OUR INDIAN LAW-COURTS. 147 



no way inconvenienced ; had we been visitors or travellers 

 we might have been detained for some time, if not forced to 

 pay blackmail in order to have done with the matter, and 

 be allowed to go on our ways. 



While animadverting upon the notorious bad temper, 

 and the litigious and quarrelsome nature of the Mahomedans 

 of Eastern Bengal, it is clue to them that I should add that 

 I have always found them a more manly and straightforward 

 set of people in general than the agricultural classes of other 

 parts of that province ; more self-reliant under difficulties, 

 and more courageous in peril ; they are, too, more generous 

 and open-handed : but a case in Court has for them an irre- 

 sistible charm, and supplies them, their friends and relations 

 with a never-ending topic of conversation, affording them 

 keen enjoyment ; perhaps it communicates some social emi- 

 nence among their community which Europeans cannot ap- 

 preciate or comprehend. To such people, how truly delightful 

 and how suitable in every way must be our cumbrous method 

 of doling out justice grain by grain, at the slowest and most 

 expensive rates possible ; giving the longest purse the best 

 chance, by long odds, of final victory ; and now that year by 

 year, more of these Courts are presided over by purely native 

 officials, these evils are aggravated. 



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