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whole cry of the people which has come up before us is to save them from 

 the cruelties of their fellow natives, not from the effects of unkindness 

 or indifference on the part of the European officers of Government. 



What then, it may be asked, are the reasons on which we found 

 our opinion that while the natives have confidence in their European 

 superiors, they do not promptly seek redress at their hands in every 

 instance of abuse of authority ? They are as follows : In the first 

 place the infliction of such descriptions of ill-treatment in the collection 

 of the revenue as we have above specified has, in the course of centuries, 

 come to be looked upon as " Mamool," customary, a thing of course to 

 be submitted to as an every day unavoidable necessity." It is gene- 

 rally practised probably only on the lower order of ryots, whose 

 circumstances least permit of their making any complaints on the one 

 hand, whilst their ignorance and timidity render them more submissive 

 on the other ; such is the native character that very often those able 

 and ready to pay their dues will not do so unless some degree of force 

 be resorted to. '* I brought 14 rupees from my house," says a ryot, 

 in a deposition referred to by Mr. Lushington, " but only paid 6. I 

 brought the said money to pay, but as no violence was used towards 

 me, I did not do so. Had I been compelled, I would have paid 

 them." * And in all these cases, it is probable that a sense of the 

 justness of the claim operates in their minds against seeking redress 

 for ill-treatment, which, bat for their own stubbornness, they might 

 have avoided. The violence ordinarily used is not of such a character 

 as to leave those marks upon the person which might be appealed to 

 in incontestable corroboration of the truth of the sufferer's story, and 

 we cannot abstain from reiterating our opinion that the great propor- 

 tion of the acquittals and the lightness of the punishments consequent 

 upon such cases as appear to have been substantiated to the satisfaction 

 of the magistracy, may have had a serious effect in deterring the ryots 

 from bringing forward more numerous complaints. 



The distances which those who wish to make complaints personally 

 to the Collector have to travel ; the fear that their applications by 

 letter if permitted to reach head-quarters unadulterated by misinter- 

 pretation will be returned with the ordinary endorsement of a reference 

 to the Tahsildars ; the expense and loss of time which a visit to, and 

 more or less prolonged attendance upon, the Collector's office entail ; 

 the utter hopelessness, after all is said and done, of the European 

 authorities personally investigating the case, generally speaking ; the 

 persuasion that a reference of the petition to the Tahsildar is likely to 

 end in a nullity ; the immense power wielded by the native servants in 

 the districts and those in the Collector's office, who work together in 

 concert to render all complaints to the superior European officials 

 nugatory ; the probability that if any trial takes place before the 

 Tahsildar the complainant's witnesses will either be bribed and bought 

 off or intimidated, or, if they appear, that their statements will not be 



* Mr. Forbe8, Collector of Tanjore, writes as follows : — " The ryot will often appear 

 at the cutcherry with his full liabilities in his possession, tied up in small sums about his 

 person, to be doled out, rupee by rupee, according to the urgency of the demand, and will 

 sometimes return to his village having left a balance undischarged, not because he could 

 not pay it, but simply because he was not forced to do so." 



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