Page:Nil Durpan.djvu/75

 imprisoned then am I certain that the  destruction of this land is very near. What a brutal Act is passed! But, what is the fault of the Act; or of those who passed the Act? What misery can the country suffer if those, who are to carry out the Act, do it with impartiality? Ah, by this Act how many persons are suffering in prison-houses without a fault! It bursts the heart to see the miseries of their wives and children; the pots for boiling rice on the hearths are remaining as they are; the several kinds of grain in their yards are being dried up; their kine in the rooms are all remaining bound in their places; the cultivation of the fields is not fully carried out, the seeds are not sown, and the wild grass in the rice fields is not cut off. What further prospects are there in the present year? All are crying aloud, with the exclamation: "Where is my lord? Where is my father?" Some Magistrates are dispensing justice with proper consideration; in their hands this Act is not become the rod of death. Ah! had all Magistrates been as just as the Magistrate of Amarnagara is, then could the harrow fall on the ripe grain and the locusts destroy the fields? Had that been the case, would I ever have been thrown into so many dangers? O, thou Lieutenant Governor! Hadst thou engaged men of the same good character as thou hadst enacted laws, then the country would never have been miserable. O, thou Governor of the land! Hadst thou made such a regulation, that every plaintiff, when his case is proved false, shall be put in prison, then the jail of Amarnagara would have been crowded with Indigo Planters; and they would never have been so very powerful. Our Magistrate is transferred, but our case is to continue here to the end; and that will occasion our ruin.(Enter Sabitri Sabitri.  If you are to give up all the ploughs, is it that even then you are to take the advance-money? Sell all your ploughs and kine, and engage in trade; we shall enjoy ourselves with the profits that shall accrue from that. We can no longer endure this.