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HYDERABAD, 27th December 1890.
The law that renders murder a bailable as well as compound- able "offence," and thus provides for a murderer's escape or places society at his mercy though for a while-is worthy only of the rulers of the Darkest Africa. Yet that is the law in vogue here where Mulks and Dowlaks lay claim to the susceptibilities and sentiments of the enlightened European, and big officials talk glibly and write in grandiloquent strains of the glories of enlightenment and civilization. And administered as it is by Judges who do not even care to veneer over their partizan spirit, it becomes tantamount to an enactment to secure the safety of the person of a murderer. Where have you ever heard of a Judge, a Judge in his senses, enlarging a man accused of forgery on bail for one lakh of rupees and one accused of murder ou bail for five thousand rupees? Yet that is what has been done within the last few months by a Daniel of our City High Court The Judge who released Abdul Wahid, chief of the accused in the murder case I referred to in former letters, on bail for a some- one twentieth of that demanded in the case of Balakrishen Doss charged with forgery-would seem to hold it justice still. This is only by the way. The murder case came up for hearing before Mr. Hafiz Ahmed Raza Khan, Puisne Judge of the City High Court, last Tuesday. After taking all the evidence for the prosecution and hearing the confession of Abdul Rahman, Abdul Wahid's servant, read out, the Judge miriable dictu ordered for Wahid's being let out on bail for five thousand rupees. And when asked by the public prosecutor to reconsider his order, when it was pointed out to him that the bail demanded was out of all proportion to the gravity of the crime Wahid stood charged with, he indignantly replied, "he was not going to be taught his duty by the prosecutor." And it was as Judge doing his duty surely that he, on Tuesday last questioned a representative of the Press in 'Court as to his "authority" and looked non- plussed when asked whether he expected him-the representative -to carry his authority about his person wherever he went. Verily, verily, we living in this "God-governed country," are
