India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    497/552 page 467
    eunuchs, and women were his only associates. The Prime Minister, “ a consummate knave,” after keeping an enormous share for himself and his creatures, dis- tributed the revenues and patronage of the country. The fiddlers controlled the administration of civil justice; that of criminal justice was made over to the eunuchs ; each of the King’s favourites had authority over some court or office through which he might make a fortune for himself. The minister kept the land revenue, and “employed none but knaves of the very worst kind in all branches of the administration.” Every office was sold ; commands in the army were put up to auction every season, or oftener, and the purchase money was divided among the minister, the singers, the fiddlers, and the eunuchs. The principal singer had two regi- ments at his disposal. The minister was as inaccessible as the King himself. Petitions and reports were usually made over by him, if he gave any orders at all, to the commander-in-chief, who was an infant, to the King’s chamberlain, or footman, or coachman, chief fiddler, eunuch, barber, or any person uppermost in his thoughts at the time. Courts of justice were unknown, except as affording means of extortion to the judges. The charge of the so-called police throughout the country was sold to the highest bidders. There was only one road that deserved the name in Oudli, made for the benefit of English travellers from Lucknow to Cawnpore, a distance of about forty miles. The atrocities that went on throughout the country would pass belief, if the evidence of the truth were less complete. I will give a few illustrations, taken from General Sleeman’s narrative. The districts of Bahraich and Gonda have an area of more than 5000 square miles, and they now contain
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