But Jelloo had never heard of it. He was a poor man, and such things, by the favour of his Honour, did not concern him.
“What’s the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in earnest?” asked Pagett, when he had left.
“Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next village, who have had smallpox and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of a wizard, a currier, and several pigs have passed it on to his own village. ’Wants to know if they can’t be run in for this awful crime. It seems they made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary, threw a quantity of spell-bearing objects over the border, a buffalo’s skull and other things; then branded a chamar—what you would call a currier—on his hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelloo’s village. Jelloo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard directing these proceedings, who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft, arson, cattle-killing, perjury and murder, but would prefer to have him punished for bewitching them and inflicting smallpox.”
“And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic?”
“Lunatic! the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some ground of complaint against those Sansis. I asked if he would like a native superintendent of police with some men to make inquiries, but he objected on the grounds the police were rather worse than small-pox and criminal tribes put together.”
“Criminal tribes—er—I don’t quite understand,” said Pagett.
“We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack ante-British days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By the way, what about the political rights of these folk under your schemes? The country people call them vermin, but I suppose they would be electors with the rest.”
“Nonsense—special provision would be made for them in a well-considered electoral scheme, and they would doubtless be treated with fitting severity,” said Pagett with a magisterial air.
“Severity, yes—but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even those poor devils have rights, and, after all, they only practise what they have been taught.”
“But criminals, Orde!”