THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 HORACE W. CARPENTIER 
 
THE QUEEN'S JUSTICE 
 
 A True Story of Indian Village Life. 
 
 SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, 
 
 K.C.I.E., C.S.I. 
 
 Author of " The Light of Asia," " The Light of the World," 
 etc., etc. t etc. 
 
 lontton : 
 
 THOMAS BURLEIGH. 
 
 1899. 
 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] 
 
GARPENTIER 
 
 BARNICOTT AND PEARCK 
 PRINTERS 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
 Cama Eurokaum 
 
 - LADY ARNOLD - 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED. 
 
 199 
 
 A vr 
 
PREFA CE. 
 
 THIS is a true relation, in the familiar 
 form of " short story" of a strange case of 
 supposed murder which occurred sixteen 
 years ago in Bengal. The facts, names 
 and circumstances, are all given, with ab- 
 solute exactness, out of official records, and 
 from a pamphlet published in London 
 during 1883 by MR. MANOMAHAN GHOSE, 
 with an introduction by SIR W. A. HUNTER. 
 It seemed desirable that so typical and 
 picturesque an illustration of the difficulties 
 of Criminal Administration in India, of 
 the dangers of the chose jugee, and of the 
 scrupulous caution which judges need ever 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 to exercise, should have literary preserva- 
 tion ; for which reason, as well as for its 
 forensic interest and ethnographic colour, 
 the author has given this new setting to 
 bygone incidents, which are in themselves 
 herein recorded with complete fidelity and 
 simplicity. 
 
 EDWIN AENOLD. 
 
 LONDON, 
 17th Oct., 1898. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE TROUBLE. 
 II. THE CATASTROPHE. 
 
 III. THE FIRST TRIAL. 
 IV. UNDER SENTENCE. 
 V. THE SECOND TRIAL. 
 
 VI. ENLIGHTENMENT. 
 
THE QUEEN'S JUSTICE: 
 
 A True Story of Indian Village Life. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BEFORE THE TROUBLE. 
 
 EVENING was falling upon a little village 
 in rural Bengal ; the evening of a hot day 
 at the close of the month of March, 1882. 
 Men, women, and children, birds, beasts, 
 lizards, and snakes, and the very fishes in 
 the jheels and streams, were glad of the 
 growing coolness in the air. It would be 
 a whole month yet, and, perhaps, more, be- 
 fore the May rains could fall, to soak the 
 thirsty soil, and set the grasses growing ; 
 and permit the aman crop of spring rice to 
 
2 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 be sown upon the lowlands. But there was 
 still plenty of daily work to do outside 
 the village of Mouzah Bhulat, what with 
 the gathering in of the Boro rice, which 
 comes to hand during March, on the 
 swampy places ; and with the gleaning by 
 the women and children of the wild grain, 
 jaradhdn, which is planted and ripened for 
 the poor by the special bounty of Krishna 
 and DargA ; and with the pasturing in 
 cool damp spots, of the cattle and goats ; 
 and the daily working of the water-wheels, 
 and of the garden wells. But evening, all 
 over India, in bringing purple peace to the 
 sky, and respite from the fierce splendour 
 of the sun, brings also the cows to their 
 calves, the buffaloes to their byres, the 
 she-goats to their bleating kids, the baby 
 to the mother's soft breast, and repose to 
 the world. The people of the village of 
 Mouzah Bhulat were coming home by one 
 
Before the Trouble. 3 
 
 of those jungle roads so common in lower 
 Bengal, where, if one walked or rode for 
 the first time, and had any intelligent eye 
 for nature, the strange and picturesque 
 and interesting objects beheld would fill 
 observant minds with delight. The rich 
 and lavish frondage of the forest always 
 finding moisture in the thick subsoil, and 
 casting long shadows from groves of palm 
 trees, and thickets of rustling feathery 
 bamboo, intermingled with sal and tam- 
 arind, and naked pale branches of the 
 silk-cotton trees, among which long tor- 
 tuous-twined and festooned like snakes, 
 and pink and blue epiphytes swung like 
 clustered lamps. The path itself, beaten 
 smooth by many patient feet, without a 
 stone or even a pebble so big as a rice- 
 husk ; all of it the sifted and fertile gift 
 of holy Mother Ganges to her lowland 
 children, was like a leafy lane of Paradise, 
 
4 Tlie Queens Justice. 
 
 The nullahs, lined with bushes o erunda, 
 wild indigo, and korinda, were alive with 
 happy jungle creatures, and now most of 
 all, because during March, in Bengal, the 
 palm-swift builds her little purse-like nest 
 in the palmyras ; the white and black 
 halcyon machi-baug " tiger of fishes," 
 hangs over every pool to catch for his 
 mate the " havildar and ten," that most 
 delicious silvery food. The red-throated 
 paraquet has her young ones, so has the 
 green copper-smith and the koel ; the red- 
 cheeked bulbul, and the oriole, flitting by 
 in black and gold, and the crow, the jungle- 
 fowl, the kyah partridge, the plovers, and 
 river - fishers, the shama robin and the 
 white-backed mynar have all got hidden 
 eggs somewhere, while the turtle-dove tells 
 you confidingly about her own from every 
 thornbush. The green bee-eater darts 
 back to its hole in the clay-bank with a 
 
Before the Trouble. 5 
 
 purple and golden butterfly in his keen 
 bill ; and the bush quail scurries frightened 
 from every tuft of grass. A hungry jackal 
 or two slinks from his day -shelter to see 
 if anything eatable be yet about ; the owls 
 are mopping and mowing about the little 
 temple walks ; and against the green and 
 gilded sky large bands of flying-foxes go 
 clamorously to their nightly supper of 
 fruit. 
 
 Pleasant and peaceful was such an 
 Indian evening, as the village people 
 loitered homeward through these sights 
 and scenes, so familiar to their eyes 
 most of them being of the so-called 
 Musulman caste ; for, although "belie- 
 vers," the Mohammedans of Lower Ben- 
 gal are not like orthodox Islamites, and 
 very few among them could recite the 
 Kalma^ or Confession of Faith, even to 
 save their souls. They are really little 
 
6 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 more than circumcised low-caste Hindus, 
 and frequent the festivals of Krishna and 
 Bhavani as freelv as their Hindu neigh- 
 
 / o 
 
 hours. At all events that was the case 
 with the Bengali Musulmans of the Nud- 
 dea District at the time of this true story, 
 if local changes have since arisen not 
 without their religious and political sig- 
 nificance. Along the path to the village 
 was at this hour coming a group of tired 
 but happy folks whose chat, with snatches 
 of country songs, gave a finishing charm 
 of contented humanity to the tranquil twi- 
 light and secluded scenes. Who could tell 
 that a sudden and sorrowful tragedy was 
 even at that placid hour impending over 
 this little obscure, innocent corner of our 
 huge world, a tragedy that must put the 
 " Queen's Justice" itself to trial, and once 
 more after so many sad illustrations, make 
 plain to all upright judges how hard a 
 
Before the Trouble. 7 
 
 tiling it is to decide righteously. Their 
 Koran though the simple peasants of 
 Mouzah Bhulat are little versed in its 
 Arabic says truly that " only one Judge 
 is just," and terribly does it teach how at 
 the last day " those who have judged their 
 fellows unjustly shall be hurled to Hell 
 from such a height, that only their falling 
 down shall occupy forty whole years ; but 
 of those who have adjudged justly the 
 Angels shall kiss the lips, because they 
 spake for Allah." 
 
 Yet this stout good-looking peasant in 
 the yellow turban coming across the nullah, 
 and driving a dove-coloured cow, is not 
 thinking of anything so serious. It is 
 Malek Chand, watchman Chaukidar as 
 anybody may tell by his belt and head- 
 dress, whose duty it is to go the rounds 
 occasionally of the village at night and to 
 see that all is well and orderly in its neigh- 
 
8 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 bourhood. His father was Musulman, as 
 he himself is, and was named Ashruf Sir- 
 dar. He is about thirty-five years old : 
 not rich of course, but well respected, and 
 with the reputation of being a kindly man 
 to his fellows, tender and affectionate to- 
 wards his four children, and faithful, it is 
 to be hoped, to his wife Bharati. But 
 morals are not altogether perfect in these 
 quiet rural nooks of Bengal, and the village 
 at large is inclined to think that the brown 
 eyes and lightsome gait of Sarba, the bold- 
 faced wife of another Musulman villager, 
 Kadam Ali Fakir, have of late tempted 
 him to err. Kadam Ali, her husband, cer- 
 tainly thinks so, for he has taken the first 
 steps in proceedings at law against Malek 
 Chand for improper advances towards 
 Sarba, of which, however, Malek stoutly 
 denies himself guilty ; but the charge, re- 
 butted by the Chaukidar, none the less. 
 
Before the Trouble. 9 
 
 perhaps, troubles and perplexes him as he 
 goes, with eyes fixed on the jungle path, 
 forgetting even to guide his cherished cow, 
 and not listening, or certainly not greatly 
 heeding, the lively Bengali song which 
 Nekjan, his ten-year-old daughter, sings 
 at his heels, carrying on her smooth bare 
 brown shoulder the khatia, that heavy, 
 yard-long pestle o hard wood, with which 
 the peasants husk their rice, pounding it 
 in a stone mortar. Charming little Nek- 
 jan ! Dark as a betel-nut and graceful as a 
 roe-deer, the Hindu maid trips along, with 
 small well-formed feet, behind her father, 
 wearing no ornaments except her own 
 natural grace and youth. The household 
 is far too poor for silver bangles and arm- 
 lets, much more for the gold buckle which 
 ought to fasten her choli only she wears 
 two or three common glass bracelets ; and 
 in her jet black hair, which hangs from 
 
10 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 her shining little head in a long triple 
 braid over a sari of crimson cotton bor- 
 dered with bright green, she has set a 
 chainpak flower, whose star of milky white, 
 with centre of gold, is really all the jewel 
 that it needs. And as she paces in the 
 rear with the khatia on her shoulder, which 
 they have borrowed to pestle the new rice, 
 Nekjan's girlish voice lilts a Bengali folk- 
 song, something like this : 
 
 " Choti Gwalini a milkmaid sped, 
 
 Slender and bright and brown, 
 With a chatty of curds on her neat little head 
 
 To sell in Nuddea town. 
 Rama ! ho Rama I who buys of me 
 Curds as white as the ivorj^ ? 
 
 Jahan dharde, when at noon-tide 
 
 She puts down the chatty to rest, 
 Talian tamua up to her side, 
 
 In silver and satins dressed. 
 Rama ! ho Rama ! canters the king 
 * Sweet little milkmaid, marketing ! ' 
 
 Agu, hokh agu ! forward go ! 
 
 Ride on your road, my Lord ! 
 If you lay hand on my sari so 
 
 The curds will spatter your sword. 
 Rama I ho Rama I the curds will fall 
 On silver and satin and jewels, and all ! " 
 
Before the Trouble. 11 
 
 " Baba ! " said the girl, presently, " you 
 won't sing to-night. 
 
 " I am troubled, Sontoti ! 
 
 " What is it, father ? and when the rice 
 and onions are now nearly got, and Dhan- 
 bani our cow has calved." 
 
 " Heart's delight ! my Dilkhoosha ! there 
 are those who plot mischief against me. 
 Allah himself cannot make serpents yield 
 honey, nor turn bad natures into good. 
 Sarba, the wife of Kadam Ali Fakir, is 
 one of the bad ones. She lies about me 
 all over the village, as the dust blows." 
 
 " Yes, Baba, I know. They talk of her, 
 but who believes ? " 
 
 " Because I would not listen to her evil 
 words and wishes albeit thy mother deems 
 otherwise she hath a false tale that I of- 
 fered wrong to her in her husband's out- 
 going, and the Fakir hath gone to Bongong 
 upon it, and laid complaint ; nor shall I 
 
12 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 be quit of all these liars without many 
 rupees to them and to the police." 
 
 Nekjan said, " I heard Obiran, the wife 
 of Meeru, at the well, not seeing me be- 
 hind her, tell Jameer's daughter that they 
 would make thee eat dirt, for the suit was 
 against Meeru." 
 
 " Yea," replied the Chaukidar, " she is 
 cousin to Sarba. Make the mother know 
 what was said, my little one ; it may 
 change her heart, which is foolish and 
 angry against thy father." 
 
 " See, Baba ! " exclaimed the girl, "there 
 is Sarba coming, with Kadam Ali, and 
 Dwarka Rai, the constable." 
 
 A tall handsome peasant woman, with 
 dark bold eyes and coarse voluptuous 
 mouth, was seen approaching, carrying on 
 her shapely head a large black chatty of 
 water. She was conversing earnestly with 
 the village officer and the ill-looking Fakir, 
 
Before the Trouble. 13 
 
 her husband. In the narrow jungle path 
 it was impossible for Malek Chand and the 
 girl not to pass closely. The woman drew 
 her red sari over her face, and spat upon 
 the ground contemptuously. The men 
 cast glances of anger and defiance at each 
 other, and grasped tighter their long latties 
 as though they would have liked to use 
 them. But the constable was there, and 
 father and daughter followed the quiet- 
 pacing cow in an artificial peace, Dwarka 
 Rai only crying after them : 
 
 " See that thou hast ready that money 
 by to-morrow night, Malek Chand ! The 
 writ is out ; we shall lay thee by the heels 
 in Bongong gaol." 
 
 Malek could think of nothing better 
 than to call out, " See that you keep 
 Kadam Ali's tongue from lying, and his 
 bull from wandering o' nights in our lane. 
 I shall be doing mischief else to him and 
 his beast ! " 
 
14 TJie Queens Justice. 
 
 Unlucky words ! although it was true that 
 night after night the Fakir's bull did indeed 
 roam annoyingly among the cowsheds of 
 Mouzah Bhulat, provoking the wrath of 
 the villagers, who had little of the ortho- 
 dox Hindu's reverence for horned cattle. 
 
 Meantime, Dhanbani, the dove- coloured 
 cow, paced placidly onward to her calf and 
 her fodder ; and by the temple of Shiva 
 TJmesh Ghazi met them, and exchanged 
 some earnest words with the Chaukidar, 
 in which Nekjan heard Sarba's name pro- 
 nounced. At the corner of the onion-field, 
 close to the house of the Chaukidar, Golak 
 Mani, the little sister of Nekjan, holding 
 the hand of her mother Bharati, joined the 
 troubled pair. Malek's wife, a hard-fea- 
 tured, middle-aged woman, held an infant 
 across her left hip, and in her right hand, 
 the heavy stone rice mortar. The child 
 Golak, about seven years old, instead of 
 
Before the Trouble. 15 
 
 Nekjan's gentle face and loving eyes, like 
 her father's, had rather the furtive, sullen 
 look of the mother, and answered without 
 affection to the tender caresses of her 
 father, who kissed her head and took her 
 fondly in his arms. 
 
 " Thou wouldst be better pleased, I 
 think," Bharati said, bitterly, " if she were 
 Sarba's." 
 
 "Vex me no more, wife," Malek replied, 
 angrily, "with foolishness about that den 
 of liars. Nekjan here will tell you the 
 truth. Go in and boil the rice, and then 
 must I send thee this night to Goga to get 
 rupees from my brother, wherewith to 
 fight the wickedness of Kadam Ali Fakir, 
 Mirun, and my other enemies." 
 
 As the sorely perplexed but kind-hearted 
 peasant passed into his cottage door, he 
 brushed against the khatia, which Nekjan 
 had set down at the door-post. The heavy 
 
16 TJie Queen s Justice. 
 
 wooden pestle, in falling to the ground, 
 struck the green and purple glass bangles 
 upon the wrist of the little Hindu maid, 
 and broke them all. 
 
 "Ya, Allah!" exclaimed Bharati, "what 
 ill luck is coming now to our house, I 
 wonder. I will make shirni to the Gods, 
 if nothing evil befalls from this." 
 
 But pretty Nekjan laid the khatia down 
 at the head of the sleeping mat, and, kiss- 
 ing her father's knee to turn the ill omen 
 into good luck, threw away the broken 
 glass and set to work to prepare the pots 
 for cooking. 
 
 Then the little humble household, on 
 whom so great a sorrow was about to 
 descend, offered the usual prayers before 
 food to that Invisible Power which of times 
 seems not to hear, or not at all to heed. 
 Standing respectfully behind the silent 
 chaukidar, the wife, suppressing her ill 
 
Before the Trouble. 17 
 
 temper for the sake of an hour when all 
 should be domestically sweet and tranquil, 
 brought the hot rice to her lord, saying, 
 " amar hatai bhat ! " " be pleased to take 
 victuals of my hand," while Malek Chand, 
 somewhat in peace again at the sight of 
 his children, and at the smell of the konji 
 and warm cakes, drew Nekjan and Golak 
 down between his knees, feeding them with 
 rolled morsels of chupatti dipped in the 
 rice-water and rude condiments of the 
 meal. But ever he gave the best pieces 
 to his fond little laughing Nekjan. After- 
 wards, Bharati partook herself of the 
 simple provisions, and then, after giving 
 the infant the breast, tied up her sari 
 tightly between her knees, and, with the 
 baby still at her bosom, and leading by the 
 hand the younger child, set forth under the 
 sinking moon for the adjoining village of 
 Goga to fetch, if they should be attainable, 
 
18 TJie Queen s Justice. 
 
 those desired rupees. The road was easy 
 and clear of any danger from wolves or 
 tigers, though Malek bade his sullen wife 
 beware of snakes sleeping in the dust. She 
 would rest for the night at her brother-in- 
 law's hut, and return at the bathing hour 
 on the morrow. 
 
 The wife being sped, Nekjan spread out, 
 in the little verandah of the Indian cottage, 
 the sleeping mat of plaited palm leaves ; 
 for it was too warm a night for lying down 
 within doors. In the hot season all India 
 takes repose in the open air, men, women, 
 and children alike ; wrapped, especially 
 about the head and face, in white chudders 
 or blankets of black wool. Malek Chand, 
 with Nekjan and Golak Mani, made ready 
 to take repose together in the gleam of the 
 sinking moon, the Chaukidar having first 
 inspected carefully his cow-byres to see 
 that no wandering bull, or prowling wolf 
 
Before the Trouble. 19 
 
 or hyena, vexed the rest of Dhanbani and 
 her calf. Then he took his place between 
 the two little sleeping girls, and the village 
 with its lines of recumbent figures plac- 
 idly stretched upon charpoy and mat in 
 front of the thatched cots ; with the soft 
 whisper of the jungle wind breathing 
 through the lane, and the waving shadows 
 of the palm-tops flickering each patch of 
 moonlight along its vista seemed to pre- 
 sent a finished picture of security and 
 peace. Yet before morning all shall be 
 changed for this troubled peasant, forget- 
 ting temporarily his anxieties in slumber, 
 and for the foolish jealous wife on foot over 
 the maiden ; and there shall befall that 
 which will bring matters in Mouzah Bhulat 
 " to the three thirteens," and set a great 
 judicial puzzle to the Justice of the Queen, 
 hard to unravel for even the best brains 
 and the most dutiful consciences. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CATASTROPHE. 
 
