and bringing with him several European Indigo planters. After reconnoitring the insurgents, Mr. Smith, still preceded doubtless by his police, retreated. Three days later came troops; the rioters were attacked and defeated; Títú Mian 'and about fifty others' there and then achieved martyrdom. One of his disciples joined him a little later, slain judicially by unbelievers. The jails of Calcutta and of the surrounding districts were gorged.
Never was there a more miserable story. Yet it has many parallels. The Santál hill-men, the Deccan ryots, were victims of the same imbecility. The criminal, in such cases, is not the rioter denied redress, but the blundering legislator or the thick-headed magistrate. Mr. Colvin in his Report wrote: —
'The entire root of the mischief which has occurred is deep and cannot easily he removed. The powers possessed by Zamíndárs enable them to exercise a petty jurisdiction among their ryots, and to make petty exactions on all kinds of pretences. The corrupt character of the people and the defects of our own instruments pervert our administration of justice, and render it a matter of the greatest uncertainty whether we shall arrive at the truth or not in all cases in which men of wealth and influence will he injured by its detection. Our confined intercourse with the people, and consequent ignorance of many of their feelings and circumstances, allow false representations to he frequently imposed on us with the utmost boldness and but slight risk of discovery.'
All which, if not as true in 1894 as in 1831, still represents close approximation to the truth. The
