No More Learning

But Jelbo had never heard of it. He was a poor man and such things, by
the favor of his Honor, 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 chamur--what you would call a currier--on
his hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelbo's
village. Jelbo 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 smallpox 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 anti-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 practice what they
have been taught. "

"But criminals, Orde! "

"Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, gods and godlings of
crime, and a hundred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn't
it? "

"It's simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are there many
of them? "

"Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of the
tribes broadly described as criminal are really vagabond and criminal
only on occasion, while others are being settled and reclaimed. They are
of great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the golden, glorious
Aryan past of Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift
philosophers. "

An orderly brought a card to Orde, who took it with a movement of
irritation at the interruption, and banded it to Pagett; a large card
with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy copper
plate, Mr. Dma Nath.