 VERY wonderful and beautiful is the break 
 of day in India, and mysterious, especially 
 in that hour when the first faint glimmer 
 of the " Wolf's Tail " brushes the Eastern 
 horizon, and when the dum-i~siibli, the 
 "breath of the morning" stirs over the 
 awakening earth. By such names the 
 villager knows the earliest indications of 
 returning light, and truly notable is the 
 strange and sudden waft of air, like a sleep- 
 less deep-drawn expiration, which abruptly 
 rises and passes, making the palm-fans 
 wave against the sky, and the grasses and 
 
The Catastrophe. 21 
 
 jungle foliage lisp and patter. Then, 
 above all, he thinks, is the time when the 
 leaves of the holy peepul the tree which 
 knows and hears the doings of men mur- 
 mur them all to the wandering Gods, al- 
 though the passer-by would think they were 
 merely rustling. Then also do the white 
 stars watch earth most closely, and see all 
 the hidden deeds that happen, perceiving 
 even the very deeds and thoughts of men 
 as readily as they mark the tiger finishing 
 his bloody meal in the bamboo thicket, 
 and the jackal slinking home with stolen 
 food to her young. But for human eyes 
 the thickest jungle is not so impenetrable 
 as human hearts : the midnight is not so 
 dark and black as mortal passions ; and the 
 best light our earthly equity can command 
 to know the truth from the falsehood, and 
 so to judge righteously, is but like the 
 flicker of yonder fire-flies in the mango 
 
22 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 tree above Malek Chanel's abode, to the 
 eyes of those sleepless stars. 
 
 He is sitting alone on the step of the 
 verandah, his arms folded upon his knees, 
 his bared head buried in them, weeping 
 piteously, and rocking all his body to and 
 fro, as a native does in any extreme misery. 
 The moon has gone down, and the light 
 of dawn is still too faint to disclose any 
 object plainly, but one might see the dim 
 shadows of a pariah dog, which roaming 
 down the street, has heard the bitter cry 
 which breaks from Malek's shrouded lips, 
 and has darted away astonished at a sound 
 strange to its ragged ears. Some among 
 the immediate neighbours, stirring in the 
 light sleep which comes with the approach 
 of morning, have also heard- that unusual 
 outburst of agony, followed by sobs and 
 moans as of a strong man in distress or des- 
 pair. Haru, the old white-haired widow 
 
The Catastrophe. 2$ 
 
 of Fakir Sirdar, who dwells only two 
 rushis, some eighty yards, from the Chau- 
 kidar's house, was lighting her lamp to 
 get about early household duties, when 
 that strange wail of sorrow reached her, 
 and made her hasten with the burning 
 chiragh towards the sound. Dhiru Bibi, 
 another near neighbour, caught the terror 
 of the man's cry, and what seemed like a 
 loud sobbing, and hurried towards the 
 spot. She indeed was the full sister of 
 Bharati, Malek's wife, and wife, moreover, 
 of Umesh Ghazee, Malek's best friend in 
 the village. Umesh himself had been rest- 
 less, that eventful and unhappy night, going 
 out of doors betimes, and staying a long 
 while away in the dark, saying he was 
 afraid the kids were loose, and might be 
 carried away by some prowling panther. 
 But now he too leaped from his mat, put 
 on his cloth hastily, and followed Dhiru. 
 
24 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 Jameer, Sajan, and Sham Mehtar, all vil- 
 lagers and near neighbours, drew on their 
 sandals, and clapped their turbans on their 
 heads, and sped hurriedly to the house 
 from which came the lamentable appeal. 
 There, lighted by old Haru's lamp, for still 
 it was not by any means broad day-break, 
 they gathered in a knot in front of Malek's 
 hut. 
 
 "What ails thee, brother ?" asked Dhiru 
 Bibi. 
 
 To the astonishment and horror of the 
 villagers the miserable man lifted his 
 streaming eyes from his palms and an- 
 swered : 
 
 " Nekjan is dead ! Something has killed 
 Nekjan ! Oh, friends ! The light of my 
 eyes is gone ; Nekjan is dead ! " 
 
 They followed Haru with her twinkling 
 oil lamp ; who stepped nearer to the plat- 
 form of beaten clay in front of the cot- 
 
The Catastrophe. 25 
 
 tage ; and there on the sleeping-mat they 
 beheld on one side little Golak sitting as 
 if just aroused from slumber, tears in her 
 half -opened bewildered eyes ; and on the 
 other, under the doorway, pretty tender 
 Nekjan lying stone-dead ! The Indian 
 girl's graceful body was stretched along 
 the mat ; the slender limbs composed, the 
 long tresses still smoothly braided, the 
 purple and yellow sari not greatly dis- 
 arranged ; but the small hands were tightly 
 clenched, the brown dark eyes were suf- 
 fused with blood, and from the closely 
 compressed lips and teeth the end of the 
 little tongue protruded. No mark of exter- 
 nal injury was visible, except in these par- 
 ticulars, upon the pallid corpse, but Dhiru 
 Bibi, with a village woman's simplicity 
 and directness of action, threw back the 
 cotton garment of the child, and then they 
 all saw a little below the ribs and as nearly 
 
26 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 as possible in the middle of the body, a 
 small red hurt, very small indeed and quite 
 bloodless. No blood was on either the 
 sari or the sleeping-mat ; no weapon lay 
 immediately near ; and the edges of the 
 tiny wound were not gaping, as might be 
 expected, but closely adpressed and too 
 trivial, as seemed, to cause death, unless 
 the injury had gone very deep. 
 
 " Chaukidar-ji ! how did this happen ?" 
 All their trembling voices asked it, in one 
 breath. 
 
 " I know not, oh, friends ! " moaned 
 Malek Chand. "I went forth in the dark- 
 ness into my onion-field, because I thought 
 I heard the foot-fall of thieves, leaving 
 my two butchchas asleep. When I came 
 back I could see that Nekjan had moved 
 away from the mat. I touched her arm 
 to put her back. It was cold ! Then I 
 felt her body all of it was cold and stifi- 
 
The Catastrophe. 27 
 
 erring*. I lit my lamp and looked in her 
 face, which was as you now behold ; and 
 I called to her, and shook her ; but she 
 answered nothing, for she was dead, oh, 
 Allah ! she lay dead ! as ye see : my 
 little maid, the comfort of my life. Nek- 
 jan who was the life-blood of my heart ! " 
 
 " Where is Bharati Bibi ? " asked Haru. 
 
 " She started over night to Goga," 
 Malek answered : "I sent her to fetch 
 money from my brother, for ye know I 
 have enemies evil sayers who will take 
 the law against me. Bharati will be back 
 soon. Oh, how shall I tell her that our 
 Nekjan is dead ? " 
 
 " It is perhaps a snake that has killed 
 the maid," observed Jameer ; " but hither 
 comes Uma Charan Sirkar, the punchayet : 
 let him be asked." 
 
 The punchayet, a grave, respectable 
 villager, bent over the tender body and 
 
28 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 looked especially at the small wound just 
 over the navel. 
 
 " Are there serpents hereabouts ? " he 
 enquired. 
 
 "Bharati told me there was a cobra 
 oftimes dwelled here," broke in anew 
 Jameer, " and see here be snake - holes 
 under the wall. Let Umesh fetch mattock 
 and basket by-and-by and open the earth 
 hereabouts. If we find the serpent, it is 
 doubtless his deed." 
 
 "Aye, it might be," murmured Malek 
 Chand, piteously. 
 
 " It might be," solemnly echoed the 
 punchayet, " but I have spied a spear just 
 now in the kachu jungle by the cow-path, 
 and yonder in the roof is, I now observe, 
 a bagi. See that these weapons be left 
 where they lie. And go thou, as soon as 
 light broadens, my brother, to the police, 
 and thyself report this grievous thing." 
 
The Catastrophe. 29 
 
 With that the sorrowful Chaukidar rose 
 to his trembling feet, saying. " Yes, I will 
 go directly to the Thanna," and the friends 
 and neighbours were thereupon left in the 
 hut with the body ; Golak Mani all this 
 time never having spoken a word but 
 only sobbing and crying and looking with 
 large bewildered eyes first at her dead 
 sister then at the company. Dhiru Bibi 
 would have taken her away for the morning 
 food to Umesh Ghazi's house, but they all 
 said "Nay, not now ! but let her wait until 
 her mother returns." 
 
 On his sad road to the police-station, 
 Malek Chand met an official peon bearing 
 a legal warrant against him. This was in 
 connection with the suit about Sarba but 
 out of consideration for his present lament- 
 able errand, without mentioning a douceur 
 of four annas, the peon agreed not to exe- 
 cute the writ just yet, and the Chaukidar 
 
30 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 passed on with slow paces to the Thanna. 
 There he saw the inspector, Cholan Rah- 
 man, a fairly upright man for a Bengali 
 police-officer, to whom Malek Chand re- 
 lated how he had found his daughter, 
 Nekjan, dead, and with what appearances 
 and what mysterious circumstances ; fur- 
 ther that he did not know how she came 
 by her death, but that there was a tiny 
 hurt upon the girl's belly, which looked as 
 if it might be a snake-bite, and indeed the 
 neighbours all thought and all said that it 
 was a snake bite, and the cause of Nekjan's 
 death, being in a vital spot. " Others," 
 f alteringly murmured the Chaukidar, " won- 
 der whether someone among those who 
 hate and slander us, have not contrived 
 this business ; Kadam Ali, Fakir, perchance, 
 
 and Sarba " 
 
 But the inspector cut him short sternly. 
 " No, no ! " he exclaimed, " do not make 
 
The Catastrophe. 31 
 
 fire out of this smoke by accusing anybody. 
 I have been your friend, and I think you a 
 good man. If it be true that you know 
 not how your butchcha came by her death, 
 say so to all, as you have said to me. I 
 will send my chief constable back with 
 you to make the needful enquiries." 
 
 And calling up Ram Das Sircar, the head- 
 constable, the inspector said, " Go and see 
 this man's dead child, and examine the 
 place and the circumstances, and be kind 
 to them. Don't take any money from him ; 
 I know they are poor ! Go and enquire 
 how this child died, and if it be a case of 
 snake-bite, report accordingly." 
 
 But for some reason or other, possibly 
 because there was no money to be taken, 
 the head-constable made over his duty to 
 a dull, covetous fellow, Dwarka Rai, a 
 subordinate officer, who, at his leisure, by- 
 and-by trudged the four koss of country 
 
32 The Queens Justice. 
 
 road between the Thanna and Mouzah 
 Bhulat, and arrived about sunset at Malek's 
 cottage. The unhappy Chaukidar was sit- 
 ting there by his child's corpse : and 
 Bharati the wife had long before arrived. 
 Painful scenes and words had passed be- 
 tween them, the gist of which was that 
 Bharati had passionately demanded to 
 hear why, having left the two living 
 children in her husband's care, she had 
 found only one alive, whereto the miserable 
 Chaukidar had replied. " I don't know 
 who killed her ! I was not at home, what 
 has been done has been done." This was 
 Tuesday, March 28th, and all that day 
 Golak Mani had been fed at neighbouring 
 houses, and Malek's wife had repaired to 
 her mother's hut Koti's, to talk with her 
 and others, while some said it was a 
 snake bite, and some said it was the deed 
 of enemies, and some whispered that it 
 
The Catastrophe. 33 
 
 looked like a cruel secret murder done to 
 incriminate innocent persons. 
 
 On Wednesday, March 29th, the steps 
 of rural justice got forward so far that 
 Ram Das Sircar strolled over to the village 
 and once again set Jameer, Sajan, Uma 
 Charan, and other villagers to dig the hut 
 floor up in the search for a snake. Then 
 the inspector came ; and dry, official reports 
 were drawn up ; and low-caste people were 
 sent to carry forth the corpse for medical 
 examination to Bongong, where the Civil 
 Hospital Assistant dwelled, Dr. Adhar 
 Chandra Chakravarti. This gentleman, 
 upon whom evidently so much depended 
 for the ends of justice, made a post-mortem 
 investigation of the small corpse, identified 
 to him by Dwarka, the constable, as that 
 of Nekjan. In his subsequent examination 
 before the Court, he gave the results of 
 this research, deposing that he found the 
 
 D 
 
34 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 mouth shut close, and the tongue protrud- 
 ing, which, with the bloodshot congestion 
 of the eyes, would seem to be signs of 
 strangulation. But he did not suspect 
 strangulation, and " therefore made no 
 examination under the skin to discover if 
 there were marks of pressure there, or 
 elsewhere." The wound, said this very 
 perfunctory native doctor, was sufficient to 
 cause death. It was a gaping wound, a 
 wound visible to anyone observing the 
 corpse. The spear of Malek, that which 
 he would carry at night on his rounds, was 
 subsequently seen by Dr. Chakravarti. 
 Yes ! that was a weapon which might have 
 caused such a wound. The child was not 
 quite healthy, her liver was a little enlarged. 
 There was no blood either on the body or 
 the garments. There were signs of slight 
 internal bleeding. A sensitive, nervous 
 child, who might readily collapse to a 
 severe snake-bite ! But this was no snake- 
 
The Catastrophe. 35 
 
 bite. The girl had died o the spear thrust 
 in the abdomen. 
 
 And here, indeed, subjoined is the doc- 
 tor's formal report : 
 
 POST-MORTEM REPORT. EX. A. 
 
 HOUR OF 
 DESPATCH. 
 
 HOUR OP 
 EXAMINATION 
 
 INFORMATION FURNISHED BY 
 THE POLICE. 
 
 29th Mar., 
 18S2, 
 at 10 a.m. 
 
 29th Mar., 
 1882, 
 at 4i p.m. 
 
 Death by snake-bite. Deceased's 
 father could not give any infor- 
 mation regarding the death. 
 An incised wound of a triangu- 
 lar form, measuring about one 
 finger, was found on the epi- 
 gastic region. 
 
 CONDITION OF 
 SUBJECT. 
 
 WOUNDS. 
 
 BRUISES. 
 
 Slightly 
 Emaciated. 
 
 One punctured wound resembling 
 the character of an incised 
 wound on the epigastric region, 
 measuring one inch long, inch 
 broad, and about inch deep. 
 This wound has penetrated into 
 the convex surface of the left 
 lobe of the liver, about inch 
 deep ; there was also one scratch 
 mark, about two inches long, 
 | inch broad, on left cheek. 
 
 None. 
 
 Mark of 
 Ligature on 
 neck. 
 
 Scalp, skull and vertebrae. 
 
 
 None. 
 
 Scalp nearly decomposed, skull 
 and vertebras healthy. 
 
 Nothing. 
 
36 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 Finally as to the hurt, the native doctor 
 deposed " it was a punctured wound on the 
 epigastric region, measuring about one inch 
 long, quarter inch broad, and about half 
 inch deep. This has penetrated into the 
 convex surface of the left lobe of the 
 liver about quarter inch deep. About three 
 ounces of liquid blood were found on the 
 abdominal cavity. 
 
 " I ana of opinion that the deceased met 
 with her death by the penetrating wound 
 of the abdomen. 
 
 " (Sd.) A. C. CHAKRAVARTI, 
 "Civil Hospital Assistant, Bongong." 
 
 The result of this examination, obvi- 
 ously too superficial, but yet resolutely re- 
 jecting the theory of snake-bite, came in 
 due course back to the police-station and 
 to the village gossips of Mouzah Bhulat. 
 The first effect, however, was to produce 
 
The Catastrophe. 37 
 
 the immediate arrest of Malek Chand, who 
 had been sent along with the dead body 
 to Bongong. Its next effect was obviously 
 to upset the police theory, which thus far 
 had been that, probably enough, a snake did 
 really kill the girl ; and that if the doctor 
 only countenanced this view, affairs might 
 settle down pretty comfortably, while, what- 
 ever rupees Malek, the Chaukidar, could 
 scrape together, he would very gladly pay 
 in secret on such a basis to satisfy those, 
 who, in rural India, have too often to be 
 satisfied as well as the law. But just when 
 these subordinate Ministers of Justice, in 
 Bengal, so frequently her worst enemies, 
 were agreeing that the snake would not 
 do any longer, either for themselves or 
 the court, Bharati, Malek's wife, on the 
 Thursday morning following the Tuesday 
 of the murder, in her own house, made a 
 most terrible statement in the presence of 
 
38 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 Dwarka, the constable, and of the Pun- 
 chayet Uma Charan. She declared that 
 Nekjan had been murdered, and that her 
 murderer was her own father. She re- 
 lated how Golak Mani, when at length the 
 little one found a tongue, had told herself 
 first, and afterwards others, including Haru 
 and Dhiru, and the inspector, Bipin Behari, 
 that she little Golak in the half -dark of 
 the night, saw her father set his foot upon 
 Nekjan's throat, and strike her with his 
 spear on the body ; with many other de- 
 tails. This dreadful declaration had been 
 accepted as true by all listening to it, and 
 even by Bharati herself, who had said on 
 returning to the Chaukidar " Thou hast 
 slain my child and thine ; I will never 
 again cook rice for thee." To which 
 Malek Chand had mournfully replied 
 Tomar hatai bhat amara khartai hoeba 
 nai " I shall never have again to eat 
 
The Catastrophe. 39 
 
 from your hand." And this awful solution 
 of the mystery being generally adopted, in 
 view of the doctor's report, of the Chauk- 
 idar's dismal silence, and of the belief 
 shewn in Golak's tale by her mother and 
 all the neighbours, the police, who had not 
 been without a share in encouraging such 
 tardy revelations of the child, found suffi- 
 cient explanation of the monstrous crime 
 in the wish of Malek to fix it upon his 
 enemy, Kadam Ali. It was afterwards a 
 part of little Golak's story that while her 
 father was killing Nekjan, he had said 
 " Lay the blame of this upon the Fakir," 
 and the view became held that he had sent 
 her out into the onion field to avoid ques- 
 tioning, when the neighbours flocked in. 
 This was on Thursday, and in the evening 
 all parties were ordered to the Thanna at 
 Bongong ; and the next day, Friday, March 
 31st, the wretched Chaukidar was formally 
 
40 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 committed to trial for murder. Bharati 
 passed her husband on the road, as he 
 walked with pinioned wrists, and called 
 out " Sala ! " (a term of deep contempt) 
 "is it true that thou hast confessed thy- 
 self the murderer of Nekjan ? " 
 
 On the way to examination and prison 
 the overwhelmed peasant had rough experi- 
 ences, which were subsequently revealed, 
 of such rural equity as prevailed among 
 the subordinate official kind in Bengal. 
 In vain had he scraped together sixteen 
 rupees and given them, through Sham 
 Mehtar, to the police. At Potkhali, on 
 the bank of the little stream Ichimati, 
 they made him fetch two rupees more to 
 pay for their breakfast ; and when he 
 brought the money, he saw the chief 
 constable examining the wound on the 
 corpse, which had been made visibly 
 larger. When Malek asked who had done 
 
The Catastrophe. 41 
 
 this, a ferryman volunteered to him the 
 information that the constable had been 
 enlarging the hurt with the end of a twig 
 of wild indigo. But upon being threatened 
 with the stick by the police, this honest 
 fellow timorously retracted his words. 
 None the less did the police pursue, with 
 illegal energy, their usual course of mak- 
 ing good their latest theory of the crime. 
 It was afterwards known that at this spot 
 they drove date thorns into the quick of 
 Malek's finger-nails and toe-nails to induce 
 him to break his silent but resolute denial 
 of the crime. " You had better confess," 
 said the Daroga. " Your wife and daugh- 
 ter are accusing you, or else, if you did 
 not do this thing, why don't you say that 
 Kadam Ali did it ? The conjee is not 
 drawn forth with a straight finger." 
 
