These thieves and robbers of the
professional classes, who have the sagacity to avoid plundering near
home, are always just as secure in our best regulated districts as
they are in the worst native states, from the only three things which
such depredators care about--the penal laws, the odium of the society
in which they move, and the vengeance of the god they worship; and
they are always well received in the society around them, as long as
they can avoid having their neighbours annoyed by summons to give
evidence for or against them in our courts. They feel quite sure of
the goodwill of the god they worship, provided they give a fair share
of their booty to his priests; and no less secure of immunity from
penal laws, except on very rare occasions when they happen to be
taken in the tact, in a country where such laws happen to be in
force.[12]
Notes:
1. December, 1835.
2. Raja Parichhit died in 1839.
3. The word gram (_Cicer arietinum_) is misprinted 'grain' in the
author's text, in this place and in many others.
4. Bundelkhand exports to the Ganges a great quantity of cotton,
which enables it to pay for the wheat, gram, and other land produce
which it draws from distant districts, [W.
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