sweetmeat seller, Podi Moyrani, who had fallen a victim to the older Sahib, who has no longer the power to continue his vile practices, is made the tool for satisfying the lust of the chota (younger) sahib; but even she has some reluctance, bad as she is, but neither of the sahibs have any. The virtuous ryots all die or are killed off under the oppression of triumphant vice, and the sole cause of all these misfortunes is the Indigo Planter! If such be indeed the state of society, where was the Government that was powerless alike to restrain such vice, or to see the effects of such pictures of it? If such be not the state of society, what right had any mischief-maker, under any guise—religious, fanatic, political, partizan, or what they would—to make it appear to be so?
The learned Counsel thought he had cited sufficient passages from the drama, to show its general purport; he would not detain the Jury much longer, but must make a few remarks on the leading points of the case, though the libel spoke for itself. He would ask the Jury if they believed that the state of society among the European Indigo planters was such as represented in that drama. If such was not the state of society, then what right, he would ask, had a libellous mischief-maker to give utterance to calumnious slanders, and thereby set caste against caste, and race against race. But if the jury did believe that such was actually the state of society, their belief must be grounded on good and unimpeachable evidence, they must further be satisfied that the intention of the publisher was an honest one, and if they did believe so, they would also have to believe the unfounded suggestions of a person of authority, and cast to the winds that which had been written 40 years ago by Lord William Bentinck, Lord Metcalfe, and many other eminent men to an entirely different effect. It was of no use to blink the question, they would believe the Indigo planters as a body, guilty of arson, rape, torturing and forcibly expelling and driving ryots and their families from their home. They would believe that the small body of Indigo planters were striving to effect, nay, were actually effecting the extinction of a race, which numbered thousands, wherever they (the planters) could shew one individual alone. If the Jury should be satisfied that the defendant was the publisher, they would also find by the evidence which he, the learned Counsel, would call, that the publication was carried on in secret, and that when printed, the
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