 Malek answered after the fashion of the 
 Bengali of meeting proverb by proverb. 
 
42 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 " The mud will not stick to the pankal- 
 fish," and added : 
 
 " I know not if he had to do with or if 
 he had not." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FIRST TEIAL. 
 
 THUS was it that on May 16th, 1882, at 
 Nuddea Sessions Court, before Judge 
 Dickens, the strange and dubious case of 
 " The Empress v. Malek Chand, Chauki- 
 dar," committed by the Deputy-Magistrate 
 of Bongong, came to trial. The judge, a 
 just and conscientious gentleman, as indeed 
 are all the high judicial officers of British 
 rule in India, had the reputation, neverthe- 
 less, of being opinionated, and overmuch 
 given to fixed ideas. 
 
 The case, as will by this time b plainly 
 perceived, was typical of those ever recur- 
 ring judicial problems in India, where the 
 
44 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 strong and righteous administrations of 
 British justice have to cleave their path 
 through a perfect jungle of deceit, reti- 
 cence and prejudice, towards the growth 
 of which the folly, or obstinacy or despair 
 of the accused person often largely con- 
 tributes. In English justice itself, if only 
 sufficiently enlightened, the natives of India 
 cherish to our enduring honour an ab- 
 solutely unshakeable belief ; but this tale is 
 told in order that the countrymen at home 
 of our faithful Indian officials may realise 
 how peculiar are the difficulties of the 
 Indian Courts, and how fatally easy it is 
 for the best minds presiding in them to go 
 astray. 
 
 On that burning hot day at Nuddea, 
 under the waving punkahs everybody in 
 the court being clad in the lightest garb 
 consistent with propriety Malek Chand, 
 looking sleek and well for prison life 
 
The First Trial. 45 
 
 under British rule is hygenic stood be- 
 tween two native constables charged with, 
 " having on the night of March 27th, 
 1882, murdered his own daughter Nekjan, 
 aged nine years, with a view to bring a 
 false charge of murder against one Kadam 
 Ali Fakir." His Honour being seated, and 
 the jury duly empanneled, an extraordin- 
 ary spectacle opened the proceedings. 
 
 The little child of the prisoner, Golak 
 Mani, a girl of seven years of age, was put 
 upon the platform. Terrified and shy as 
 a captive squirrel, her small bosom pants, 
 and her brown knees tremble. Yet an 
 Indian girl of even this tender age, especi- 
 ally when she well understands what she 
 has to say, is far keener in vigilance and 
 intelligence than any Western girl of such 
 tender years would be. Despite the awful 
 "presence" of the all-powerful judge- 
 sahib, and the terror unspeakable of her 
 
46 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 father's eyes fixed upon hers, she clutches 
 her cloth with firm fingers, and steadfastly 
 answers the foreman of the jury, who 
 understands her village speech, and pro- 
 ceeds cleverly to question her about the 
 virtue of truthfulness and the sin of lying. 
 Yes ! she comprehended what pap is 
 " sin." The bara daroga the inspector 
 has opened her eyes about all that, saying 
 mitya bola pap hai, satya bola bhala, 
 " how wicked it is to lie, and how good to 
 speak the truth, and what horrid things 
 will happen now and hereafter to the f alse- 
 tongued." An incarnation of innocent sin- 
 cerity and candour, the small maid ap- 
 pears to judge and court, while she lisps 
 out this appalling testimony ; her tiny 
 hand being first laid on a copy of the 
 Koran, of which holy volume she under- 
 stands nothing but the sacredness : 
 
 " I remember my sister my elder sister. 
 
The First Trial. 47 
 
 Her name was Nekjan. She is dead. She 
 died on our verandah. It was night. My 
 father killed her. 
 
 " This is my father. (Points out prison- 
 er.) I myself saw him do it. He first put his 
 foot on her throat, and afterwards struck 
 her (mariachilo) on the body (points to a 
 spot below her own waist) with a spear. 
 My sister did not cry out. I was awake. 
 Something touched my body and woke me. 
 I was in the verandah. I said " Baba, 
 maritecho kano ? '' (" Father, why are 
 you killing ? ") He said nothing. I was 
 afraid. It was then not dark. It was 
 pharsha. After this my father told me 
 that I was not to tell the daroga (police- 
 inspector) if he came, and that I was not 
 to tell my mother when she came back. 
 She had gone the evening before to Goga. 
 My sister Nekjan gave me my meal that 
 night. Next morning Dhiru gave me my 
 
48 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 meal. I told Dhiru in the morning, and 
 my mother and Haru. Haru came first to 
 the house very early in the morning, and I 
 told her first, and then Dhiru came and I 
 told her, and told my mother when she 
 came. 
 
 " After my father struck my sister I did 
 not go to sleep. My father after that 
 cried, and I cried. After killing my sister, 
 my father went out, and returned some 
 time afterwards. I stayed where I was. 
 I did not think of going out and telling my 
 aunt then. This is the spear our spear. 
 My father had been sleeping on the same 
 mat (bichana) my sister and I were sleep- 
 ing on, before my sister was killed. When 
 I spoke to Haru first I was in the com- 
 pound. I was sent to the field by my 
 father on the next day. I did not see the 
 daroga send away the body. I did not 
 see the body taken away. I was sent to 
 
The First Trial. 49 
 
 the field early in the morning after my 
 meal. 
 
 " My father had treated me more kindly 
 than he treated my sister ; but he used not 
 to treat her unkindly. 
 
 " I knew my sister was dead, because she 
 did not answer me, and when I tried to 
 rouse her by pulling her body, she did not 
 move." 
 
 Let it be here remarked that the Court 
 did not know, as the gentle reader by this 
 time does, that during all the Tuesday and 
 part of Wednesday little Golak had not 
 told this tale to any living soul. In reply 
 to a juryman, she furthermore said " My 
 father began to cry when he came back in 
 the morning." The prisoner, who was 
 undefended, asked only one question of 
 the small, wide-eyed, fatal witness. It 
 was this " Golak Mani, who has taught 
 you to speak these lying words ? " and not 
 
50 The Queens Justice. 
 
 in a whisper, but clear- spoken and seriously 
 courageous, with candour, came the reply : 
 " No one has taught me, Baba ; it is the 
 truth which I have said to the Presence." 
 As she tripped down from the stand, 
 Judge Dickens penned this note : 
 
 (The little child gave her evidence in- 
 telligently, and in a way which impressed 
 me with the belief that she had witnessed 
 the scene she described, and was not re- 
 peating a story learned by rote.) 
 
 Ram Das Sirkar came next, the easy- 
 going head-constable of Bongong Thanna 
 deposing that his father's name was Joy- 
 chand Sirkar, his caste Kayast ; his house 
 at Mouzah Sarsa, where he is a head- 
 constable of police. In charge on the 
 28th March last, he received information 
 of this murder on Tuesday at about 
 half-past three p.m. 
 
 The information was given by the ac- 
 
The First Trial. 51 
 
 cused. He brought no written informa- 
 tion. 
 
 To the Court. " It is customary to bring 
 a written information in cases of murder." 
 
 Witness took down prisoner's statement 
 in writing correctly. " This is not it." (Note 
 by the judge. The first izahar is not with 
 the record, and I cannot admit secondary 
 evidence of its contents). 
 
 " The prisoner after making his state- 
 ment went home. I followed, and arrived 
 at the village at half -past seven a.m. on 
 the morning of the 29th March. I saw the 
 body of a child. It was lying in the veran- 
 dah of the house of Malek Chand, the 
 prisoner. The body was then lying on its 
 back legs and arms straight on a bic- 
 hana. No blood-stains anywhere, and the 
 verandah (this in reply to a keen juryman) 
 not at all newly smeared with cow-dung. 
 He saw the wound, small and bloodless. 
 
52 TJie Queen's Justice. 
 
 The prisoner was there, and his wife but 
 not Golak Mani, and no statement was then 
 made. The accused merely said he could 
 not account for his child's death." In any 
 further details of his testimony Ram Das 
 became vague and perfunctory. 
 
 Then before the Court appeared Bharati, 
 wife of the accused, a hard-featured peas- 
 ant woman of some thirty years, clad in 
 the cotton robe and trousers of a Musul- 
 rnani. 
 
 Neither she, nor the next witnesses 
 could possibly have been presented for the 
 giving of testimony in an English court ; 
 
 but bv Section 157 of the Indian Evidence 
 
 / 
 
 Act His Honour was well enabled to 
 admit such collateral evidence. Turning 
 only once towards her husband to identify 
 him, as she stepped into her place, she de- 
 posed in a quiet pitiless voice : 
 
 " I had a daughter named Nekjan she 
 
The First Trial. 53 
 
 is dead. She was between 9 and 10 
 older than Golak. I have a little son, 
 aged 2|- years, and a sucking baby-boy. 
 The night that Nekjan died I was not in 
 my house. I had gone to Goga. My 
 husband had sent me to Goga the evening 
 before. He first told me to go about mid- 
 day, and I started in the evening about a 
 danda (twenty-four minutes) before sunset. 
 I was told to fetch money from his brother, 
 Gopal, to meet the expenses of a case 
 brought against him by Fakir. I got no 
 money. I returned next day about four 
 danda or so in the morning, the time the 
 cows are taken to the field. I heard cries. 
 My child Golak was crying, and my hus- 
 band was also crying. I saw the body of 
 Nekjan lying in the verandah. I saw a 
 hole in the body just midway of the abdo- 
 men. The wound was not bleeding. It 
 looked dry. I questioned the accused. 
 
54 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 saying c How has this happened ? ' He 
 said c I went to look after my onions, and 
 don't know how she was killed.' I said 
 c I have no quarrel with anyone ; who has 
 done this ? No one has done it but you.' 
 I did say c ls this why you sent me to 
 Goga ? ' He said ' Think about the 
 means of escape.' I then asked the little 
 girl, and she told me, in answer to my 
 questions, that her father had put his foot 
 on the child's neck, and (mariaphelya) 
 after she was killed thrust the spear into 
 her." 
 
 Here again we are aware, though the 
 Court was not, that, at this juncture men- 
 tioned, little Golak had not yet told her 
 tale. 
 
 The wife went on : "I believed the girl's 
 statement, and I said to him c I won't 
 give you rice any more with my own hand ; ' 
 to which he made the answer c Tomar 
 
The First Trial. 55 
 
 hatai bhat amara khaetai hoeba na.'* 
 After that I cooked no food for him. I 
 did not notice the spear then. I see this 
 spear. (Produced.) It is my husband's. 
 He has one spear only. This weapon 
 (bagi) is also his. They were usually kept 
 in the thatch of the verandah. The daroga 
 (police-officer) came next day. I did not 
 see the daroga. He asked me no question. 
 He came to the house, but I was in a dif- 
 ferent verandah from the verandah the 
 corpse was in and I was not brought before 
 the daroga. He did not ask me any ques- 
 tion that day. I was first questioned two 
 days afterwards by the other daroga (in- 
 spector), and I told him what I have told 
 the Court." 
 
 Then, replying to the judges, Bharati 
 said " I can't say why I did not tell the 
 daroga the first day, and denounce my 
 
 * " I shall not have to eat rice from your hands any more." 
 
56 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 husband. It was not from fear. I had 
 my children, and I had not seen the act 
 myself, and I was not asked." She thus 
 continued : "I had taken the two youngest 
 children with me to Goga, because the 
 youngest was at the breast, and the elder 
 cried, and I could not leave her alone. 
 There was a case pending against my hus- 
 band. Fakir had brought that case. He 
 was the complainant, and it was about his 
 wife." 
 
 Answering the jury, Bharati further 
 said : " Before this I was on good terms 
 with my husband, and he always treated 
 me kindly." At the close of his notes of . 
 Bharati's deposition, the judge made a 
 memorandum as follows : (This witness 
 gave her evidence freely ; without any 
 apparent points against her husband, and 
 without any display of animus against 
 him). 
 
The First Trial. 57 
 
 The next to testify was Haru, the grey- 
 haired widow, a Mahommedan peasant- 
 woman of fifty, who lived near Malek 
 Chand's hut, and remembered the morning 
 of the murder. " That time," she deposed, 
 " I went to his house. He was crying, and 
 the little girl was crying. It was light, 
 but the sun had not yet risen. I heard no 
 calls, but only moans and sobs. I saw 
 Malek Chand sitting in the verandah, and 
 the little girl near by. I saw Nekjan's 
 body on the mat. I went close and stood 
 and looked at the body. I did not go into 
 the verandah." Then to the Court : " The 
 body was lying on its back. The legs and 
 arms were stretched out, not drawn up. 
 I asked Golak what had happened. She 
 said, ' My father put his foot on her throat, 
 and thrust his spear into her.' My own 
 child then began to cry and I was obliged 
 to leave. I did not question Malek Chand. 
 
58 The Queen Justice. 
 
 I saw the dead girl had a small wound in 
 her belly. I saw no blood about. When 
 Golak told us this, her father got up and 
 threatened her, crying : c If you say so, I 
 will put my foot on your throat.' I saw 
 the daroga come next day. I did not tell 
 him that day, nor until two days after- 
 wards." 
 
 Dhiru Bibi followed Haru with the same 
 story. This woman was own sister of 
 Bharati, and wife of Umesh Ghazi, who 
 was the best friend perhaps in the whole 
 village to the prisoner. Yet, strange to 
 say, Umesh Ghazi was never once called to 
 give evidence. Dhiru testified, as is sub- 
 joined : 
 
 " My father's name is Khoda Bux. I 
 am by caste Mahommedan. My home is 
 at Mouzah Bhulat, where I am living with 
 my husband. I knew Nekjan. Malek 
 Chand, prisoner, was her father. My house 
 
The First Trial. 59 
 
 is about one rushi (forty yards) off his. 
 I remember her death. It took place about 
 two months ago. Next morning early I 
 heard Malek Chand crying. I went there. 
 Golak was sitting near the corpse. I saw 
 the body of Nekjan in the verandah, but I 
 did not look carefully. I asked the little 
 girl, but she said nothing then. (Note 
 this, because the two women went to- 
 gether). Malek Chand said nothing then. 
 I went back home, and shortly afterwards 
 I called the little girl to my house to take 
 her food. About a phahar after sunrise 
 (9 a.m.), I questioned the child, saying: 
 c You were sleeping with your sister ? How 
 did she die ? ' She said the Baba (father) 
 put his foot on her neck and killed her. 
 She did not then mention the spear. I 
 suspected then the father. Her mother 
 was not then at home. She came at bath- 
 ing time. I did not see her, however, that 
 
60 Tlw Queens Justice. 
 
 day. I did not go near the house that day 
 again. I know nothing more." 
 
 To Jury. " I can't say why the father 
 did such a deed. He treated her well be- 
 fore this." 
 
 After Dhiru Bibi succeeded the highly 
 respectable witness Uma Charan Sircar, 
 aged about forty years, who deposed : 
 
 " My name is Uma Charan Sircar. My 
 father's name is Bangsidhar Sircar. I am 
 by caste Kopali. My home is at Mouza 
 Bhulat. I am a punchayet and culti- 
 vator. 
 
 "I know the accused. He is the Chauk- 
 idar (watchman) of my village. I knew 
 Nekjan his daughter. On the 16th Chaitra 
 (28th March) last I got some information 
 from Umesh Ghazi, in consequence of 
 which I went to the house of accused. 
 Accused was there. I got to the house 
 about four dandas after sunrise (7 a.m.) 
 
The First Trial. 61 
 
 I saw the body of Nekjan in the verandah, 
 covered by cloth. I saw no blood on the 
 cloth or on the mat. I did not go into 
 the verandah. I looked from outside. I 
 questioned Malek Chand as to the wound 
 I saw on the chest above the abdomen. 
 He said he could not say who had caused 
 that wound. I saw this spear lying in the 
 road five or six haths from the verandah, 
 and this bagi lying close to the blacksmith's 
 shop, four bigahs (160 yards) from the 
 verandah. I asked why the spear and bagi 
 were there ; he said he did not know, but 
 that both were his. I said 'leave them 
 where they lie, and go and give informa- 
 tion to the police.' I gave him no written 
 ittala, he went without coming to me for 
 it. I did not see either Golak or the 
 Mother at his house. I suspected the 
 prisoner. He told me people said the little 
 maid died of snake-bite/' 
 
62 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 After this, they called Dr. Brander, Civil 
 Surgeon of JSTuddea, to give the weight of 
 his opinion on the Native medical man's 
 post-mortem report. It seems astounding 
 to a student of the case that this European 
 Doctor did not at once advert to the par- 
 tial and perfunctory examination of the 
 corpse. But he incontinently accepts " the 
 appearances recorded by the examiner," 
 and finds them consistent with death having 
 been caused by the spear wound. Dr. 
 Brander said : " A wound one inch deep 
 in that spot would puncture the liver, and 
 cause death, if not necessarily immediate 
 death by shock. If a man of the weight 
 of accused placed his foot on the neck of 
 a slight-built child, that might be sufficient 
 to cause death. I should say death was 
 caused immediately by the wound, but 
 there is nothing inconsistent with strang- 
 ulation and partial suffocation. As a rule 
 
The First Trial. 63 
 
 spear wounds do leave a convulsed ap- 
 pearance on the body, but if strangulation 
 had taken place, or were taking place, the 
 body would not have the vital energy to 
 develope the contortions of death caused 
 solely by spear- wound. 
 
 " I can explain the absence of blood ex- 
 ternally in this way, that if the death was 
 owing to a mixed cause, by suffocation and 
 the thrust, the arterial system would have 
 become partially inactive as the result of 
 the suffocation, and would not have caused 
 the expulsion of blood to a distance, which 
 would have been the case if the spear- 
 wound had been the cause of death. This 
 may also be explained by internal bleeding. 
 The ventricles of the heart are reported 
 empty. Bleeding, therefore, must have 
 supervened. It may have been internal. 
 
 To the Jury. "If the edges of the 
 wound were gaping, the wound must 
 
64 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 have been caused before life was wholly 
 extinct." 
 
 Thus science European science but at 
 a distance from its object, and with possi- 
 bly some disinclination to upset the easy- 
 going autopsy of a native colleague ! 
 
 Next, under authority of Section 346 of 
 the Criminal Procedure Code, the serious 
 judge himself proceeded to question the 
 prisoner. The official report runs thus of 
 the catechism : 
 
 Q. Malek Chand, Chaukidar, son of 
 Ashruf , are you guilty of the charge ? 
 
 A. I am not guilty. 
 
 Q. Did you make this statement be- 
 fore the deputy magistrates, and is it 
 correct ? 
 
 Here the statement made by the prisoner 
 at Bongong, March 31st, was read as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 The examination of Malek Chand, Chan- 
 
The First Trial. 65 
 
 kidar, aged about thirty-five years, taken 
 before me, Gropal Chandra Mukerji, Depu- 
 ty-Magistrate 1st class, at Bongong, on the 
 31st day of March, 1882 : 
 
 " My name is Malek Chand, Chaukidar. 
 My father's name is Ashruf Sidar. I am 
 by caste Mahommedan, and my occupation 
 Chaukidar. My home is at Mouzah Bhu- 
 lat." 
 
