None of the princes are put to death, because
it is known that all will acquiesce in the nomination when made
known, supported as it always is by the popular sentiment throughout
the empire. [W. H. S.]
a. the anthor's statement that in the year 1836 slavery was 'but
little known in India' is a truly astonishing one. Slavery of various
kinds--racial, predial, domestic--the slavery of captives, and of
debtors, had existed in India from time immemorial, and still
flourished in 1836. Slavery, so far as the law can abolish it, was
abolished by the Indian Act v of 1843, but the final blow was not
dealt until January l, 1862, when sections 370, &c., of the Indian
Penal Code came into force. In practice, domestic servitude exists to
this day in great Muhammadan households, and multitudes of
agricultural labourers have a very dim consciousness of personal
freedom. The Criminal Law Commissioners, who reported previous to the
passage of Act v of 1843, estimated that in British India, as then
constituted, the proportion of the slave to the free population
varied from one-sixth to two-fifths. Sir Bartle Frere estimated the
slave population of the territories included in British India in the
year 1841 as being between eight and nine millions.
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