appear, goes to Court after many prayers and supplications to the gods to "preserve his abru."[1] Poor native suitors know the Magistrate's weakness, and take all precautions they can to counteract its effects.
A few months ago one of these Magistrates had to decide a case in which the town barber was plaintiff and a discharged Irish soldier defendant. The soldier seems to have thrashed the barber for some reason best known to himself. Now the barber, who was a man of sense. knew that he could not establish his case against the white man. So, with grim Oriental humour, he made his mother-in-law plaintiff in the case, and with the aid of two or three trumpery witnesses, undertook to prove that the soldier had assaulted the "poor defenceless woman" in a field of bájri[2] hard by, and that the whole town knew of it. The barber had only recently married a fourth wife, with a neat little dowry; so he said, "As Prabhu[3] has given me the means, I am determined to set an example." With this purpose in view, the barber went to the best pleader in his town, a very learned man,