 Q. Did you murder your daughter 
 Nekjan ? 
 
 A. No, I did not kill her. 
 
 Q. On what date, and when did she 
 die? 
 
 A. Early on Tuesday I went to look 
 after my onion field ; no one was in the 
 house except the two girls ; my wife had 
 gone to Goga on Monday afternoon. On 
 my return from the field I saw my eldest 
 daughter Nekjan lying at a little distance 
 from her bed. I called her, but she did 
 
66 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 not answer. I felt her body, but she did 
 not move. When it was daylight I saw 
 that she had a wound, and was dead, and 
 my daughter Golak Jan was asleep. I 
 began to cry. At four or six dandas of 
 the day (8 a.m.) I was going to the thanna 
 when I was arrested by a piada (peon) on 
 the complaint of Kadam Ali Fakir, who 
 had taken out a warrant against me. 
 
 Q. After that, when did you go to the 
 thanna ? 
 
 A. After midday I went to the thanna 
 and informed the daroga (police-inspector). 
 
 Q. How far is the thanna from your 
 house ? 
 
 A. Four or four-and-a-half kos (eight 
 or nine miles). 
 
 Q. When did you leave your daughters 
 and go to the field ? 
 
 A. When there was one prahar of the 
 night remaining (3 a.m.) 
 
The First Trial 67 
 
 Q. Why did you send your wife away 
 from the house ? 
 
 A. To obtain money to defray expenses 
 of the cases pending against me. 
 
 Q. Is this your spear ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Why does it look as if it had been 
 rubbed ? 
 
 A. I cannot say, I did not rub it. I 
 did not take it with me to the field. I 
 took my lathi. 
 
 Q. When you go to the field or to your 
 watch, do you carry the spear or the lathi ? 
 
 A. Sometimes I take the spear, some- 
 times the lathi. 
 
 Q. Whom do you suspect of having 
 killed your daughter ? 
 
 A. I did not see anyone killing her, 
 and my suspicion does not fall on anyone. 
 But I have a quarrel with Kadam Ali 
 Fakir and Mirun, 
 
68 TJie Queens Justice. 
 
 Q. How many spears have you got ? 
 
 A. Only this one. 
 
 Q. Had your daughter any ornaments 
 on her person ? 
 
 A. No. 
 
 Resuming its enquiry the Court went on 
 questioning the prisoner as follows : 
 
 Q. Why did you send your wife to 
 Goga instead of going there yourself ? 
 
 A. Lest the police should find me 
 absent from the village and beat me. 
 Through fear of this I did not go. 
 
 Q. Why did you not go during the 
 day? 
 
 A. My people at Goga do not stay at 
 home during the day, but go out to the 
 field, etc., and cannot be found at home 
 until evening, so I did not go by day- 
 light. 
 
 Q. You have said that you saw, on 
 your return from the field at night, that 
 
The First Trial 69 
 
 vour daughter was lyins: at some distance 
 
 / o / o 
 
 from her bed, and that you called the 
 neighbours at daybreak. Why did you 
 not light a lamp as soon as you came and 
 saw, and why did you not immediately 
 call your neighbours instead of keeping 
 quiet ? 
 
 A. I called out for my neighbours as 
 soon as I saw my child on my return from 
 the field. 
 
 Q. Did you tell the punchayet of the 
 village and the police at the thanna that 
 your daughter had died of snake-bite ? 
 
 A. Yes. I said that my neighbours 
 say that my child has died of snake-bite. 
 
 Q. Will you call any witnesses ? 
 
 A. Yes, I will. 
 
 Q. What will they say ? 
 
 A. They will say that they said about 
 the snake-bite. 
 
 In accordance with this, at the conclu- 
 
70 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 sion of the foregoing questions the prisoner 
 called three neighbours as witnesses for the 
 defence, and these men said they knew no- 
 thing as to how the child died, but that 
 they had heard a report in the village to 
 the effect that she had died of snake-bite. 
 
 So terminated the proceedings. There 
 followed the judge's charge, of which very 
 luminous, conscientious, and extremely 
 able, though entirely mistaken, address, 
 the complete text well merits to be given. 
 
 THE JUDGE'S CHARGE TO THE JURY. 
 
 " GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY. The prisoner 
 is -charged with murdering his own child, 
 a little girl of nine years of age. There is 
 no question of law on which I need detain 
 you. If you find that the prisoner has 
 committed the act with which he stands 
 charged, it will be your duty to return a 
 verdict of guilty of murder under section 
 
The First Trial. 71 
 
 302, Penal Code. The question which you, 
 gentlemen, have to try, then, is a question 
 of pure fact : Did the prisoner really kill 
 his daughter, as alleged ? 
 
 " The prisoner, in his defence, has relied 
 on the primd facie want of motive : Why 
 should I have killed my daughter ? The 
 motive alleged is, that the prisoner was at 
 enmity with one Kadam Ali Fakir, who 
 had brought a criminal charge against him 
 (whether for adultery or taking his wife 
 away is not shown) ; that criminal pro- 
 ceedings were imminent ; and that either 
 to implicate his enemy, or to save himself 
 and stave off further proceedings, he mur- 
 dered his own child. The motive briefly 
 would, therefore, be partly revenge, partly 
 self-preservation. It is proved beyond 
 doubt that criminal proceedings were im- 
 pending on the 27th March. Now, the 
 enormity of the offence charged must not 
 
72 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 be allowed by you to obscure your judg- 
 ment in dealing with the evidence as to its 
 commission. Neither should you allow 
 the apparent weakness of the motive, in 
 comparison with the magnitude of the 
 crime to obscure your judgment. The 
 prosecution cannot, of course, be answer- 
 able for the former, and with regard to the 
 latter, it is my duty to direct you that the 
 prosecution is not bound to prove the 
 motive. It is sufficient if they prove 
 beyond reasonable doubt that the prisoner 
 committed the act. (A passage from the 
 charge of Campbell, C. J. in Reg. v. Pal- 
 mer, quoted at page 44. Wills on Evidence, 
 fourth edition, was also read.) Now, the 
 prosecution have indicated a motive, and 
 have shown that there was pressure of 
 immediate difficulties. He had to meet a 
 serious criminal charge, and had no funds 
 in hand to meet it with. The adequacy of 
 
The First Trial. 73 
 
 the motive is no doubt a matter for your 
 consideration. But it is not a point which 
 the prosecution is legally that is, as a 
 matter of law bound to prove. 
 
 "It lies on the prosecution, firstly, to 
 prove by the medical evidence that the 
 crime of murder was committed, and, 
 secondly, to establish in your minds a 
 reasonable belief, amounting to a moral 
 certainty, that the prisoner committed that 
 crime. It is their duty to prove these two 
 points by the best evidence which the 
 nature of the case admits. If, by the best 
 evidence which the case is capable of, they 
 induce this degree of belief in your minds, 
 such a conviction, that is, as you would 
 each act upon in the gravest affairs of 
 your own lives, you must not hesitate in 
 doing your duty on speculative doubts as 
 to the adequacy of the motive. It is, no 
 doubt, an atrocious and violently improb- 
 
74 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 able act for a father to kill his own child. 
 But it is a still more atrocious and violent- 
 ly improbable act for a man's wife and 
 child and neighbours to compass his death 
 by deliberately perjured testimony. You 
 are face to face with two violent improba- 
 bilities, one of which, according to the 
 laws of thought, must be true. Either the 
 child is speaking truly or not : if she is, 
 her father is guilty ; if she is not, she has 
 been suborned to take away her father's 
 life by deliberate falsehood. And her 
 mother, her aunt and her neighbours have 
 voluntarily joined this conspiracy. Which- 
 ever hypothesis you adopt, a shock is 
 given to ordinary experience and ordinary 
 probability, and yet it is absolutely certain 
 that one must be true. 
 
 " Atrocity for atrocity, apart from any 
 evidence, you are asked to accept the 
 lesser. 
 
The First Trial. 75 
 
 " But you are bound to decide the issue 
 of the prisoner's innocence or guilt on the 
 evidence before you. Leaving, therefore, 
 mere speculation as to conflicting proba- 
 bilities and the inscrutable mystery of 
 motive, it is your duty to examine the 
 direct evidence in this case, and to see if 
 it is consistent with all the other facts 
 of the case with medical evidence and 
 with the circumstantial evidence. You 
 must test the truth of the direct evidence, 
 that is, the girl Golak's evidence, in every 
 possible way by these external tests, and 
 you should also test it by the internal 
 touchstone of demeanour. If the way in 
 which the child gave her testimony has 
 impressed you favourably ; if you can 
 come to the conclusion that the manner of 
 her narrative was that of an eye witness 
 and not of a child repeating a lesson ; if 
 you find her testimony corroborated by 
 
76 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 the other witnesses, under Section 157, 
 Evidence Act, and borne out by the 
 medical evidence, and by the circum- 
 stances on which the prosecution relies as 
 inculpatory facts then the direct evidence 
 of the child is legally sufficient for con- 
 viction. It is sufficient in law, and, if 
 corroborated to your satisfaction, you 
 should have no hesitation in convicting 
 upon it. 
 
 " I say, if corroborated, because though, 
 legally, corroboration is not needed, I could 
 not advise you to accept the evidence of a 
 child of that age unless it was very strongly 
 corroborated. A child of six or seven, 
 especially in this country, is unquestionably 
 of sufficient intelligence to narrate truly 
 and distinctly what she has really seen. 
 The theory for the defence, in fact, tacitly 
 admits that the child is a competent wit- 
 ness, for on that theory she is a perjured 
 
The First Trial. 11 
 
 and suborned witness. If she is intellec- 
 tually capable of giving an absolutely false 
 description of a scene she never witnessed 
 in a manner sufficiently natural and life- 
 like to deceive educated and experienced 
 gentlemen like yourselves, she is, a fortiori, 
 capable of describing events of which she 
 was an actual spectator. The theory, then, 
 that she is a tutored witness destroys and 
 cuts away the arguments that she is an 
 incompetent witness. For my own part I 
 have formed, in the course of a somewhat 
 lengthy criminal experience, a very high 
 opinion of the capacity of young children 
 in India to relate vividly what they have 
 actually seen, provided, of course, that the 
 facts are of sufficient importance to impress 
 themselves on their memory. You, gentle- 
 men, however, are sole judges of facts in 
 this case, and you must not take my opinion 
 on this point as a direction on the degree 
 
78 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 of weight you should attach to her evi- 
 dence. 
 
 (The evidence of Golak was here read.) 
 
 " Having laid this girl's evidence before 
 you, I now propose to go through the other 
 evidence, and to indicate the matter for 
 your decision on the following points : 
 
 " (1). Whether the medical evidence 
 supports the girl's testimony on important 
 particulars. 
 
 " (2). Whether the rest of the direct 
 oral evidence supports the girl's state- 
 ments. 
 
 " (3). Whether the circumstantial evi- 
 dence, especially the conduct of the prison- 
 er, corroborates it or not. 
 
 (The evidence of Dr. Brander was here 
 read.) 
 
 " Now, this evidence, and what you have 
 heard from the native doctor, very dis- 
 tinctly corroborates the girl's story as to 
 
The First Trial. 79 
 
 the manner of her sister's death ; that is, 
 the double nature of the means employed, 
 as to what Dr. Brandon calls the mixed 
 character of the death. The absence of 
 blood is a peculiar feature as to which all 
 the witnesses agree. It is, of course, pos- 
 sible that some blood- stains may have been 
 removed by the prisoner before the body 
 was first seen ; but the medical evidence 
 appears to account sufficiently for the 
 absence, by concomitant or antecedent 
 strangulation, coupled with internal bleed- 
 ing. The position of the body and the 
 position of the wound on the apex of the 
 abdomen point also to internal bleeding. 
 But the absence of blood externally, and 
 the very slight depth of the wound, are, it 
 appears to me, important corroboration of 
 the child's statements. If the child was 
 not killed by the prisoner, the murder must 
 have been committed by an outsider and 
 
80 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 an enemy. The child wore no ornaments. 
 An outsider, if intending to murder, and 
 using a spear to effect his purpose, would, 
 in all probability, have struck home, that 
 is, deeply, and withdrawn the spear quickly, 
 in which case there would have been two 
 things : (1) a discharge of blood, and (2) 
 a deeper wound. Whereas, if death were 
 caused really by a heavy man's foot upon 
 the throat, if suffocation had partially or 
 completely supervened, if the spear had 
 been inserted deliberately and slightly, not 
 to kill, but to give a colour to the theory 
 of murder by an outsider, and slowly with- 
 drawn, the admitted circumstances of the 
 absence of blood-stains and the shallowness 
 of the wound are satisfactorily explained. 
 Here, then, in the scientific testimony, 
 which is above suspicion, is a species of cor- 
 roboration which could not have been fore- 
 seen by the concoctors of a fabricated story. 
 
The First Trial. 81 
 
 " I now come to the direct oral testimony 
 which is adduced to corroborate the truth 
 o the girl's story. 
 
 O \J 
 
 (Evidence of Haru, Dhiru, and Bharati, 
 was here laid before the jury.) 
 
 " These witnesses all agree in saying that 
 the girl told them the same atory on the 
 morning of the 28th March, and before the 
 police came near the village. 
 
 " If they are speaking the truth, these 
 facts afford the strongest possible corro- 
 boration of that story. If the child has 
 been suborned, they also must have been 
 suborned to support her. It is for you to 
 weigh this body of evidence, and to come 
 to a conclusion for yourselves as to 
 whether it is trustworthy. There is a dis- 
 crepancy between the evidence of Haru 
 and the girl as to the place where the state- 
 ment was made. The child says it was in 
 the utan (yard), the woman says that it 
 
 G 
 
82 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 was in the verandah where the child was 
 sitting. But that is very trifling, for the 
 woman, at all events, was in the titan, and 
 it does not appear to be a point to which 
 much importance should be attached. I 
 shall have to comment further on the 
 mother's evidence, but for the present I 
 will leave it and come to the third branch 
 of the evidence the circumstances which 
 the prosecution relies on as inculpatory. 
 
 " At first, as to the spear. The spear 
 produced is admitted by the prisoner to be 
 his, and there seems no reason to doubt 
 that the murder, whoever committed it, 
 was committed with that spear. If not, 
 why (on the hypothesis of the prisoner's 
 innocence) was it left lying outside for the 
 punchayet to see ? Taking it, then, to be 
 the spear or weapon with which the mur- 
 der was committed, whoever committed it, 
 which theory best accords with ordinary 
 
The First Trial S3 
 
 experience and reasonable probability the 
 child's story that the supposed murderer 
 used his own spear, or the theory that an 
 outsider used the prisoner's spear ? That 
 the night was dark, is an admitted fact. 
 It is proved that the spear was usually 
 kept in the thatch of the verandah, a place 
 where the darkness of the night would be 
 intensified. When a person comes in the 
 darkness of the night to commit a deliber- 
 ate murder on a neighbour's child, does he 
 come empty handed ? Does he not usually 
 come with some instrument a club, a dao, 
 or a spear to accomplish his design ? The 
 theory for the defence would require the 
 outsiders to have come empty-handed, or 
 not to have used the weapon they brought. 
 Again, looking at the fact that the place 
 where the spear was kept was in the thatch, 
 the outsider was either a man familiar with 
 the house or he was not, If not, it is ex- 
 
84 TJie Queen's Justice. 
 
 tremely unlikely that he would have found 
 the spear in the dark ; if yes, it is ex- 
 tremely unlikely that he would have come 
 empty-handed, relying on finding the spear. 
 The prisoner says he usually took the spear 
 when absent at night, and an outsider must, 
 if intending murder, have counted on his 
 absence. As far as it goes, then, the 
 weapon used corroborates the child's story. 
 The prisoner, unquestionably, had the wea- 
 pon with which death was inflicted, and it 
 is improbable that any outside murderer 
 would have come intending to use that 
 weapon, and unprovided with a weapon of 
 his own. I would not advise you to attach 
 excessive importance to this point if it 
 stood alone, but it is, as far as it goes, 
 corroborative. In coming to a conclusion 
 as to the truth of the girl's evidence in 
 other words as to the prisoner's guilt or 
 innocence, the conduct of the prisoner 
 
The First Trial 85 
 
 himself becomes an element of the utmost 
 importance a test, under the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the case, of the highest 
 value. What was his conduct before the 
 event ? At the time of the event ? after 
 the event ? Was it, on the whole, consis- 
 tent with the conduct of an innocent man 
 in his position ? Was it consistent with 
 the conduct of a man against whom, on the 
 hypothesis of innocence, an abominable 
 crime had been committed ? These are 
 important questions for you, gentlemen, 
 and on your answers to these questions, it 
 is plain, much will depend. It is for you 
 to decide what answers you will give to 
 these questions, and what effect these an- 
 swers will have on the conclusion to which 
 you may come on the whole case. I will 
 merely point out the bearing of the evi- 
 dence on these points. 
 
 " What was the conduct of the prisoner 
 
86 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 before the event ? He sends his wife 
 away the evening before, so as to ensure 
 her absence during the night, for what 
 ostensible purpose ? To fetch money 
 (which was not forthcoming) from his 
 brother. The village Goga is within an 
 easy distance half -an -hour's walk or 
 twenty minutes' run for a strong and tall 
 man like the prisoner. And yet he does 
 not go himself, but sends his wife. You 
 have seen that sending his wife entailed 
 her taking the two youngest children, and 
 disturbing the ordinary household arrange- 
 ments. You have heard the prisoner's ex- 
 planation of this act, and it is for you to 
 decide whether it is a sufficient or satis- 
 factory explanation. Such an act, even if 
 altogether unexplained, is not, of course, 
 inconsistent with innocence, and if it stood 
 alone, could not, of course, support a legal 
 inference of guilt. But if, in your opinion, 
 
The First Trial. 87 
 
 insufficiently explained, it is a circumstance 
 which adds to the cumulative force of the 
 inculpatory facts a circumstance corrob- 
 orative of the theory for the prosecution. 
 " Second. What was the conduct of the 
 prisoner at the time of the event, i.e.^ on 
 the night of the murder ? (Prisoner's 
 statement before the magistrate read.) He 
 comes home in the dark, he finds his child, 
 on his own showing, dead. He strikes no 
 light. He gives no alarm. He does not 
 (on the hypothesis of innocence) then 
 know what is the matter with her. It 
 may be snake-bite ; it may be a sudden 
 seizure of illness. What would a man or- 
 dinarily do under such circumstances ? 
 Would he not get a light, and call his 
 neighbours. The aunt of the girl, the 
 sister of the man's absent wife, is living 
 within hail, yet the prisoner admittedly 
 does not summon her to his help. He 
 
88 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 waits till it is light, and then examines, 
 and sees a death-wound on his child's body. 
 Even then he gives no alarm. He calls 
 no one. He begins to wail and weep in 
 such a way that his neighbours then astir 
 hear it and come to enquire. Far be it 
 from me to say that his weeping at seeing 
 his child lying murdered were he an in- 
 nocent man would be improbable or un- 
 natural. But on his own showing, the 
 outburst of sorrow did not come till the 
 break of day, and the question is whether 
 his conduct antecedent to the outburst of 
 sorrow, real or pretended, is compatible 
 with the conduct of an innocent man. 
 The woman Haru swears it was broad 
 daylight when she went. Why up to that 
 time had the prisoner called no one to his 
 help ? If time for help was past, why had 
 he called no one to witness the abomin- 
 able crime, the foul murder that had been 
 
The First Trial. 89 
 
 perpetrated in his house ? You have seen 
 that in his statement to the magistrate he 
 distinctly said that he came home in the 
 dark, and did not see the wound till the 
 dawn came. He could not, if the state- 
 ment be true (and it was admittedly made 
 and correctly recorded) have known that 
 help was past. When asked to explain his 
 conduct by me, he sees the importance 
 of the inference, and attempts to contra- 
 dict his former statement, whether satis- 
 factorily or not is for you to judge. 
 
