They all delight in murder and rapine--the curse of God is upon them, sir, for the murder of their own innocent children!" [* A great number of girls are purchased and stolen from our territories, brought into Oude, and sold to Rajpoot families, as wives for their sons, on the assurance, that they are of the same or higher caste, and that their parents have been induced to part with them from poverty.

A great many of our native officers and sipahees, who marry while home on furlough, and are pressed for time, get such wives.

Some of their neighbours are always bribed by the traders in such girls, to pledge themselves for the purity of their blood.

If they ever find out the imposition, they say nothing about it.] "When I was sent out to inquire into the case of Brigadier Webber, who had been attacked and robbed while travelling in his palkee, with relays of bearers, from Lucknow to Seetapoor, I entered a house to make some inquiries, and found the mistress weeping.

I asked the cause, and she told me that she had had four children, and lost all-- that three of them were girls, who had been put to death in infancy, and the last was a fine boy, who had just died! I told her that this was a just punishment from God for the iniquities of her family, and that I would neither wash my hands nor drink water under her roof.