172 STATISTICAL SKETCH ' ' 



the adulteress deprived of her nose. The revenge of the injury was, on these 

 occasions, left to the husband, who, by the customs of the country, and by the 

 existing principles of honour, was authorized and required to wash off the 

 stain on his name by the blood of the offending parties, and no lapse of time, 

 from the commission or discovery of the crime, proved a bar to the exaction 

 of this revenge. Convicts were occasionally condemned to labour on the 

 private lands of the Raja, to whom they, from that period, became hereditary 

 slaves. Criminals also settling at a royal village in the Tarai, called Gergaon, 

 received a free pardon, whatever might have been their offence. In cases of 

 self-destruction, the nearest relations of the suicide were invariably subjected 

 to a heavy fine. ^ 



The most oppressive branch of the police, and that which proved the 

 most fruitful source of judicial revenue, consisted in the prohibitions issued 

 under the late government against numerous acts, the greater part of which 

 were, in themselves, perfectly unobjectionable. The infringement of these 

 orders were invariably visited with fines : indeed, they would appear to have 

 been chiefly issued with such view, as among the many ordinances of this 

 kind, it may be sufficient to specify one, which in Gerhwal forbade any woman 

 from ascending on the top of a house. This prohibition, though apparently 

 ridiculous, was, in fact, a very serious grievance : a part of the domestic econo- 

 my hitherto left to the women, such as drying grain, clothes, &c., is perform- 

 ed there, and fire-wood and provision for immediate consumption are stored 

 in the same place, and the necessity for men superintending these operations, 

 by withdrawing them from their labour in the fields, was felt as a hardship. 



Three forms of ordeal were in common use: 1st, The *^ Gola Dip," 

 which consists in receiving in the palms of the hands, and carrying to 

 a certain distance, a red hot bar of iron. 2d, The " Karai Dtp," in 

 which the hand is plunged into a vessel of boiling oil, in which cases 