 " Third. What is his conduct after the 
 event ? His position compels him to re- 
 port the death. He knows an enquiry 
 must follow. Does he take proper steps 
 to report the real facts, to place the mag- 
 nitude of the crime in the true light, to 
 insist on justice being done on the un- 
 known murderer ? No, he tries to stifle 
 the inquiry by reporting at the thanna that 
 
90 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 the neighbours say it is a case of snake- 
 bite. The written information has un- 
 fortunately not been sent up, as it ought 
 to have been. The Deputy-Magistrate 
 and I have accordingly been unable to 
 admit secondary evidence of its contents. 
 But the post-mortem report shows that 
 the case was reported in the first instance 
 as a case of snake-bite, and the prisoner 
 has admitted before you that on going to 
 thanna he mentioned that the neighbours 
 said it was a case of snake-bite. He has 
 called three witnesses, telling you that 
 they would prove this statement. Here 
 therefore is no bond-fide straightforward 
 charge of murder made in the first instance 
 by an outraged parent. An attempt to 
 stifle inquiry is made by a false represen- 
 tation. But it may be asked, does not this 
 at all events, cut away the ground from 
 under the feet of the prosecution ? Does 
 
The First Trial. 91 
 
 it not clearly shew that the prisoner had 
 no animus against Kadam Ali ? Does not 
 the alleged motive, the object of the 
 prisoner's alleged act, the foundation of 
 the case fail ? At first sight, gentlemen, 
 it does. There is no doubt a complete 
 change of front. But if you examine the 
 evidence carefully, the reason will be 
 apparent. If Haru's evidence be true, the 
 prisoner knew that he could not shut his 
 child's mouth. Before the sun rose, his 
 own child had declared him to be a 
 murderer. His coup had failed before the 
 punchayet came ; he must have felt (if his 
 child's evidence be true and if Haru's 
 evidence be true) that it was hopeless to 
 carry out his intentions that in attempt- 
 ing to strike down his enemy he would 
 involve himself in ruin, and that his only 
 chance of safety lay in baulking the en- 
 quiry. On that hypothesis alone can the 
 
92 TJie Queen s Justice. 
 
 statements to the punchayet about a snake- 
 bite can the statements to the thanna 
 about a snake-bite be explained consist- 
 ently with either hypothesis ? If innocent, 
 and i his child had not denounced him, 
 why persist in such a preposterous explan- 
 ation, with a ghastly death-wound staring 
 him in the face and giving him the lie ? 
 If guilty, and if his child has denounced 
 him, they become explicable. He may 
 have argued that the police, hearing the 
 neighbours say that it was a case of snake- 
 bite, might not have taken the trouble to 
 enquire. When the police did come, and 
 an enquiry became inevitable, did he do 
 what lay in his power to further the en- 
 quiry and to bring the murderer to justice? 
 (The evidence of the head constable was 
 here laid before the jury.) On this man's 
 own showing, he made no sort of enquiry 
 into the crime which the evidence of his 
 
The First Trial 93 
 
 own senses must have shewn him had been 
 committed. He examined no one but the 
 mother ; the present accused had left the 
 village on the 29th March, the day he 
 arrived, without attempting to make any 
 proper investigation. His explanation is 
 that he was only holding an inquest, and 
 was waiting the native doctor's report be- 
 fore beginning an enquiry. This conduct, 
 however absurd, does not affect the main 
 question before you, one way or the other. 
 It only goes to show that the prisoner did 
 not press an enquiry upon him, and did 
 not produce his daughter, Golak, on the 
 29th March. That, as far as it goes, if 
 you believe the witness's statements, tends 
 to support the theory for the prosecution, 
 and to corroborate the important statement 
 of the girl that she was sent away to the 
 neighbouring field on the 29th March. 
 That statement, if you believe it, is a 
 
94 Tire Queen s Justice. 
 
 strong inculpatory circumstance, for Golak 
 was the only person who was in the house 
 when the murder was committed, and, on 
 the hypothesis of the prisoner's innocence, 
 should have been produced before the 
 public officer, who had come to the village 
 to make an inquiry. 
 
 " That, gentlemen, concludes the case for 
 the prosecution. It is only on the mother's 
 evidence that I can find a single circum- 
 stance of importance that appears to throw 
 doubt on the story as told by the prose- 
 cution that circumstance is her omission 
 to denounce her husband to the head con- 
 stable on the 29th March. This is her 
 explanation of the omission. (Read.) It 
 is for you to weigh that circumstance and 
 the explanation given. It may be that she 
 was on that day unwilling to denounce her 
 husband, or uncertain as to the course she 
 ought to pursue. It may be that she was 
 
The First Trial. 95 
 
 unwilling to cut away her means of sup- 
 port. It may be that she was overcome 
 with the fear of her husband, and doubt- 
 ful of the result of a direct accusation 
 coming from her. She may have felt that 
 she would be unable to substantiate that 
 accusation. She says, "I had not seen the 
 act myself," and she may reasonably have 
 felt that the girl's evidence might be in- 
 sufficient to bring her husband to justice. 
 Her failure would have exposed her to 
 his revenge and lasting enmity. All these 
 considerations may have been operating in 
 her mind, and have prevented her taking 
 it upon herself to make a formal charge 
 on her own responsibility. 
 
 "It is for you to weigh these matters, 
 and to attach what weight you think fit to 
 the circumstance that the prisoner has not 
 rebutted the case made by the prosecution 
 in any way, should you think that the case 
 
96 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 is established on the evidence. He has 
 called three neighbours to prove, as he 
 says, that the villagers talked about snake- 
 bite as the cause of death before he went 
 to the thanna,) and agreed that that was 
 the cause of death. The witnesses called 
 certainly do not prove or bear out that 
 allegation. Even if they did, it is difficult 
 to see how it would tend to prove the 
 innocence of the accused, except on the 
 hypothesis that he is devoid of natural in- 
 telligence. Snakes, when they bite, do 
 not make holes in a human being's body, 
 and the wound on this child's person must 
 have been a fact patent to his senses. 
 With these observations, I shall leave this 
 case to you. If the evidence for the, pro- 
 secution does not satisfy you of the 
 prisoner's guilt, if you have reasonable 
 doubts of the truth of the child's evidence, 
 and the sufficiency of corroboration, you 
 
The First Trial. 97 
 
 should acquit the prisoner. If, on the 
 other hand, you find no room for reason- 
 able doubt, if your minds are convinced 
 by the whole evidence that the prisoner 
 committed the act which caused death, 
 you will not be doing your duty as citizens 
 if you shrink from convicting the accused 
 of murder." 
 
 Thus the English judge at the first trial ! 
 In the light of later knowledge it is at once 
 painful and profitable to study this earnest, 
 anxious, and indisputably upright, but 
 utterly mistaken and erroneous, specimen 
 of judicial analysis. We can see how 
 heavily the apparent facts pressed upon a 
 mind logical and dutiful, but lacking in 
 intellectual elasticity. One can see where 
 the judge's footsteps went unwittingly and 
 unwillingly astray, too easily deceived by 
 the atmosphere of lies which in India clings 
 like an evil mist to both sides alike, and 
 
 H 
 
98 The Queens Justice. 
 
 renders facts undecipherable and theories 
 perilous. It is to enforce upon justice 
 generally the precious lesson of precaution 
 that this judge, this case and this unhappy 
 prisoner are, in the present pages, called 
 back from the forgetfulness of official 
 chronicles. 
 
 The jury were unanimous in finding 
 Malek Chand, Chaukidar, guilty of the 
 offences specified in the charge. 
 
 The Court directed that, subject to con- 
 firmation by the High Court, Malek Chand, 
 Chaukidar, be hanged by the neck till he is 
 dead. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when his 
 Honour passed on the accused the dread 
 sentence of the law. Outside the Court 
 House, on rice field and indigo' patch, on 
 palm-grove and gleaming water, fell that 
 purple peace of the Indian evening which 
 was for the Chaukidar only a symbol of 
 
The First Trial. 99 
 
 his own forthcoming farewell to the light 
 of day. As the solemn words of the judge 
 were translated for his benefit into the 
 vernacular, Malek Chand rolled his dark 
 eyes round the motley crowd of faces in 
 the Court all turned upon him, seeking, 
 perchance, that poor succour of pity and 
 sympathy for which the stoutest human 
 heart will be hungry in moments of great 
 agony. He found no glances of compas- 
 sion. Even in the eyes of the least law- 
 abiding Bengali peasant to kill one's own 
 growing daughter showed as a dreadful 
 and devilish crime. Yet Allah knew him 
 an innocent man, most miserable in his 
 very innocence, as he stood there before 
 the English judge and the full Court ; and 
 the thoughts of how he had been brought 
 to such a pass, and of how, step by step, 
 all things had gone against him, until his 
 own words and acts became bristling walls 
 
100 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 to shut him off from all the paths of life 
 into the dark lane of death ; and of how 
 wife and child had turned against him ; 
 and not even the wise and eager English 
 judge could see through the fog of false- 
 ness to which oh, Allah pardon ! he had 
 himself contributed all these black and 
 bitter meditations held him in a kind of 
 daze while he listened rather to the hun- 
 gry howls of the pariah dogs outside the 
 maidan, and to the screams of the green 
 paraquets flying to roost than to the con- 
 cluding accents of his Honour. They had 
 indeed to pluck his cloth in order to make 
 him attend while the sheristadar interrupted 
 the judge's closing words to the effect that 
 if the condemned man wished to appeal to 
 the High Court, he must do so within 
 seven days. But how should he appeal ? 
 With what advice ? For what object ? 
 With what hope ? And where could the 
 
The First Trial 101 
 
 necessary funds be found ? There are 
 moments of human suffering and of mortal 
 isolation which make even the simplest 
 natures noble. Alone with Allah, with 
 Destiny, and with the terrible English 
 judge, Malek Chand, the Chaukidar, drew 
 himself up to his fine full height and said : 
 " I humbly pray the Presence to order me 
 to be hanged in my own village, because 
 there will be people there who will well 
 know that I die unjustly executed for a 
 crime which I did not commit, and could 
 never have committed." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNDER SENTENCE. 
 
 So Malek, the Chaukidar, lay in prison, 
 awaiting his doom, with seven days' grace 
 to make appeal for in this regard criminal 
 procedure in India is more merciful than 
 our own. In England appeal can only be 
 made to the Home Secretary, who has 
 neither time nor means to go deeply into 
 dubious cases. In India a condemned 
 person can carry his plea for re-considera- 
 tion or mercy to the High Court, and the 
 lofty fidelity with which that Court dis- 
 charges its duties has caused all India to 
 regard it with veneration and confidence. 
 A Hindoo, or even a Mohammedan peasant, 
 
Under Sentence. 103 
 
 would as soon question the judgments of 
 Dharma, or of those Angels of Record, 
 the Moakkibat, who sit on the right and 
 left hands of all, registering acts and 
 thoughts, as of the British Supreme Courts. 
 
 But the common people understand little 
 of the methods of the law, or of the ways 
 by which to move it, and nobody was par- 
 ticularly anxious at Nuddea, to set apellate 
 machinery in motion for poor, abandoned 
 Malek. As Bharati and her little daughter 
 came forth from the Court-house, someone 
 did indeed say to the wife 
 
 " Bharati Bibi ! thou canst make appeal 
 to the Adawlat if thou wilt. As long as a 
 fish moves his tail, the fisherwoman may 
 ask a good price for him." 
 
 " Nay," quoth Haru, "but it would cost 
 much money, and must come to naught. 
 To pay the expense of the drum, would 
 you have me sell the image ? " 
 
104 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 " Even if it costs money," the first 
 speaker retorted, " you know we say in 
 Bongong, everybody laughed at the widow 
 who kept on her leg ornaments. But truly 
 it costs nothing if the prisoner puts it forth, 
 or his family." 
 
 " The Sircar has spoken," muttered 
 Bharati, " and will not speak otherwise." 
 
 " Besides," broke in Dhiru, who had 
 bought a new sari in Nuddea, and yellow 
 shoes which she carried on her head, " didst 
 thou move, Malek's wife ! in this, it would 
 be to thy bitter hurt with the police." 
 
 " Yea, by the Great Mother ! " said 
 Ram Das, who was of the party, " the 
 shell-cutter's saw cuts both ways at once. 
 Thou canst not have two sides like that to 
 thy tongue. Moreover, didst thou not 
 offer shirni) along with Kadam Ali Fakir 
 at the shrine of the saint, to get what thou 
 hast gotten ? " 
 
Under Sentence. 105 
 
 " Who told thee this ? " asked Bharati, 
 angrily. 
 
 "All the village knows it, and Sarba 
 too." 
 
 " Oh, aye, Sarba ! nay, I am not going 
 back upon what is done. Let him hang ! 
 It was written upon his forehead, and is 
 no more than he hath well deserved for 
 ill deeds done." 
 
 " Truly," broke in Haru, the old widow, 
 "according to what you eat, you must 
 belch." 
 
 With such coarse and careless talk, 
 those who should have been the friends of 
 Malek Chand thus left him to his fate, 
 which would have been a shameful and 
 untimely death for himself and a lasting 
 disgrace for British justice in India but 
 for the keen wit and the honest heart of a 
 native Calcutta lawyer named Manomohan 
 Ghose. This ingenious gentleman, aware 
 
106 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 by birth and professional training o all 
 the pitfalls prepared for justice through 
 her own well-meant machinery ; aware 
 also of the methods of the police and the 
 untruthfulness of the timid Indian mind, 
 set himself to examine the many points of 
 suspicion and incertitude abounding in the 
 prosecution. These he subsequently em- 
 bodied in a powerful appeal which he drew 
 up on behalf of the condemned man, and 
 which he delivered with his own lips before 
 the High Court of Calcutta on June 13th, 
 1882; the Honble. Mr. Justice Wilson and 
 the Honble. Mr. Justice Macpherson pre- 
 siding. 
 
 Mr. Manomohan Grhose, after describing 
 the case which came before the Court for 
 confirmation of the sentence of death, and 
 also upon appeal, frankly confessed its 
 difficulties. The prisoner had been found 
 guilty by the unanimous verdict of a jury. 
 
Under Sentence. 107 
 
 consisting of his own countrymen, of the 
 atrocious crime of murdering his own 
 child, a girl of tender years, of whom, ac- 
 cording to the evidence, he was very fond, 
 and the motive ascribed by the prosecution 
 for this crime, which renders it even more 
 inhuman, was that the prisoner intended 
 to fix the guilt of the crime upon an enemy 
 of his, Kadam Ali Fakir, with whom he 
 had been on bad terms. With the ex- 
 ception of a solitary question put by the 
 prisoner himself, there had, however, been 
 no cross-examination. He had been con- 
 victed on the evidence of an eye-witness, 
 no other than his own child, of seven 
 years. The first point Mr. Ghose dwelt 
 upon was the absence of adequate motive 
 for so awful a crime. A prosecution is 
 not, of course, bound to prove motive, but 
 regard must be had to the adequacy and 
 reasonableness of what is suggested, and 
 
108 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 Mr. Ghose insisted that very strong evi- 
 dence was required to warrant the con- 
 clusion that a father, confessedly affec- 
 tionate, would kill his daughter to trump 
 up a charge of murder against an enemy. 
 He argued that the condemned man's con- 
 duct negatived such a theory. At which 
 Judge Wilson asked : 
 
 " Whom did the prisoner accuse ? " 
 Mr. Ghose replied that he never accused 
 anyone, and never even said that his child 
 had been killed. His statement to the 
 police from the beginning had been : "I 
 don't know how my child died ; my neigh- 
 bours think she died of snake-bite." But 
 the prosecution had suggested that the 
 prisoner must have changed his mind 
 shortly after the murder, and therefore 
 never ventured to charge Kadam Ali 
 Fakir. Why should he have changed his 
 mind if he had killed his daughter for the 
 
Under Sentence. 109 
 
 sole purpose of accusing the Fakir ? But 
 a graver point was this : the judge, in his 
 charge to the jury, had throughout as- 
 sumed that the case must be one of de- 
 liberate murder, and on that hypothesis 
 asked them to adopt one or two alterna- 
 tives presented to them, either the prisoner 
 murdered the child, or some enemy of his 
 committed the crime. This, Mr. Ghose 
 urged, was a very serious mistake ; for 
 the case clearly admitted of another hypo- 
 thesis, which he asked their lordships to 
 adopt in this case. The judge's charge to 
 the jury was an elaborate, a laboured, and 
 very able effort at persuading them to come 
 to one conclusion, and one conclusion only 
 in the case. He had given the jury no 
 chance of avoiding the persuasion at which 
 he had himself arrived, viz., that the 
 prisoner committed the murder. Such a 
 charge must have necessarily prejudiced 
 
110 The Queens Justice. 
 
 the prisoner, and it would entitle him, said 
 Mr. Ghose, to ask their lordships to inter- 
 fere on the ground o misdirection. 
 
 "But," interrupted Judge Wilson, "there 
 is the direct evidence of the prisoner's own 
 child, who was not cross-examined. How 
 are we to disregard that evidence ? " 
 
 In dealing with the evidence of this 
 child, the pleader called on their lordships 
 to have regard to probabilities, and to re- 
 member that the prisoner, an ignorant 
 peasant, would be absolutely incompetent 
 to cross-examine for himself. Indian chil- 
 dren are precocious, and notoriously plastic 
 in the hands of those whom they fear or 
 love. The very monstrosity of the fact 
 that child and wife should tell the same 
 story against father and husband should 
 have aroused the liveliest doubt. Besides, 
 observe, urged the skilful Baboo, the de- 
 lays admitted in the denunciation delays 
 
Under Sentence. Ill 
 
 just sufficient to afford time for a story 
 arranged to suit the later views of the 
 police. Why was not the head- constable 
 or someone else immediately informed of 
 what the girl had to tell ? On the 29th 
 March nothing at all was made known. 
 The prisoner in point of fact was never 
 accused until the result of the post-mortem 
 examination distinctly set aside the theory 
 of a snake-bite. It was common know- 
 ledge that in India the police will wait for 
 a medical view, and then adapt their wit- 
 nesses to that. 
 
