Electricity has certainly
much more to do in the business of the world than we are yet aware
of, in the animal, mineral, and vegetable developments.[4]
At our ground this day, I met a very respectable and intelligent
native revenue officer who had been employed to settle some boundary
disputes between the yeomen of our territory and those of the
adjoining territory of Dholpur.
'The Honourable Company's rights and those of its yeomen must', said
he, 'be inevitably sacrificed in all such cases; for the Dholpur
chief, or his minister, says to all their witnesses, "You are, of
course, expected to speak the truth regarding the land in dispute;
but, by the sacred stream of the Ganges, if you speak so as to lose
this estate one inch of it, you lose both your ears"--and most
assuredly would they lose them,' continued he, 'if they were not to
swear most resolutely that all the land in question belonged to
Dholpur. Had I the same power to cut off the ears of witnesses on our
side, we should meet on equal terms. Were I to threaten to cut them
off, they would laugh in my face.' There was much truth in what the
poor man said, for the Dholpur witnesses always make it appear that
the claims of their yeomen are just and moderate, and a salutary
dread of losing their ears operates, no doubt, very strongly.
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