinement long after the expiration of that sentence, provided they are unable to give proper security for their future conduct. This is a hard case; but it is a trifle compared with the following.
Whenever suspicion lights upon an unfortunate native, he is immediately cast into prison. If sufficient evidence be wanting to bring him to trial, he is required to give security for his future good conduct, previous to his release; and till such security be given as the magistrate sees fit to accept, in prison he must remain. The following extract from the judicial letter to Bengal, of 9th November, 1814, under the head of criminal justice, will show to what a dreadful length this tyranny has sometimes been carried.
"We are informed by Mr Welland, that at Backergunge prisoners were retained in confinement two and three years, for want of security for their future conduct, and that of 102 prisoners, imprisoned on the same account, many had been continued ten and twelve years, and some even for crimes, the punishment for which, on a full conviction, would have fallen short of the period during which they had been continued in confinement, merely on account of the suspicion attaching to them." He further states, that several prisoners under confinement on this account, have been known to declare that they would sooner suffer any defined sentence, whether from a magistrate, or any of the superior Courts, by which their punishment of imprisonment should be at once declared, even for a specified period of five or seven years, than be liable to this uncertain award.
If these matters be taken into consideration, and coupled with what we are told of the consequences of extorted confessions; of the sufferings of witnesses and prosecutors, who are compelled, first to appear before the Zillah Magistrate, and then in the circuit court, something like an adequate idea may, perhaps, be formed, of the effect of our criminal laws in their administration upon the people of India. On this latter head Mr E. Watson thus expresses himself:
"The trouble and inconvenience to individuals, and the expense to government, (and a most serious one we find it,) from obliging prosecutors and witnesses to come twice from all parts of the district, to give their evidence at the Suddee station, in all criminal trials now subject to the cognizance of the courts of circuit, are certainly subordinate considerations; but they ought to have some weight, if the great object of certainty in judicial inquiries, and if public example should be equally attainable, by requiring their attendance only once."
"In the preceding year," says the judicial letter above-quoted, "we find the senior judge of the court, for the division of Moorshedabad, bringing under the notice of the Nysamut Adawlut the distress endured by witnesses, waiting in attendance upon his court. After stating that there were near 500 attached to the calendar, (a number, we must observe, by no means uncommonly large at the present day, and often much exceeded,) he proceeds to observe, "these are mostly people of the lower orders, cultivators of the soil, who sustain great injury by being dragged from their cultivation; a detriment by no means compensated by the allowance of subsistence which they receive from government, whose expenditure on that account is nevertheless greatly enhanced by the system now pursued; and the clamours of indigent prosecutors and witnesses which assailed me daily on the opening and closing of the court, has had considerable effect to prompt this representation."
The consequence of all this is just what might be expected. But it is