 "But/' interjected Justice Wilson, "how 
 do you account for the death of the 
 child ? " 
 
 "It was not necessary," the undaunted 
 advocate replied, " for the prisoner to ac- 
 count for it, if he had nothing to do with it." 
 
 And then he went on, with the courage 
 of genius, to declare : 
 
112 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 "I can put forward a theory which 
 suggested itself to me the moment I read 
 the papers of the case, and which furnishes 
 in my judgment, the real clue to this 
 mystery. Anyone who has any expe- 
 rience of criminal trials in Bengal knows 
 that in the vast majority of cases, probably 
 in more than ninety per cent., neither the 
 prosecution nor the defence discloses the 
 whole truth. There is always, unfortun- 
 ately, a desperate attempt on both sides to 
 conceal the facts as much as possible, and 
 our courts have therefore the very difficult 
 task imposed upon them of finding, as best 
 they can, the truth out of an immense 
 mass of false and perjured testimony. 
 Bearing this in mind, also remembering 
 that ignorant persons in this country when 
 accused of crimes will not tell the truth, 
 and will set up a false defence even though 
 they are absolutely innocent of any crime. 
 
Under Sentence. 113 
 
 I have little hesitation in saying that, after 
 the most anxious consideration of the 
 whole evidence, I have come to the con- 
 clusion that this was a case of accidental 
 death." 
 
 "Oh, but" cried Judge Wilson, "the 
 medical evidence shows that death was 
 caused by the wound in the abdomen 
 which penetrated the liver." 
 
 " I shall ask your lordships," said the 
 barrister, "to reject the medical evidence 
 on that point. I cannot conceive of any 
 such wound having been inflicted during 
 life, and yet not a drop of blood coming 
 out of it. The child's clothes and bedding 
 had no blood on them." 
 
 " Then how do you say the accident 
 was caused ? " asked the judge. 
 
 Pressed for some speculation or another 
 the fearless Ghose responded in a manner 
 which afterwards must have appeared to 
 
114 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 many like the absolute inspiration of Truth 
 and Justice themselves. He startled the 
 court and audience by these memorable 
 words : 
 
 " Is it altogether unlikely that the pris- 
 oner, who was sleeping on the floor o the 
 verandah with his daughters, had occasion 
 to get up during the darkness of the night, 
 and happened to tread on the throat or 
 chest of the deceased ? I do not say that 
 this is a satisfactory explanation, but it is 
 a possible one." 
 
 Judge Wilson : " But supposing such an 
 accident had killed the child, how do you 
 account for the wound ? " 
 
 " My Lords, the wound presents no diffi- 
 culty whatever to me, and it is because I 
 am able to account satisfactorily for the 
 wound that I ask your Lordships to hold 
 that the death of the child must have been 
 due to some accident. Appearing for the 
 
Under Sentence. 115 
 
 prisoner, it is no doubt a very dangerous 
 suggestion for me to make, but, knowing 
 the character and ideas o these ignorant 
 people in Bengal, I venture to assert that 
 this wound was made after death." 
 
 Judge Wilson : " Who made it, and 
 why ? " 
 
 " It was probably made by the prisoner 
 himself to account for the death of the 
 child ; in other words, to fabricate a snake- 
 bite." 
 
 Judge Macpherson : " But surely snakes 
 do not make such ugly holes." 
 
 " I do not for a moment suggest that 
 the wound was made by a snake. But my 
 theory is that it was made for the purpose 
 of giving it the appearance of a snake-bite." 
 
 Judge Macpherson : " Every peasant in 
 Bengal knows what a snake-bite is like. 
 No one would mistake such a terrible 
 wound for a snake-bite," 
 
116 The Queens Justice. 
 
 " My Lords, fortunately for my theory, 
 I have got the very best evidence in sup- 
 port of it. Whether a genuine snake-bite 
 would have such an appearance or not, it 
 is needless for us to inquire, when the 
 fact is admitted that the prisoner himself 
 attempted to pass it off as a snake-bite. 
 He, at any rate, thought it might be taken 
 for a snake-bite. And that is enough for 
 my present purpose." 
 
 " That the wound was inflicted after 
 death is perfectly clear from the appear- 
 ance of it and from the entire absence of 
 blood ; and that it was not made by the 
 murderer is also clear from the superficial 
 character of it. Why should any murderer 
 inflict such a gentle wound with a spear, 
 instead of thrusting it deeper ? But if it 
 was intended to fabricate a snake- bite, the 
 superficial character of the wound is easily 
 accounted for," 
 
Under Sentence. 117 
 
 Mr. Ghose then read the judge's charge 
 and commented upon it, and concluded his 
 address by remarking that if, by reason of 
 the enormity of the crime alleged, and the 
 absence of all cross-examination of the 
 witnesses, the Court, after anxiously con- 
 sidering the evidence, could not see its way 
 to acquitting the prisoner altogether, it 
 might adopt another course, which the law 
 allowed and which the judge's summing 
 up entitled the prisoner to ask for, viz., a 
 new trial of the case before a fresh 
 
 No one appeared for the Crown in sup- 
 port of the conviction. 
 
 The learned judges, after a few days' 
 deliberation, delivered the following judg- 
 ment : 
 
 " We are unable to confirm the convic- 
 tion and sentence in this case, because the 
 case was presented to the jury by the 
 
118 The Queens Justice. 
 
 learned judge in a manner which seems to 
 us open to grave objection." 
 
 The reasons for this just and wise deci- 
 sion are less important than the decision 
 itself. But, as a matter of fact, the Court 
 largely adopted the suggestions of the 
 enlightened Baboo. They noted the fact 
 of the solitary eye-witness, and she so 
 young and manageable ; of the utter lack 
 of cross-examination at the trial ; and of 
 the one-sidedness of the summing up of 
 Judge Dickens, who, although ruling right- 
 ly on the general question of motive, him- 
 self had pressed upon the jury a special 
 and artificial motive. And the strong clear 
 judgment thus terminated : 
 
 " In the early part of his summing up, 
 Judge Dickens very correctly said that the 
 prosecution had to prove, first, 'that the 
 crime of murder was committed, and to 
 establish in your minds a reasonable belief 
 
Under Sentence. 119 
 
 amounting to a moral certainty, that the 
 prisoner committed that crime.' But in 
 treating the case in detail, he throughout 
 assumes that a murder was committed, and 
 addresses himself to the question of 4 Who 
 committed that ? ' This involves an as- 
 sumption not only that the girl died from 
 criminal violence, but that the circum- 
 stances were such that the crime amounted 
 to murder. And this is an assumption 
 which we think the judge was not author- 
 ised in making. 
 
 " Throughout the summing-up, the cir- 
 cumstances adverse to the prisoner were 
 pressed as strongly as possible, while those 
 favourable to him seem to us not to have 
 had due weight given to them. 
 
 " The fact that no charge was made 
 against the prisoner for several days after 
 the occurrence is a very important fact. 
 The learned judge refers to it as the ' single 
 
120 Tlie Queen s Justice. 
 
 circumstance of importance that appears 
 to throw doubt on the story as told by the 
 prosecution.' He then refers to the wife's 
 explanation, but does not point out that 
 that explanation is contradicted by the 
 police officer. And he then goes on to 
 offer several speculative explanations of 
 her conduct which she herself never sug- 
 gested. This great diversity in the mode 
 of treating the facts on the one side, and 
 those on the other, seems to us calculated 
 seriously to prejudice the accused. 
 
 " One material point of the evidence 
 seems not to have been seriously considered 
 at all. The learned judge throughout his 
 summing-up assumes that death was caused 
 by suffocation and a spear wound. The 
 attention of the jury was not called to the 
 grave doubts arising on the evidence as to 
 what was the real cause of death, and 
 whether the spear-wound was inflicted be- 
 
Under Sentence. 121 
 
 fore or after death, nor to the bearing of 
 this question upon the whole case." 
 
 Consequently these two wise judges 
 ruled : 
 
 " We are unable to confirm the convic- 
 tion and sentence. On the other hand, we 
 do not think we should be justified in 
 allowing the appeal and acquitting the 
 prisoner. The safer course seems to us 
 to be that the prisoner be tried again." 
 
 The bold sagacious Baboo Ghose had 
 therefore so far gained a victory for his 
 poor client and for the Queen's Justice, in 
 that Malek Chand, the Chaukidar, was 
 now to have another trial. 
 
 But Judge Dickens was, as has been said, 
 an opinionated as well as a high principled 
 man, and having made up his mind 
 privately and officially that the Chaukidar 
 was guilty, not only resented the appeal 
 movement but actually tried to render it 
 
122 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 ineffective. He announced the intention 
 of summoning a special jury for the 
 second trial, nominating to it certain per- 
 sons whose opinions were pretty well con- 
 jecturable beforehand. Against this the 
 indefatigable Ghose caused a local pleader 
 to present a petition to Mr. Dickens on 
 behalf of Malek Chand disputing the pro- 
 priety of the act, and asking for an early 
 trial at special sessions, and that the jurors 
 should be chosen, as usual, by lot. The 
 behaviour of Mr. Dickens on receiving this 
 protest was neither wise nor impartial. 
 " I have already stated," he said, " that 
 two and two make four, and they cannot 
 make me say that two and two make five." 
 On receiving the petition he even dis- 
 played temper, exclaiming : " If I am to 
 be harassed by such pleas, and if my dis- 
 cretion as regards the selection of jurors 
 is to be fettered, I will write to the High 
 
Under Sentence. 123 
 
 Court to transfer the case from my file." 
 But instead of doing this he named a late 
 day for the second hearing in his own 
 court, and selected, apparently quite with- 
 out ballot, eleven jurymen among whom 
 some were his personal friends. In face 
 of this the indomitable Baboo applied to 
 the Calcutta High Court, with a long 
 affidavit, in the accepted style, having the 
 " crook of Gunesh " on the top, and all the 
 formalities, asking for a rule calling upon 
 Mr. Dickens, Sessions Judge of Nuddea, 
 to show cause why the precept issued by 
 him regarding the selection of certain 
 jurors named by him to sit on the trial of 
 Malek Chand, Chaukidar, should not be 
 quashed, and why the case should not be 
 transferred from the court of Mr. Dickens 
 to that of another judge. 
 
 The learned judges, taking action upon 
 this, delivered a judgment, not less sting- 
 
124 . The Queen s Justice. 
 
 ing to the President of the Nuddea Tri- 
 bunal for being very careful and dignified 
 in tone, ordaining that a jury should be 
 selected in the customary and equitable 
 way, and that the trial should be trans- 
 ferred from the Court of the " Judge with 
 only one idea " to the Alipur sessions, which 
 step as Judge Macpherson rather ironically 
 remarked, could not fail to be agreeable 
 to Mr. Dickens who had desired the trans- 
 fer. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SECOND TEIAL. 
 
 THUS, on the 21st July, 1882, the second 
 trial of Malek Chand, Chaukidar, opened 
 at the Alipur Sessions Court ; and lasted 
 for three long, hot, anxious days. But 
 before its commencement, the judicious 
 and indomitable Mr. Ghose, who had 
 generously undertaken to defend the 
 prisoner, paid him a visit in the jail at 
 Nuddea. The superintendent of that jail 
 was the same Dr. Brander whose evidence 
 had especially tended to confirm the native 
 doctor's hasty opinion ; but contact with 
 the hapless Chaukidar had greatly in- 
 fluenced the good doctor's mind, and he 
 
126 The Queens Justice. 
 
 was now as eager as the prisoner's own 
 pleader, Baboo Akhay Kamar Mookerji, 
 that Mr. Ghose should personally converse 
 with Malek Chand. These two accordingly 
 accompanied the keen barrister to the 
 neighbourhood of the cell, where Malek 
 sat in chains on the floor, and, an order 
 being given, the sad-eyed Bengali peasant 
 was brought face to face with the one 
 man who had thus far struggled to save 
 him. 
 
 It had tried even the patient and silent 
 spirit of an Indian ryot to be kept living for 
 month after month in the very shadow of 
 the gibbet; and at the sudden sight of 
 the open sunshine, and of the countenance 
 of that undaunted champion of justice and 
 truth who had befriended him, Malek 
 Chand fell prostrate at the feet of 
 Manomohan, copiously weeping. 
 
 "You have been my father and my 
 
The Second Trial. 127 
 
 mother!" he cried. " Oh, save my life 
 now! I am entirely innocent! " 
 
 Yet, even at that moment of intense 
 emotion, the dogged reticence in which 
 these ignorant peasants wrap up their 
 hearts was not wholly abandoned. They 
 cling to a foolish little early lie, as if it 
 were an entrenchment, and the key of 
 the whole position. 
 
 Mr. Grhose said, "But how did your 
 child die? Until you are able to give me 
 some information on this point, it will not 
 be possible for any of us to defend you 
 properly." 
 
 Malek went back into the inner darkness 
 of his own spirit, gloomily responding, " I 
 know nothing about it ! " 
 
 Then ensued the subjoined momentous 
 conversation. 
 
 " You must know something ; and unless 
 you tell us the truth on this point we can 
 
128 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 do nothing ; your case is an extremely 
 difficult one." 
 
 " I know nothing." 
 
 "But, why does your own daughter 
 accuse you of the murder ? " 
 
 "The police have tutored her, and 
 her statements are false. My wife and 
 daughter have both been saying what 
 they were taught to say." 
 
 At this stage, Dr. Brander and the 
 Pleader left the room on Mr. Grhose's 
 request, and the conversation between the 
 prisoner and himself proceeded. 
 
 " I am quite convinced in my own mind 
 that you know how your child died, and 
 unless you explain to me the cause of the 
 child's death, I shall find it extremely 
 difficult to defend you at the trial." 
 
 "I found my child dead on my return 
 from the field. I don't know how she died. 
 Do as you like, but I know nothing." 
 
The Second Trial 129 
 
 " Malek Chand ! I believe you did not 
 intentionally kill your child ; but I cannot 
 believe you know nothing. If you decline 
 to tell me the truth, you make it almost 
 impossible for me to defend you, and you 
 run the risk of being hanged." 
 
 " I know nothing." 
 
 " Never mind how your child was killed. 
 I am certain that the wound on her body 
 was inflicted after death, and you must 
 know all about it." 
 
 At this the prisoner looked confused 
 and agitated, and caught hold of the feet 
 of his advocate. 
 
 " What makes you say the wound was 
 caused after death ? " 
 
 " I am sure it was." 
 
 " Have you heard it from Umesh 
 Ghazee, my brother-in-law ? " 
 
 " I never heard of him. But what does 
 he know ? " 
 
130 Tlie Queen s Justice. 
 
 " Well, sir, as you know all about the 
 wound, i you will excuse me, I will tell 
 you everything. That man, Umesh Ghazee, 
 is the cause of all my trouble. He made 
 the wound, and advised me to say that it 
 was a snake-bite. When we discovered 
 that my child Nekjan was dead, and did 
 not know how to account for her death, 
 my brother-in-law, Umesh Ghazee, brought 
 his small knife and made the wound, but 
 no blood came out of it, as the child was 
 then dead." 
 
 " What about the spear ? Was that 
 never used ? " 
 
 " No, the spear was never thought of, 
 until the police got my child to accuse me 
 of murder." 
 
 "Did not your child accuse you when 
 your wife returned home, and before the 
 police came ? " 
 
 " All that is utterly untrue. I was not ac- 
 
The Second Trial. 131 
 
 cused before Thursday night. When Ram 
 Das Jemadar came on Wednesday, he made 
 Umesh Ghazee dig up the floor of my 
 house in the hope of getting the snake. 
 My child Golak was there then, and so 
 was my wife. The inspector subsequently 
 sent for my wife and child, and told them 
 I had myself confessed, and got them to 
 say what he liked. I met my wife one 
 day, as I was being taken to the Magis- 
 trate's Court, and she cried out, c Is it true 
 you have admitted having killed Nekjan ? ' 
 I replied, ; No, it is all false.' 
 
 " I then said, ' I am glad you told me 
 all about the wound. But why did Umesh 
 Ghazee make it so big ? ' 
 
 " It was very slight at first, but it was 
 subsequently enlarged by the police while 
 the corpse was being carried to Bongong. 
 They wanted thirty rupees from me, but 
 I had not so much to give them/' 
 
132 The Queen's Justice. 
 
 It will thus be seen that when the intre- 
 pid Baboo defended the accused at Alipur, 
 at the second trial, he had no information 
 whatever regarding the cause of the child's 
 death, but felt convinced in his own mind 
 that the case was not one of murder, and 
 that the prisoner, probably, had not ven- 
 tured to disclose the whole truth. How- 
 ever, he had elicited during the interview 
 this most valuable piece of information, 
 which showed that the theory put forward 
 before the High Court was perfectly cor- 
 rect, viz., that the wound on the deceased 
 child had been fabricated after death. 
 Such a point once established, the conclu- 
 sion became irresistible that the medical 
 evidence in the case could not be de- 
 pended upon, as it could throw no light 
 whatever on the cause of the child's death. 
 The information regarding the digging of 
 the floor by Umesh Ghazee, under order 
 
The Second Trial. 133 
 
 of the police, was also of high importance, 
 for this had been suppressed, or hardly 
 noticed at all at the first trial. Armed 
 with so much fresh light and new hope 
 this friend of justice and of poor Malek 
 Chand entered upon the second trial with 
 all the ardour of an expectant con- 
 queror. 
 
 It will not be necessary, after what has 
 been revealed, to go step by step over 
 the evidence addressed at Alipur Sessions 
 Court. Dwarka Rai, the constable, was 
 first examined, and vexed the Court by 
 stupidity and feigned ignorance, leaving a 
 strong impression that he and the police 
 had got up Golak's tale. The native 
 doctor, Adhar Chandra Chakravarti, re- 
 peated his superficial autopsy, confessing 
 that he had not investigated the condition 
 of the throat or head of the dead girl ; but 
 Dr. Brander, without too harshly brushing 
 
134 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 aside the views and statements of his sub- 
 ordinate, now declared that the data were 
 not sufficient to decide whether the wound 
 had been inflicted during life or after 
 death. Of this witness, Mr. Ghose asked 
 the crucial question : 
 
 " Supposing the child had been bitten 
 by a snake on the abdomen, had died, and 
 that someone very soon after death had 
 enlarged the wound, is there anything in 
 the symptoms inconsistent with this ?" and 
 Dr. Brander replied : 
 
 "No." 
 
