1834.] 



On Slavery in Souther?! India. 



250 



driver : they usually work from about sunrise until sunset, with the 

 intermission of a couple of hours for their meal, during the middle 

 of the day. They are not exempted from work on any partieular day 

 of the week, but obtain holidays on all the great native festivals, 

 such as on those fixed for consecrating implements, the new year 

 and other great days. No particular task-work is assigned to them 

 daily; it is sufficient that the slaves of each master execute the work 

 necessary for the cultivation and irrigation of his lands. These slaves 

 are also often employed in erecting temporary rooms or pandols, used 

 by their masters on marriages or other festivals ; and occasionally 

 are called on, by requisition of the collector or magistrate, issued 

 to their masters, to aid in stopping any sudden breach in the great 

 works of irrigation conducted at the expense of Government, or in 

 dragging the enormous cars of the idols round the villages or tem- 

 ples, to move which immense cables, dragged by many thousands 

 are necessary : in Tanjore in particular, from the great number of 

 the temples, and frequency of the festivals, this is a very onerous 

 duty. The lash is never employed by the master against his slave in 

 the Tamil country, but it is in Malabar ; and its legality, under the 

 Mahomedan law, has been recognized by the Sudder Foujdary 

 Court ; though violence and cruelty on the part of the master are 

 also punishable under it. I have ever been of opinion that the 

 master should be altogether deprived of such power in India ; and 

 that, if exercised at all, it should be transferred to the public local 

 officers. 



All slaves in India are under the protection of the law; masters 

 cannot take their lives, without incurring the penalty of murder. 

 They are perfectly competent witnesses in all cases, civil and cri- 

 minal, whether against free men or others; but I do not think that 

 the civil magistrate has sufficient summary power to interfere for 

 their due protection. 



The view I take of agrestic slavery in the Tamil country, corres- 

 ponds much with the relation stated in the question to have existed 

 between villains and their masters, during the later period of vil- 

 lainage in England. Thus a parriah, the slave of his land-lord, 

 may, with his permission, enlist in the army as a native soldier, or 

 in the service of an European gentleman, as a servant (and many 

 have done so without their permission), exercising all the rights of 

 free-men. Indeed, even if he remains with his master as a slave, 

 I apprehend that, as regards all acts between him and strangers, 

 he possesses the same rights as free men ; but these can be pro- 



