ras.

change in the police system in Madras Territory. But it at the same time shewed, its police being so much on the Bombay principle where the Thuggee Agency was so valuable, the expediency of introducing within it the same auxiliary Agency for the same good purpose. For we have not heard of any particular diminution of the crime in Mad. We know it to be infested by professional gang robbers. But non tali auxilio, we must suppose from what the Friend of India would advance of its efficiency, is the opinion observed at Madras. We cannot here pass over, however, something very congruous with the subject, whether with reference to the Madras or any other Territory in which the same rejection of good offices would be followed. We observe it to have been remarked by a person very high authority, of the action of the Thuggee Agency in that portion of Bombay Territory once under his charge, that he could safely say, he believed the decrease of gang robberies to be in a great degree owing to the measures of repression adopted by the Dacoity Department, and was very decidedly of opinion that any relaxation of those measures would be attended with an immediate increase of crime; he added, "that a vigilant local Police might restrain local robbers, but that unless the local Police were excellent beyond anything he knew in India, it was quite incapable of efficiently coping with organized professional gangs robbing at a distance 'from their homes, such as were most of the communities against which the operations of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department were 'directed." Of this we believe a very recent example has been furnished in another large territory, where the evidence produced by the Thuggee Department of the existence therein of a certain class of professional robbers, -the same great confederacy that infests the districts of Madras, was ignored by the officer in judicial and police charge thereof, on the ground that he had never heard of them during a career of upwards of 12 years!

We have now done with the subject. It cannot fail to command some interest. We do not deprecate new institutions in favor of old. For the new police has our most cordial support. The country wants it. Let it be at once introduced everywhere. But let us not forget our obligations to the great masses. Let us not subject them by the innovation by any specious novelty to a recurrence of the horrors from which they have so eminently been freed. Let the detective element of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department be preserved intact. So far from extinguishing that proved and trusted Institution, we would rather advocate, after all that we have been able to say of it, an extended scope being given to it. We would

bring the whole, wherever existing, together under one head. We would place one or two Assistants in every separate Police Province, one in every great native State. We would have the trials of its commitments, to devolve on a special judicial officer, and on special judicial qualifications. For experience has taught us that ordinary Sessions Courts have been unable to grapple with the most difficult cases turning upon the evidence of its approvers. We would certify to it the same free and independent sphere of action hitherto extended to it, and continue it, as heretofore, under the direct control of the Governor General in Council-distinct from the Police of the country. We would establish different grades of salaries among Assistants, to induce officers to remain in it,-and with a view to retain in it that peculiar experience to be acquired in no other branch of public employment, we would hold out to its officers higher expectations, if on that ground only, by adopting the recommendation of Mr. Ricketts in his Report upon the Revision of Civil Salaries and Establishments. We would lastly make it and use it as the Police of India for its special purposes. For there are many eminent persons who coincide with the opinion of the late Mr. Craigie, that "as spies, and as the most able detectives in India which their training and duties should make them, they might well be directed in addition to their present 'duties, to hunt down the miscreants of the Rebellion still at large. They might well be employed to accompany troops for the purpose of discovering the position of an enemy, and they would be of infinite use in detecting the treachery of false friends. Such work would bring the efficiency of the department prominently forward once more. Officers would be stimulated, traitors brought to justice, murderers to the gallows,-and the falling prestige of our Police would be restored." But merge the department into the new Police, then let us be sure,-it is the warning voice of every one who has studied class crime in India, that "the recruiting of the now broken bands will again take place, and their reorganization will continue to per'fect itself more or less rapidly and extensively, as the lapse of time allows matters again to fall into their natural and former 6 state."

6

We conclude with one more extract from Sir William Sleeman's Book, although a former quotation was very much in the same language. As we revere his memory, so let his words have a place in our minds. "It would perhaps be difficult," said he, "to point out in the history of mankind, any other 'single measure which produced so much of good, or removed 'so much of evil among so great a family of nations, or so many

DECEMBER, 1860.