 On the second day of the Alipur trial 
 the little child, Golak Mani, was again 
 brought forward and again went through 
 the suspiciously impressive story which 
 she had obviously learned by rote. The 
 judge made experiment as to her moral 
 consciousness by questions, and wrote at 
 the top of his notes : (" This child says 
 
The Second Trial 135 
 
 she knows that to tell a lie is pap, i.e., sin. 
 She does not, however, understand what 
 pap means : yet she is plainly intelligent.") 
 Then Golak went on : 
 
 " My name is Golak Mani. I know the 
 prisoner. He is my father. His name 
 is Malek Chand. I had a sister named 
 Nekjan, a little older than myself, My 
 mother left home in the afternoon, taking 
 a younger sister and an infant brother of 
 mine. My father, Nekjan, and I went to 
 sleep on a mat in the verandah facing the 
 cow-path. She was kicking her feet about 
 when I awoke, and my father had his foot 
 on her throat, and then stuck a spear into 
 her. I said to him : ; Why are you beat- 
 ing her ? ' He said : c Lay the blame on 
 the Fakir, Kadam Ali.' My father had an 
 affair of love with this man's wife, Sarba. 
 My sister kicked her legs about, but could 
 not speak. It was a moonlight night. The 
 
136 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 moon was setting. It was near dawn. My 
 sister could not move, and I concluded she 
 was dead. After this my father went out. 
 I remained with my sister's body. About 
 dawn my nani, Haru Bebee, the mother of 
 Amrita, came. I told her my father had 
 killed my sister. Dhiru called me to go 
 and eat, and I went to her. She called to 
 me from near a date-tree in the cow-path. 
 I told her what my father had done. 
 When the day was well on, my mother 
 came home. I told her what my father 
 had done. I was at Sham Mehtar's house 
 when my mother returned. I had gone to 
 bathe. I mean I was at home when my 
 mother returned." 
 
 Q. Do you know when the police 
 came ? 
 
 A. I was in the onion field. I am 
 in the habit of looking after the onions, 
 and I went there of my own accord. 
 
The Second Trial 137 
 
 I did not see my sister's body taken 
 away. 
 
 Q. When did you return from the 
 onion field ? 
 
 A. About noon, after the corpse had 
 been taken away. 
 
 Cross-examined by Mr. Ghose. "The 
 barra darogah (chief inspector of police) 
 taught me the word 'pap.' He said 
 6 Mitya bolile pap hai, satya bola bhala.'* 
 He told me this at Bongong. He said to 
 me c Pap hoile ki hoy ? ' f At Nuddea 
 I was told by my mother that my father 
 had been sentenced to be hanged. On 
 that day my mother made an offering at 
 the foot of a sacred tree near the court, 
 and gave me some of the sweetmeats 
 which she offered. I have remained with 
 my mother ever since the case. We have 
 
 * " Sin is incurred if one tells a lie." 
 t "What happens if sin is incurred 2 " 
 
138 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 not been to visit my father in the jail. 
 When I opened my eyes and saw my 
 father killing my sister, I did not sit up. 
 I watched him, keeping lying down. (Note 
 by the judge The child is made to show 
 the exact position she kept, and lies down 
 with one hand very slightly raising her 
 head.) I talked to my father in this posi- 
 tion. I was still in this position when my 
 father went out. I did not go to sleep, 
 but remained lying down. I did not get 
 up to pass water either before or after the 
 deed. I did not want to. I remember 
 giving evidence before the magistrate at 
 Bongong. I there said that I had awoke 
 because I wished to pass water, but it was 
 a mistake of memory (mane cheela na*). 
 I did tell the magistrate that I was awakened 
 by my sister kicking me. I saw my father 
 take the spear from the roof. It was kept 
 
 * " Did not remember." 
 
The Second Trial. 139 
 
 in a place where you could reach to it 
 with the hand from the bed. The mother 
 of my mother is alive. She is called Koti 
 in the village ; and her house is on the 
 other side of the road from ours. (Note 
 by the judge The child evinces a curious 
 reluctance to answer whether her mother's 
 mother is alive, and says at first that she 
 must ask her mother.) I did not call 
 when I saw my sister killed. I did not 
 cry out at all when I saw my sister killed. 
 I wept a little. I did not tell my grand- 
 mother, Koti, what I had seen. I never 
 told her. Haru Bebee is my darham nani 
 (called grandmother, but not related). I 
 never told anyone in my village what I 
 had seen except Haru, Dhiru, and my 
 mother. I have playmates in the village. 
 I never told them anything of what had 
 happened. After my father returned, hav- 
 ing gone out after the deed, he found me 
 
140 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 seated by my sister on the bed, awake. 
 He did not call out to me " Golak ! get 
 up." He began to cry. He called out 
 loudly " Oil ! my neighbours ; how is it 
 my Nekjan's dead ? " Dhiru is the wife 
 of Umesh Ghazee, and is sister of my 
 mother. The first person to come on my 
 father's calling out was Haru Bibi." 
 
 Q. " What men came ?" 
 
 A. " Jameer, Sajan, and Sham Mehtar. 
 They are not related to us. My uncle, 
 Umesh Ghazee, came, looked at the 
 corpse, and went away. (Note by the 
 Judge The child seems very reluctant to 
 
 O v 
 
 say that this man came.) Umesh and my 
 nani, Koti, live in the same premises. I 
 did not tell him what had happened. I 
 did not tell any one that my father had 
 told me to lay the blame on the fakir. 
 My mother has never asked me why my 
 father killed Nekjan. (Ram Dass, head- 
 
The Second Trial. 141 
 
 constable, is called in.) This darogali 
 ordered the floor of our house to be dug 
 up, and my uncle, Umesh Grhazee, dug it 
 up with a kodali (spade). My mother 
 was there. I was there. The floor was 
 dug in order to look for the snake which 
 was supposed to have bitten my sister. 
 Every one supposed this. I did not say 
 anything of what I had seen. The daro- 
 gah did not ask my mother how Nekjan 
 had died. (Dwarka Rai, constable is called 
 in.) This constable took me and my 
 mother into Bongong. We got there at 
 night. I saw the inspector there. (Iden- 
 tifies Inspector Bipin Behari, who is called 
 in.) I was taken to him yesterday even- 
 ing after I had been in attendance at this 
 Court. I and my mother were taken. The 
 Inspector told me to tell him what I knew, 
 and I related to him what I have said here. 
 I don't know what my mother said to him. 
 
142 The Queens Justice. 
 
 We were taken in one by one. Yesterday 
 week my mother and I were seated under 
 a tree near Bongong, and Kadam AH Fakir 
 was with us, giving us water. Kadam Ali 
 has come in with us here. He is outside 
 the court." 
 
 Re-examined. " I call Koti my nani. She 
 was at home when my sister was killed. 
 She did not come. Her foot was swollen. 
 (Note by the Judge This explanation is 
 given with much hesitation, and after 
 several unintelligible sentences on the 
 part of the child). The corpse was in 
 the yard (utan) when the floor was dug 
 up." 
 
 After Golak, the daughter, the next 
 witness was Bharati the wife ; who thus 
 again testifies : 
 
 " My name is Bharati. I am the wife 
 of the prisoner at the bar. I had a 
 daughter, Nekjan. She was aged about 
 
The Second Trial. 143 
 
 nine or ten. I went to Goga to get 
 money, by direction of my husband, on 
 account of a case he had with Kadam Ali 
 Fakir. He told me to go to his brother. 
 His brother said he had none. I went in 
 the afternoon, and returned home next 
 morning about eight or nine. When I 
 came to my house, I found my daughter, 
 G-olak, seated on a mat in the verandah, 
 silently weeping, and by her, on the same 
 mat, was the corpse of my daughter, 
 Nekjan. My husband was not there. The 
 corpse was covered with child's clothes, 
 but these were not worn ; the body was 
 naked. I saw no blood, but I saw a wound 
 in the abdomen. (Indicates on her own 
 person the locality). My husband came 
 in some time after. When I came and 
 saw my child dead, and the other child by 
 the body, I said to Grolak, ' How is" it 
 your sister is dead ? ' She said her father 
 
144 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 had killed her sister. She said he had 
 placed his foot on her throat and then 
 speared her. When my husband came in 
 I said to him, 'I left my children with 
 you. You sent me off to Goga for money ; 
 now tell me who killed my child.' I 
 further said to him, c I have no quarrel 
 with anyone ; you have a quarrel with the 
 Fakeers.' He said, C I don't know who 
 killed her ; I was not at home.' He further 
 said, c What has been done has been done ; 
 now let us try to save ourselves.' This 
 spear and this bagi (sword) now before 
 me are my husband's." 
 
 Cross-examined by Mr. Ghose. "My 
 husband was fond of Nekjan. I did not 
 find my husband crying when I returned. 
 I did not see him cry at all. I did not say 
 to the judge at Nuddea 4 1 heard cries ; 
 my child Golak was crying, and my hus- 
 band was also crying.' He never cried 
 
The Second Trial. 145 
 
 (emphatically). I did not tell the judge 
 of Nuddea that ' I first had a conversation 
 with my husband, and that I then asked 
 Golak how her sister had been killed.' 
 What I say now is true. I spoke to Golak 
 
 first. When I saw my husband, I said to 
 
 / * 
 
 him, ' Golak says you killed Nekjan.' He 
 denied it. I did not ask Golak why her 
 father had killed Nekjan. She did not tell 
 me. I saw my mother, Koti, about noon 
 that day, and I said to her, ' I left two 
 children alive, and found one dead.' She 
 said, 4 Well, you will not get the child 
 alive again ; probably, the author of its 
 being has killed it.' When I came home 
 I saw the child dead, and I had no idea 
 before I saw the corpse that anything had 
 happened. I found Golak alone by the 
 body. No villager, neighbour, or relation 
 was there. I did not tell anyone in the 
 village what Golak had told me. I told 
 
146 TJie Queen s Justice. 
 
 my mother only. Ram Dass, head-con- 
 stable, came to our house the next day. 
 He asked me nothing. I told him nothing. 
 This is he. (Identifies Ram Dass, who is 
 called in.) My husband told me to go in 
 when this constable came. (Note by the 
 judge : This she says o her own accord.) 
 I went into another hut of ours. Umesh 
 Ghazee dug the floor o our verandah by 
 order of Ram Dass. I saw from some 
 distance. I heard my husband tell the 
 police that Nekjan had probably died from 
 snake-bite. It was on a Tuesday I re- 
 turned. On the next Thursday was the 
 first time I told the police my husband 
 had killed ISTekjan. I did so to Dwarka, 
 constable, in my house, in the presence of 
 the punchayet, Uma Charan. Dwarka 
 took me and Golak to Bongong. He 
 accompanied us on the road. He also took 
 Jameer, Sajan, and Uma Charan. Dwarka 
 
The Second Trial. 147 
 
 asked me in my village how my daughter 
 had died, and then I told him her father 
 had killed her. We got to Bongong in the 
 evening. Dwarka was with us. He took 
 us to the inspector (burra darogah) at his 
 house. I had never seen the inspector 
 before. Dwarka kept us at the thanna 
 (police station) that night. Next morning 
 (Friday) my statement was recorded, and 
 Golak's statement was recorded." 
 
 Q. " As you were being taken off, after 
 your statement was recorded, did you see 
 your husband in custody ? and did you 
 call out to him c Is it true that you have 
 confessed to the police that you killed your 
 daughter ?' " 
 
 A. " Yes ; I said so. (Note by the 
 judge The witness afterwards retracts 
 this, but in a very unsatisfactory manner.) 
 I did not say any such thing to my hus- 
 band, nor did I hear from him that it was 
 
148 The Queens Justice. 
 
 false. The police did not tell me that my 
 husband had made a confession. After 
 my husband was sentenced to death, I did 
 not go to see him. Some one about the 
 Court asked me if I would appeal. I was 
 told that an appeal would not save my 
 husband's life. I therefore took no steps 
 to appeal. The people in the Court told 
 me that an appeal would cost nothing. I 
 made no offering to any god after my hus- 
 band was convicted. I was not taken to 
 the inspector's house last night. My 
 daughter, Golak, was not taken. She 
 remained with me. If my daughter has 
 said that she and I were taken yesterday, 
 one by one, to the inspector, it is because 
 she is a child. If she has said that I made 
 an offering I cannot explain it. Last 
 Friday week I did not sit under a tree with 
 Kadam Ali, Fakir. He is now staying in 
 the same house with me at Alipur." 
 
The Second Trial. 149 
 
 Re-examined. " I cannot say why he has 
 come in. His wife has come in." 
 
 By Court. "I was very angry with my 
 husband when I found he had killed my 
 child. I said I would never give him food 
 again, and he said he would never take 
 food from me again. When I saw the 
 police come, and saw that my husband was 
 trying to make them believe that my child 
 had died of snake-bite, I did not come 
 forward and tell the true story, because I 
 was not called ('Amar dak hoe nai'). 
 The wound on the body was long, not tri- 
 angular. It was wide enough open to 
 admit a finger. I told the Magistrates at 
 Bongong that I suspected my husband had 
 killed Nekjan, in order to bring a charge 
 against Kadam Ali, Fakir. My daughter 
 Golak had told me that when she asked 
 her father why he struck Nekjan, he had 
 said : 4 The blame will be round the neck 
 
150 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 of Kadam All.' I told this both to the 
 magistrate and to the judge of Nuddea." 
 
 (Note by the Judge. No indication of 
 any such statement is to be found either in 
 the record of the committing officer or in 
 that of the judge of Nuddea). 
 
 The white-haired widow Haru followed, 
 from whom Mr. Ghose drew in cross- 
 examination these words : 
 
 " I am not on friendly terms with pris- 
 oner or his family. They have not set up 
 any dharm relationship with me. I did not 
 tell anyone what the child had said to me. 
 When prisoner threatened to strike Golak, 
 he did not say anything. He did not say 
 ' I will put my foot on your throat.' ' 
 
 Next came Dhiru Bibi, wife of Umesh 
 Ghazee who remembered now "that my 
 husband went to the prisoner's house be- 
 fore I did. He returned, and then I went. 
 I did not tell anyone what I had heard 
 
The Second Trial. 151 
 
 from Grolak. I did not tell my husband. 
 My husband slept with me the following 
 night. The common talk in the village 
 was that Nekjan had died from some un- 
 known cause. The day after the event 
 my husband took a kodali (spade) to 
 prisoner's house to dig up the floor. I 
 don't know why. I did hear from my 
 husband that it was to look for the snake 
 that was supposed to have killed Nekjan. 
 I did not then tell him what Golak told 
 me. I did hear prisoner crying before I 
 went." When Dhiru was asked if Umesh 
 Ghazee talked with her about the mur- 
 der, she fainted and was borne out of 
 court. 
 
 The third day was notable, among other 
 things, for the first appearance of Sarba, 
 the good-looking, bold-eyed, wife of Kadam 
 Ali, whose rude beauty was perhaps at the 
 bottom of all the troubles. This Mussul- 
 
152 The Queeris Justice. 
 
 raani, a | well-formed woman o about 
 twenty-seven years, made solemn affir- 
 mation upon a copy of the Koran, and 
 then proceeded to give this evidence : 
 
 "My name is Sarba. My home is at 
 Mouzah Bhulat. I know the prisoner. 
 He is Malek Chand. He came to me one 
 night when my husband was away, and I 
 was asleep by myself. He put his hand 
 indecently on my body, and I called out. 
 My mother-in-law came and caught him 
 by the cloth, and he snatched away his 
 clothing from her and ran away. My 
 mother-in-law lit a lamp, and we saw a 
 spear in the verandah where I was sleep- 
 ing. It was not my husband's, and we 
 supposed that prisoner had left it. My 
 husband laid a complaint against prisoner 
 on account of this." 
 
 Cross-examined by Mr. Ghose. " I forget 
 how long before I heard of Nekjan's 
 
The Second Trial. 153 
 
 death this occurred. It was less than a 
 month. I did not tell the magistrate that 
 my mother-in-law had snatched the spear 
 from prisoner. I forget if I said so. I 
 have a female cousin named Otiran, who 
 is wife of Meeru. Prisoner and Meeru 
 have had a case, which prisoner won. 
 After prisoner had won this case, my 
 husband accused him of the trespass into 
 our house with intent to outrage my 
 virtue." 
 
 Whether the charge here made was true 
 or false must be left to conjecture. It 
 was never whispered by husband or wife 
 in the household of the Fakir until after 
 Malek Chand had gained the suit against 
 Meeru, Natives will do strange deeds to 
 revenge a family disappointment like that, 
 or again, the accusation might have been 
 made by the passionate Sarba in revenge 
 for advances upon her side towards the 
 
154 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 good-looking prisoner, which had been 
 slighted. Certain it is that all the adverse 
 folks of the village did not want Malek 
 there again ; and, probably, it was through 
 and by them that the heart of Bharati 
 had been first filled with anger and jealousy 
 against her husband. The appearance of 
 Sarba at Alipur was the last blow they 
 could strike at the Chaukidar, but none 
 cross-examined her. 
 
 The deposition of Uma Charan Sircar 
 needs not to be repeated, nor that of Earn 
 Das Sircar, jemadar of the police. Under 
 cross-examination the latter testified how, 
 at first seeing the body of Nekjan, " I 
 made prisoner stretch the triangular 
 wound, and I then carefully looked into 
 it, and saw that it had no depth. It looked 
 only skin-deep. I asked the by-standers 
 what they thought was the cause of death, 
 and they all said that they thought it 
 
The;Second Trial. 155 
 
 must be a snake-bite. I asked Uma Charan, 
 and he said the same. Prisoner's wife was 
 there. I asked her what she knew. She 
 said, 4 1 was not there. I cannot say how 
 the child died.' I held a surathal (inquest) 
 and then sent the body in." 
 
 Afterwards the three several statements 
 of the prisoner himself was read, and, no 
 witnesses being summoned for the defence, 
 the judge called on the Government Plead- 
 er to address the jury. This official was 
 at first disinclined to comply, but, being 
 pressed by the Court, he delivered a brief 
 speech, the burden of which was that he 
 saw no reason why the evidence for the 
 prosecution, especially that of the prison- 
 er's wife and daughter, should not be be- 
 lieved by the jury. 
 
 Mr. Manomohan Grhose then addressed 
 the jury, enumerating in masterly fashion 
 the points of the case which absolutely 
 
156 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 demanded a reversal of the sentence of the 
 Nuddea Court. He dwelt on the absence 
 of any sufficing motive for the crime : the 
 suggested motive being negatived by the 
 conduct of the prisoner from first to last ; 
 on the obviously unsatisfactory character 
 of the medical evidence, which had jumped 
 to a conclusion refuted by the smallness 
 of the wound ; on the absence of blood, 
 and the artificial changes wrought in the 
 injury. Step by step he showed how the 
 police had worked up their evidence to 
 support a theory, tutoring the jealous wife 
 and the obedient child, who, before the 
 Court, in the absence of her instructors, 
 had actually hesitated to say whether her 
 grandmother was alive or dead. In con- 
 clusion, Mr. Ghose called unhesitatingly 
 for an acquittal, justly observing that the 
 prisoner had not been defended before, 
 and many important facts had not, conse- 
 
The Second Trial. 157 
 
 quently, been elicited at the previous trial. 
 This case, he said, showed the great danger 
 o relying implicitly on the evidence of 
 little children, and convicting persons on 
 the strength of post-mortem reports made 
 by incompetent doctors after careless and 
 perfunctory examination of the body. It 
 also showed how necessary it was to cross- 
 examine the witnesses carefully on points 
 connected with the origin and the first 
 inception of a case, as it was quite clear 
 that for the first three days the witnesses 
 never came out with their present story ; 
 and it was not until the Friday morning 
 following the death that the inspector got 
 the prisoner's wife and child to accuse 
 him. 
 
