No sentence, which any one local authority could pass on such offenders, would be recognised by any other authority in the State, as valid or sufficient to justify him in receiving and holding them in confinement for a single day.

The local authorities, therefore, either leave the wrong-doers unmolested, with the understanding that they are to abstain from doing any such wrong within their jurisdictions as may endanger or impede the _collection of revenues_ during their period of office, or release them with that understanding after they have squeezed all they can out of them.

The wrong-doers can so abstain, and still be able to _murder, rob, torture, dishonour, and burn_, upon a pretty large scale; and where they are so numerous, and so ready to unite for purposes "offensive and defensive," and the local authorities so generally connive at or quietly acquiesce all their misdeeds, any attempt on the part of an honest or overzealous individual to put them down would be sure to result in his speedy and utter ruin! To refer such sufferers to the authorities at Lucknow would be a still more cruel mockery.

The present sovereign never hears a complaint or reads a petition or report of any kind.

He is entirely taken up in the pursuit of his personal gratifications.