io8 Indigo in Shahabad. 



not want any more planters in the country ; following 

 up the above inscrutable remark by dismissing a case 

 of ours which was before him. Not many months 

 after we had another case before this wiseacre. This 

 time he fined one jemadar ten rupees for assaulting a 

 carter oracularly vouchsafing the remark that, as the 

 Sahib had notcometo court in person, the suit as against 

 the luckless jemadar must necessarily be true. I have 

 not infrequently experienced similar displays of like 

 behaviour from the small fry of magisterial magnates. 

 This same gentleman, in yet another case where 

 a villager was sued for deliberately upsetting his 

 bullock-load of indigo plant on the roadside, delivered 

 himself of a curiously " mixed " decision, sentencing 

 the man to 15 days' imprisonment. This finding 

 was afterwards quashed by the High Court of Cal- 

 cutta, when they remarked that the Magistrate had 

 acted under no section of the Penal Code, but had 

 with more ingenuity than circumspection, appro- 

 priated one from the Civil Code instead. Our Deputy 

 had made a mess of the case, and got duly drawn 

 over the coals for it, though, in the other cases, 

 where the miscarriage of justice was greater, he was 

 not so much as admonished. The same gentleman, 

 when had up at Arrah as witness in some Registra- 

 tion Frauds, was found by the Judge to be unable 

 to decipher his own English decisions. These are 



