Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/50

 26 BENGALI LITERATURE in 1780 a very terrible case of robbery, accompanied by incendiarism and violence, occurred 1n Insecurity of life Qaleytta in which about 15,000 houses and property. were burnt down and nearly 200 people were killed.!| Dacoity and robbery, with all its incidental terrors, prevailed in Bengal for more than three quarters of a century,” and left the life and property of the people absolutely insecure. The ancient police system, whether it consisted of the system of the village watchman, or of the xvgdees, or of the thanadars, as we find in the Bengal of 1760, was in a dis- organised state when the English came into power, and was quite insufficient for the preservation The Police system. ; of the peace or for the apprehension of thieves and gang-robbers. There was collusion with the criminals not only on the part of the petty zemindars, as the early administrators of Bengal tell us, but also on the part of these regularly constituted keepers of the public peace.® To meet the disorders of the country, the Fauj- dari system was established in 1774: but it is well-known 1 Long, Calcutta in Olden Time, p. 37. See also Busteed, op. cit. p. 157; Good Old Days, ch. xviii; Seton-Karr, op. cit. ii, 2138-14, 233; Forrest, Selections from State Papers; Warren Hastings, ii. 289. 2 Kaye (Administration of the East India Company, III. ii and iii) gives an account of Thuggee and Dacoity in later years. Even as late as 1810, we find Lord Minto (Minute, dated Nov. 24, 1810) writing, “A monstrous and disorganised state of society existed under the eye of the supreme British authorities and almost at the very seat of the Government........ The people are perishing almost in our sight: every week’s delay is a doom of slaughter and torture against the defenceless inhabitants of very populous countries,” their disposal and sometimes the village watchman was enrolled on the establishment of the zemindars. They were employed not only in their original capacity but also in the collection of the revenue. Exten- sive duties similarly were expected from the Faujdar.
 * The greater zemindars had always a large number of troops at