2 X

'millions of our fellow creatures, as that of the suppression of these bands of murderers by hereditary profession, which has been unostentatiously effected by the Government of India, 'chiefly through the gratuitous services of its political function'aries accredited among the native states. But this measure 'neither flattered the vain-glory of the people of any particular nation, nor enlisted on its side the self-love of any influen'tial class of powerful individuals; and has in consequence been ' attended with no éclat. It has, however, tended to secure to the Government the gratitude and affection of the people ' of India, and is a work of which that Government and the 'people of England may be justly proud."

No éclat has indeed attended the Department. Its duties. have, as the general tone of the papers we have been reviewing certify, been performed conscientiously, energetically, but with a sense-a depressing sense--that, perhaps seldom occupying any prominent place in the estimation of authorities, looked upon as extra-judicial, mentioned often with sarcasm, and as often disparaged, it commanded no particular attention and had still to meet every detraction, misprision, and misrepresentation. Hence perhaps the reason why its extinction would seem to be so easy of accomplishment to those higher in position who would counsel

it.

"Sympathy," says a great writer, " is rarely strong where there is great inequality of condition." But we would not think so ungenerously of those by whom the subject is about to be discussed. While, however, we trust to their mature consideration of the subject we have endeavoured to ventilate, we would not be thought to be praying for their compassion. Our persuasion of the utility of the Department needs no appeal ad misericordiam in its behalf. It stands high enough in public estimation to chance the present hazard. Its officers and its agents have everything to be proud of. Their claims, we feel assured, cannot be neglected. Our sympathy is for the people any change would most affect. We have added our warning voice to the experience of the past. It may not be in vain that we have done so, not in vain that we have taken upon ourselves a grave responsibility at an important crisis. Be wise therefore, oh rulers! But if all has been in vain :-if self-love and the distasteful opinion of the speciality of this Thuggee and Dacoity Department for its particular duties over that of any other Police Establishment-past or present-and we will be bold enough to add-future,―be allowed to have their sway, and the Department be doomed-its elements not introduced into the New Police,-we may venture the prediction that the crimes it has put down and continues to suppress, will, sooner or later,

The

break out again. We shall have undone a good work. Department will be regretted. The people of India will cry out for its re-establishment. Government will lament the evil hour in which it was counselled to forego it,-and

Extinctus amabitur idem.

ART. V.-1. Papers connected with the Establishment of Universities in India. Calcutta. 1857.

2.

Calcutta University Calendar; 1858-59, 1859-60, 1860-61. 3. Calcutta University Minutes; 1857, 1858, 1859.

a

RAILROADS, Electric Telegraphs, Universities in India! After that the deluge, we can fancy some old school of money getters and money grubbers saying. Establish railroads and who will use them? Of course the Brahmins and Kayusts will not enter a carriage to be defiled by the polluting touch of sudra or a pariah. Money spent on railroads in India can only be thrown away. Wherefore then this waste? But the railway was opened, thousands upon thousands flocked to use it-and when the grand system of lines that shall connect the principal cities of the empire is completed we can only anticipate a success equalled in scarcely any country in the world. As in the beginning of every great enterprise, the promoters of railways were overwhelmed with argument, but like the English at Waterloo according to Napoleon's account, they did not know when they were beaten, and so-they just kept on. All they could do was to oppose opinion to opinion-belief to belief-and work on at the same time. At last the accomplished fact was the best answer to the incontrovertible arguments of their assailants. And now they need do no more than ask these quondam opponents, if by chance they live in a neighbourhood blessed with a railway at work, what would you do without them? The telegraph had not such a storm of opposition to encounter. The railway planned and partly opened, the telegraph followed as a matter of course. But as for establishing a University in India that was a notion beneath contempt. No one but a crack brained enthusiast or a theorist run mad would ever dream of such a thing. And yet the Calcutta University has been established. And now in the fourth year of its existence, it is well that its friends should place on record the success which has attended it. We propose therefore in the following article to give an account of its establishment-the nature and results of the different examinations that have taken place-its present position and its future prospects, considering as we proceed any subsidiary question, that may be connected with the points we have referred to.

Was the state of education in India such as to demand or jus tify the establishment of a University? The dismal facts detailed in successive educational reports as to the lamentable deficiency of education in the country districts of Bengal and Behar