The chief
himself is a mild old gentleman, who would not suffer violence to be
offered to any of his nobles, though he would not, perhaps, quarrel
with his minister for getting him a little addition to his revenue
from without, by affording a sanctuary to such kind of people. As in
Tehri, so here, the pickpockets constitute the entire population of
several villages, and carry their depredations northward to the banks
of the Indus, and southward to Bombay and Madras.[10] But colonies of
thieves and robbers like these abound no less in our own territories
than in those of native states. There are more than a thousand
families of them in the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, and
Meerut in the Upper Doab,[11] all well enough known to the local
authorities, who can do nothing with them.
They extend their depredations into remote districts, and the booty
they bring home with them they share liberally with the native police
and landholders under whose protection they live. Many landholders
and police officers make large fortunes from the share they get of
this booty. Magistrates do not molest them, because they would
despair of ever finding the proprietors of the property that might be
found upon them; and, if they could trace them, they would never be
able to persuade them to come and 'enter upon a worse sea of
troubles' in prosecuting them.
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