Page:Hyderabad in 1890 and 1891; comprising all the letters on Hyderabad affairs written to the Madras Hindu by its Hyderabad correspondent during 1890 and 1891 (IA hyderabadin1890100bangrich).pdf/134

Page 126 peace" with a complaint. But if he is "tired" of peace and wishes to make life itself a "burden," he may publish his losses and cry for justice. One has only to report a case of theft or violence to turn the knights of the baton against him. They constitute themselves his accusers and annoy him and oppress him to suck an extent as to make him retire a 'wiser and sadder' man. To illustrate what I have said above, I may mention two incidents of recent occurrence here. A thief broke into a house one night, and when he had possessed himself of the gold bangles of a young boy an alarm was raised: he got on the roof of the house, jumped therefrom in hot haste and escaped as best as he could. Byt no report of this was made to the police-and that in spite of the big blood marks discovered in front of the house the next morning and the foot-prints which clearly pointed to the thief having wounded himself and been dragged away by his accomplices-for fear of zoolum. The second instance is furnished by a number of shop-keepers who, being robbed of about Rs. 20,000 in a fair, preferred to hold their peace about it to breathing a word of it to the police. The following amusing scene was enacted in an office here sometime ago. An East-Indian Surveyor sent to the office accountant, who, by the bye, is a native, a draft with the words written thereon-" Accountant, copy this and send it to me for signature." The accountant who had evidently taken the proper measure of the surveyor's impertinence, scored through the words with red ink, wrote underneath to say-" Surveyor, you had better copy it yourself and sent it back to the person concerned. The Surveyor could not brook the result offered by the native, and so he reported the matter to the accontant's superior, who was also his superior, with the result that the accountant was sent for and addressed: "How could you offend Mr.__ like that? He belongs to the executive and may rise to be a District Engineer." On this the accountant cooly replied: I might also rise to be Accountant-General." The moral of this scarcely needs pointing out.