 From the luminous and searching charge 
 of Judge Brett, which covered all the 
 ground of this extraordinary case, it is 
 only necessary to select two passages. 
 
158 TJie Queen s Justice. 
 
 Speaking of Golak Nani and her evidence, 
 
 His Honour remarked " Now, vou have 
 
 / / 
 
 seen this little girl, and you will have 
 noticed that she is intelligent. At the out- 
 set of her story we are met with a con- 
 siderable discrepancy between what she 
 says now and what she said before the 
 magistrate. Before the magistrate she 
 said she awoke to answer a call of nature, 
 but here she says her sister kicked her. 
 To the Judge of Nuddea she said some- 
 thing touched her body. She says that 
 what she told the magistrate was a lapse 
 of memory : you will remember the ver- 
 nacular expression she employed. Apart 
 from other considerations, this is a serious 
 discrepancy ; but does it not raise in your 
 minds a suspicion that some one has made 
 the child give an account that would sound 
 better than the first ? Again, you will 
 note, and it is of the highest importance, 
 
The Second Trial 159 
 
 that in this Court she has added a state- 
 ment o which not a word was breathed at 
 Bongong or Nuddea, namely, when she 
 questioned her father at the time, he told 
 her to lay the blame on the Fakir. The 
 effect of this is, of course, to make a basis 
 for the story of motive to which I have 
 before alluded, and to which I will again 
 refer. And the prisoner's wife, in answer 
 to some questions which were put to her 
 by myself, says that the child told her 
 that her father had said to her, " The 
 blame will be round the neck of Kadam 
 Ali." Now, do you consider that if the 
 prisoner had really made any such state- 
 ment, it would only come out at this stage ? 
 If he did not, the child must be lying in 
 saying that he did ; and if she lies, she 
 must have been taught to lie. Now, in 
 connection with this, I will draw your 
 attention to the following circumstances ; 
 
160 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 You will remember that this case com- 
 menced in this Court on Friday ; on that 
 day were examined three witnesses, and on 
 Saturday the first witness in the box was 
 the child ; she was in attendance on Fri- 
 day, and she was asked on Saturday what 
 happened to her on Friday after she was 
 released from attendance. She tells us 
 that she and her mother were taken to the 
 inspector's residence, and there she and 
 her mother were introduced to him separ- 
 ately, and she was made to rehearse her 
 story. Of course, the inference is, from 
 the child's evidence, that the mother was 
 made to do the same. The mother 
 denies this. You will weigh the state- 
 ments." 
 
 Another notable passage in the judge's 
 charge was as follows : 
 
 44 It has been argued c Can you believe 
 that a child and a wife can try and bring 
 
The Second Trial. 161 
 
 a man to the scaffold by giving false evi- 
 dence ? ' No doubt it is a violent shock 
 to one's feelings to suppose so. But a 
 very suggestive circumstance has been de- 
 posed to in this court by the child. She 
 says that after her father was sentenced 
 to death at Nuddea, her mother made an 
 offering at the foot of a sacred tree near 
 the court, and gave her some of the sweet- 
 meats which she had offered. The mother 
 denies this. You have heard them both, 
 and you will say which you will believe. 
 Further, the woman admits that she never 
 went to see her husband in prison, and 
 that though persons in court told her that 
 she could appeal for nothing, she made no 
 attempt to do so. If you infer from these 
 circumstances the existence of an animus 
 on the part of the wife, not only does the 
 difficulty disappear, but you can readily 
 understand how easily the mother, and 
 
162 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 through her the child, could be manipu- 
 lated." 
 
 The jury, after retiring for little more 
 than a minute, returned a unanimous ver- 
 dict of 
 
 "NOT GUILTY!" 
 
 in which the judge said he entirely con- 
 curred. The prisoner was thereupon ac- 
 quitted and released ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ENLIGHTENMENT. 
 
 ON the night o July 24th, 1882, Malek 
 Chand, the Chaukidar, stepped forth from 
 the dismal shadow of the hajut, his prison, 
 a free man ; and walked with glad step by 
 the side of his deliverer to the house of 
 Mr. Grhose. To taste the delicious com- 
 pensations of such a moment, even for one 
 of limited imagination like the Chaukidar, 
 it would be necessary to go through the 
 preceding trials and tribulations of that 
 unhappy man. The commonest objects of 
 the streets through which he paced were 
 all full of a new joy and pleasure to him. 
 He saw with sympathetic eyes, which had 
 
164 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 before never realised an interest in them, 
 the flying-foxes trooping merrily across 
 the green and saffron sky to their noctur- 
 nal forage in the orchards and gardens ; 
 the striped squirrels, that have the marks 
 of Shiva's fingers upon them, finding out 
 a cosy hole for the night ; the fluffy palm 
 owls dropping silently from the feathery 
 crowns of the tall palm trees into flight ; 
 and the crows going clamorously to roost. 
 He laughed, with fresh taste for every-day 
 life, to hear the dhobie talking softly to his 
 donkey, as it carried home the wash, " Go 
 on, my lord ! " " Walk, little joy of my 
 liver ! " " Walk, like a lion, for our family 
 honour ! " It brought back old peaceful 
 evenings to mark the Hindoo wives setting 
 lamps in the wall-holes and then bowing 
 to the light and touching their foreheads 
 with ashes. And the household folk sitting 
 down to supper ; and the barber going 
 
Enlightenment. 165 
 
 home with a fighting cock under his arm ; 
 and the potter finishing off his long day's 
 work with a clay god ; and the nautch girls 
 tripping in silks and spangles to the mar- 
 riage feast ; and the bride's kinsmen fetch- 
 ing the bridegroom to her house in a gilded 
 palanquin ; and the sleepy buffaloes saun- 
 tering through the lane to their stables ; 
 and the girls coming in with the last lotas 
 of water. All these and a thousand other 
 familiar sights of the Indian town at twi- 
 light brought strange gladness to his spirit. 
 It is so pleasant to be alive, whatever one's 
 humble lot ; and so much sweeter for poor 
 Malek Chand after all his vicissitudes 
 to be walking, free and cleared, to his pre- 
 server's house than to be swinging to 
 the beam of the gallows in Alipur or 
 Nuddea. 
 
 Next morning, at the house of Mr. 
 Ghose, a singular interview occurred. 
 
166 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 Bharati, the wife, and Golak Mani, the 
 daughter of the Chaukidar, came, trembling 
 and ashamed, to the door of the Pleader's 
 bungalow, and sat out of sight under the 
 shaddock bush, waiting for leave to see 
 him whose life they had so nearly cast 
 away. Malek Chand would not trust him- 
 self to come face to face with these drilled 
 liars of his own flesh and blood. " After- 
 wards, perhaps," he said, " when they have 
 heard the truth from Umesh Ghazee, and 
 made that false woman, Sarba, confess her 
 wickedness, I may endure to look upon 
 them. Let me not see my wife and 
 daughter now, lest I curse them. Wet 
 rice is not made dry by words. Maybe I 
 will seek a divorce. There are others 
 besides her. In the month of Pous even 
 a rat can have seven wives." 
 
 So only the Calcutta barrister gave 
 audience to the miserable woman and 
 
Enlightenment. 167 
 
 weeping child ; and what follows here en- 
 sued between Mr. Ghose and the discon- 
 solate pair : " Golak, who killed your 
 sister ? " No answer from the small, 
 abashed, tearful child, tearing convulsively 
 at the fringe of her sari, and shifting from 
 one little brown foot to the other ! 
 
 The question was repeated, and then 
 the girl burst forth with a sob, " I don't 
 know!" 
 
 "Did you not see your father kill 
 her?" 
 
 " No ! I was asleep ; and I know 
 nothing." 
 
 " But you said in Court, only the other 
 day, that you saw your father kill 
 her." 
 
 Golak Mani exploded in a paroxysm of 
 childish distress. Her small body shook 
 from head to heels. She put her hands 
 over her streaming eyes and gasped out. 
 
168 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 " I was told to say all that. It was 
 lies." 
 
 " Who taught you ? " 
 
 "Dwarka, the constable, showed me a 
 sword and said, c I you do not say that 
 your father killed your sister with his 
 spear, I will cut off your head with this 
 sword ; but if you say that in Court, your 
 father will be set at liberty, and will come 
 back home to you.' And so so so, I said 
 all that they told me." 
 
 " But what made you say it still, even 
 after you heard that your father was going 
 to be hanged ? " 
 
 " My mother and the darogha (police 
 inspector) said that I must go on saying 
 what I had said before, or else I should be 
 punished." 
 
 While the child was speaking, the 
 mother, Bharati, standing by, hung down 
 her head, not uttering one word even when 
 
Enlightenment. 169 
 
 she was questioned. Finally she went 
 away, never having seen her husband after 
 his release. 
 
 Not yet, however, was the full secret 
 of Nekjan's death divulged to any living 
 soul, being, indeed only shared in by two 
 Umesh Ghazee, husband of Dhiru Bibi, 
 and the Chaukidar himself. The last en- 
 lightening word of this strange story came 
 forth, two or three days subsequently, 
 when, before bidding the rescued man 
 farewell, Mr. Manomohan Ghose took 
 him apart and held with him this closing 
 conversation : 
 
 " Malek Chand," said Mr. Ghose, "you 
 know that you are acquitted, and that even 
 if you are guilty you cannot now be pun- 
 ished. You have nothing to fear. Tell 
 me truly how your child died." 
 
 With tears in his eyes, catching hold 
 of the Baboo's feet Malek Chand cried 
 
170 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 bitterly, " You have saved my life, and I 
 would not deceive you on any account. I 
 am the most miserable creature on earth, 
 and I ought to have been hanged. It 
 would have been better for me." 
 
 " What ! Did you, then, kill your 
 child ? " 
 
 " You have every right to call me the 
 murderer of my daughter, though I would 
 have gladly given my own life to save 
 her's." 
 
 " Tell me the whole truth without any 
 fear." 
 
 Malek Chand then, bitterly weeping, 
 made the following statement to his 
 benefactor : 
 
 " On Monday night I was sleeping in 
 my verandah with my two daughters. My 
 wife had gone away to bring some money 
 from my brother. I have some vegetables 
 growing in my yard below my verandah. 
 
Enlightenment. 171 
 
 and opposite to it is my cowshed, where I 
 keep a cow. There was a stray bull in 
 our village, which gave me much trouble. 
 It vised to come almost every night to my 
 house and cause mischief. In order to 
 drive the animal away, I used to keep near 
 my pillow a khatia (the pole of a husking 
 machine, a heavy piece of wood, about a 
 yard in length, and about 14 to 18 inches 
 in circumference), and whenever the ani- 
 mal came, I used to run after it with that 
 khatia. On Monday night it was dark and 
 cloudy, and I fancy it was about 2 a.m. 
 when I heard, while sleeping, some foot- 
 steps, which I imagined to be those of the 
 bull, just below my verandah, and opposite 
 my cowshed. Believing the animal had 
 come again, and without going up to it, I 
 threw my khatia with great force towards 
 the spot where I imagined the bull was 
 standing. I immediately heard the sound ? 
 
172 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 4 Oh, Allah ! ' and recognising the voice of 
 my darling child (Bachcha was the word 
 used), I felt convinced that she had been 
 hit. She had quietly gone down in the 
 dark without my knowledge. I at once 
 rushed out and lifted her up in my arms, 
 but found she was gasping and unable to 
 speak. The khatia had hit her on the 
 back, just below the neck, but the mark 
 of the blow was not noticed by the police 
 and the villagers. I lighted a lamp and 
 saw that my child was dead, and that blood 
 was coming out of her mouth and nostrils. 
 My first impulse was to throw myself into 
 a well, or the river, and commit suicide, 
 and with that intention I went a few paces ; 
 but I changed my mind and thought I had 
 better consult my brother-in-law, Umesh 
 Ghazee, who was sleeping in an adjoining 
 house. I called him and told him what 
 had happened. He said : c What have you 
 
Enlightenment. 173 
 
 done ? The police will come to-morrow 
 morning, tie your hands, and get you im- 
 prisoned for ten years.' I asked him his 
 advice, and he first suggested that I should 
 give out that the bull had killed the child, 
 but I declined to accept that suggestion, as 
 I knew that some men of our village in a 
 recent case had set up the defence that a 
 young man who had complained of certain 
 injuries had been gored by a bull, but this 
 defence was not believed, and the accused 
 were convicted. Umesh Ghazee then sug- 
 gested that I might accuse the Fakirs, who 
 were at enmity with me, but this I declined 
 to do. He then said : ' Your best plan is 
 to say that your daughter died of snake- 
 bite.' To which I replied : 4 But there is 
 no mark of any bite.' c That is easily 
 done,' said he ; ' let me go and fetch my 
 small knife with which I cut mangoes, and 
 let us make a bite.' Saying^this, he went 
 
174 The Queens Justice. 
 
 to his room and brought his knife, and 
 said : c You make a snake-bite with this.' 
 I said : ' I will not lay violent hands on 
 my dead child ; you do as you think best.' 
 Thereupon Umesh Ghazee made a slight 
 wound in the belly. I asked : l Why have 
 you chosen that part of the body ? ' He 
 replied : ' If the snake had bitten the child 
 in the foot or in the hand, how is it she 
 did not wake up ? But if she was bitten 
 in the stomach, she must have become un- 
 conscious instantly.'* He then said : ' Now 
 go in the direction of your onion field, and 
 on your return, after a while, call us all 
 and say that your child has died of a 
 snake-bite.' I acted according to this 
 advice, and roused all my neighbours, 
 early on Tuesday morning. They all 
 came and examined the body, and imag- 
 
 * It is popularly believed that a snake-bite in a vital part 
 of the body causes instant insensibility. 
 
Enlightenment. 175 
 
 ined Nekjan had died of snake-bite. I 
 left for the thanna (police station) be- 
 fore my wife returned, and met there 
 Inspector Grolam Rahman, who knew me 
 well, and had been very kind to me. I 
 told him privately that I had come to re- 
 port the death of my child ; that I did not 
 know how she died at night ; and that 
 some of my neighbours said she died of 
 snake-bite, while others said my enemies, 
 the Fakirs, might have killed her. He 
 then advised me on no account to accuse 
 anyone, but simply to state that I did not 
 know how the child died. He said he was 
 about to go away on leave that day, but he 
 would direct his head-constable to be kind 
 to me. He then sent for Ram Das Sircar, 
 head-constable, and said : ' Go and see this 
 man's child, and be kind to him. Don't 
 take any money from him. I know he is 
 poor, Go and enquire how this child died, 
 
176 The Queens Justice. 
 
 and if it is a case of snake-bite, report 
 accordingly.' ' 
 
 " After recording my statement, the 
 head-constable left the station, but Dwarik 
 constable preceded him, and the head- con- 
 stable came the next morning (Wednes- 
 day) . After causing my floor to be dug up 
 and examining my neighbours, the head- 
 constable sent the corpse in charge of 
 Dwarik constable and some villagers, and 
 I went with them. Before starting, Sham 
 Mehtar and other neighbours told me that 
 if I gave a few rupees to the police there 
 would be no further trouble. I offered 
 Rs.6, but the police wanted Rs.30. At 
 last I borrowed Rs.16, which Sham Mehtar 
 took from me to give the police. When 
 taking the corpse to Bongong, we halted 
 on the banks of the Ichamati, at a place 
 called Potkhali, where Dwarik constable 
 told me c You, sala ! pay for our break- 
 
Enlightenment. 177 
 
 fast ; you have given me nothing, and 
 unless you pay you will get into trouble.' 
 I said I had already paid Rs.16. Dwarik 
 said he had not got it, and that I must go 
 and get some money. From Potkhali I 
 went back and brought a couple of rupees. 
 On my return, I saw the constable sitting 
 by the side of the corpse examining the 
 wound, which I saw had increased in size. 
 I asked' Who has done this ? ' The 
 ferryman who was there said that the 
 constable had been putting the stump of 
 an indigo plant into the wound. On 
 hearing this, the constable got angry and 
 threatened to beat the ferryman, saying 
 ' Sala ! can you say you have seen me do 
 it ? ' The ferryman got frightened and 
 said he had not seen it. 
 
 " After the examination of the body by 
 the doctor, the police arrested me at Bon- 
 gong, and sent for my wife and daughter. 
 
178 TJie Queen s Justice. 
 
 In the lock-up at night I was beaten by 
 
 
 
 the constables and told to confess. They 
 brought date thorns and pierced them into 
 the quick of my nails (showing four or 
 five fingers with nails injured). The in- 
 spector, accompanied by another darogha 
 whom I don't know, came and said ' You 
 better confess. Your daughter and wife 
 are accusing you.' In spite of the torture, 
 I declined to say anything. The con- 
 stables then said ' If you did not do it, 
 why do you not accuse Kadam Ali, Fakir ? ' 
 I declined to accuse him." 
 
 Q. What made you conceal the truth 
 at the beginning ? If you had come out 
 with the truth at once, nothing would have 
 happened to you. 
 
 A. I am an ignorant man, and I thought 
 no one would believe me, and that the 
 police would accuse me of murder even if 
 I told the truth, 
 
Enlightenment. 179 
 
 Q. But what made you conceal all this 
 when I pressed you in jail to tell me the 
 truth ? 
 
 A. I then thought you would decline to 
 defend me if I told the truth. Sir, I ask 
 your forgiveness for it. (Saying this, 
 Malek began again to weep.) 
 
 Q. How do you account for the con- 
 duct of your wife ? Is there any reason 
 why she should have wished to get you 
 hanged ? 
 
 A. I have no reason to suspect she is 
 unfaithful to me, but she is very jealous, 
 and suspected me of undue familiarity with 
 the wife of Kadam Ali, Fakir. On return- 
 ing home and finding the child dead, she 
 said to me " I know you want to live 
 with the Fakir's wife, and that is why you 
 have done this. I will not give you rice 
 any more." I said " I shall not have to 
 eat rice cooked by you any more." 
 
180 The Queen s Justice. 
 
 Q. Did you tell her on her return what 
 had happened ? 
 
 A. I told no one except Umesh Ghazee. 
 He might have told his wife Dhiru. My 
 daughter Golak was asleep till daylight, 
 and saw nothing. Dhiru, Haru, and my 
 wife gave false evidence through fear of 
 the police. 
 
 Q. Can you explain the conduct of 
 your wife in offering shirni when you were 
 sentenced to death ? 
 
 A. The villagers all told her that she 
 herself would get into trouble if the charge 
 against me failed, and she says the offering 
 was by Kadam Ali, Fakir, at whose request 
 she joined in it. 
 
 Then, and not till then, the truth came 
 out, confirmed afterwards by the state- 
 ments of Umesh Ghazee ; and thus an 
 innocent man escaped from the toils of the 
 native police, and the dangers of his own 
 
Enlightenment. 181 
 
 timidity and untruthfulness ; and the 
 Queen's Justice in India was also saved, by 
 the acumen and fidelity of a Calcutta law- 
 yer, from a stain which would have been 
 indelible. 
 
 THE END. 
 
Barnicott & Pearce, The Athenaeum Press, Taunton. 
 
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