Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/320

 fate which overtook other plaintiffs, then I believe that we should be wrong in thinking that the multiplication by five of the number of buffaloes stolen out of one district would be too high an estimate of the number of cattle stolen every month in the five districts, to provide for the wants of the Regent of Lebak’s court.

And it was not buffaloes alone; nor was buffalo-robbing the main thing. A somewhat less degree of shamelessness is required—above all in India, where statute-labour is still lawful—to summon the people unlawfully for unpaid labour, than is necessary to take away property. It is easier to make the population believe that the Government wants labour without wishing to pay for it, than that it should claim the poor man’s buffalo for nothing; and even if the timorous Javanese dared to investigate whether the statute-labour required of him agreed with the regulations on the subject, even then it would be impossible to succeed, as the one has nothing to do with the other, and he cannot therefore calculate whether the fixed number of persons has not been exceeded ten or fifty times. Where also the most dangerous, the most easily discovered abuse, is executed with such boldness, what may not then be thought of the abuses that are much easier of execution, and less liable to discovery? I said that I was going to relate the history of the Javanese Saïdjah; yet I am compelled first to make one of those digressions which are so difficult to avoid when describing situations that are quite strange