Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/38

 INTEODUCTION.

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unfrequently regard them with a suspicion which would be itself

enough to make most men dishonest. In their relations with Trade their own people the quality is far more conspicuous. with a through transactions involving enormous sums are carried which but want of precaution which we should consider idiotic, In a country is justified by the rarity of breaches of faith. large debts us, where writing is an art as common as it is with security of verbal are contracted every day on nothing but the in our repudiation the borrower and if there may be occasional

Courts, the fact that that security is still considered sufficient is ample proof that the debts are honourably acknowledged among In such cases limitation is never thought the parties themselves. of, and families who have emerged from poverty will discharge debts contracted by their ancestors a century back, of which no other record exists but an entry in the money-lender's private Their whole social system postulates an exceptional ledger. integrity, and would collapse at once if any suspicion of dishonesty attached itself to the decisions of the caste panchayats. This point is worth insisting on, as on it depends the whole of their future as a self-governing nation, and though much has occurred to impair their character in this respect, it would be unsafe to deny them at any rate the capacity for the first of political virtues. This quality may be said to extend to all ranks. Their remaining merits will be more readily acknowledged, but are more partial in their distribution. The courage and high sense of honour of the Brahman and Rajput, the thrift and industry of the Kurmi, are patent to the shallowest observer, and all perhaps may claim a natural aversion to cruelty, a gay, buoyant disposition of mind, and an imagination easily impressed by beauty or humour. Their grand national defect is a want of steadiness, an absolute incapacity of maintaining resolutions on most subjects in the face of what would seem to us the most trifling discourageAnd this defect is very much intensified by the system ments. of caste. The mind of man does not seem capable of retaining for daily use more than a limited number of moral principles, and an inevitable result of the complete success of any priestly regime for the weightier is the substitution of tithes and cummin matters of the law. The noblest of Hindu reformers, Nanak, Kablr, and Eamdnand, have always lifted up their voices in protest against the degradation ; but the Hindu, whom a strong penalty constrains to pay constant and watchful attention to small matters of ablution and ceremonial, has his mind diverted from higher duties enforced by no such certain penalty. His volatile nature,