990 Dr. Heifer's Third Report [D 



E« 



Their fate in Tenasserim. — These unfortunate men are always 

 treated with the utmost mildness, and the present state of many 

 of them, who are well-behaved, is undoubtedly better than it ever 

 could have been in their own country. The system is introduced, 

 that after a few years' transportation, if they behave properly their 

 irons are taken off, then they can be hired out either as workmen 

 or private servants ; as they have then opportunities of mixing 

 with the inhabitants, they have also an opportunity of forming con- 

 nexions with native women. Many of them, when the term of 

 their banishment is expired, settle in the country, (hitherto but few 

 of them have served out their time) ; they then form part of the po- 

 pulation, as well as their progeny. 



System of transportation. — This system has been much blamed, and 

 certainly the introduction of so many felons into a country cannot 

 contribute to improve the manners of the original inhabitants, but it 

 does not deteriorate them in that ratio, as is imagined. 



Difference between Indian and European felons. — An Indian con- 

 vict is a different being from an European felon, and almost univer- 

 sally the former will be found superior to the latter. 



Thugs. — The hideous crimes of the Thugs (the by far greater 

 majority of convicts in Tenasserim are Thugs, or professional mur- 

 derers) originate in religious motives, and when religious motives are 

 set aside, yet the majority of the Thugs have been brought up from 

 their infancy to murder as to a trade; after their conviction, they 

 prove by their conduct that they are by far not so much depraved 

 as they are supposed to be. The transportation of criminals from 

 Hindoostan to this as well as to other territories, instead of confining 

 them for life in loathsome prisons, is a commendable political act, and 

 it is natural, that such parts should be chosen which are the most 

 distant and in want of population. Though it seems never to have 

 been the intention of Government to form in Tenasserim a penal set- 

 tlement in imitation of New South Wales, yet part of the Hindoos 

 will undoubtedly become colonists in course of time. 



Armenians and Parsees. — Wherever there is a commercial place 

 in the East, holding out a prospect of gain, there we are sure to find 

 Armenians, Moguls, and Parsees, the chief native merchants, resem- 

 bling in a great measure the Jews of Europe, chiefly such as they 

 were in the time of the middle ages. 



They are equally a dispersed people with the Jews, without a 

 country of their own, equally industrious, persevering, and shrewd, and 

 equally oppressed when they trust to native princes, but notwithstand- 



