Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/71

 ;

INTRODUCTION.

Ixi

reorganised; the persons by whom it is wielded have been changed, and its instruments and methods defined. Where formerly three hundred native chiefs executed their commands through the first

handful of stalwart adherents available for the purpose, twelve

deputy commissioners now carry out the orders of the courts and the administration, and repress offences against social order through men set apart as the official servants of the community. In the punishment of the more heinous forms of crime the change has been eminently beneficial, and the certainty and severity of the penalties inflicted on the offences by which it is threat, ened have ensured a security to life which in the anarchy of twenty years ago would have seemed an impossible dream. The same remark applies to the safety of property against open force but it may be doubted whether the more humane treatment of the minor classes of crime has not led to an increase of theft.

For the enforcement of civil liabilities, our courts have provided means expeditious and trustworthy beyond anything that and in themselves exceedheavier classes of cases expenses of the the ingly cheap, though by legal practitioners, a demanded fees are raised by the high exist will always be is allowed to he kind of man who wherever in their decisions, the prompt and Just detested and employed. unceasing press of work, to the by tribunals are greatly hampered and other numbers multifarious their which the scantiness of that in seeing their them, orders are calls on their time expose has been

known

in the province before,

properly carried into

An

effect.

elaborate scheme of education embraces every part of the Schools have been established within easy distances province. throughout all the districts, and an elementary education is offered at the expense of the State to every child of whatever position in More advanced subjects of study are taught in the schools life. of all large towns, and in Lucknow there is a college (with a separate establishment for the sons of the taluqdars) where almost every branch of western or oriental learning may be The opportunities of knowledge are eagerly welcomed acquired. by the keen intellect and inquisitive temper of the people, and the new institutions are already thronged by some sixty thousand The cause of' education is further advanced by the pripupils. vate enterprise of Munshi Newal Kishor at Lucknow, whose busy press disseminates, even beyond the utmost limits of the empire, a cheap, abundant, and useful literature, and is of greater publicAnother benefit and importance than many State institutions.