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ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. The Jeypore country had so long been in a state of anarchy that for some time after the police were first posted there in 1863 daring and violent crime continued to be common. In 1864, to give only one instance, two paiks at Naurangpur fought a duel with broadswords in open daylight in one of the streets there to settle a dispute between their wives about a well, and one of them had his head taken off at one swoop of his opponent's weapon. To render them more deterrent, sentences of death used always to be carried out publicly at the head-quarters of the taluk.

At present, crime in the district may be said to be light and (except in the Agency) robberies, cattle- thefts and dacoities are uncommon. In the Golgonda Agency, however, crime (even petty theft) is practically unknown. In the low country, offences are especially rare in the south, the only castes which give trouble there being the gangs of Nakkalas or Yánádis who have settled permanently near Kottakóta and Makkavárapalém. They travel about to Sarvasiddhi taluk and the Gódávari district, but they usually confine themselves to sneaking kinds of crime, such as petty house-breakings and thefts of crops or the contents of carts, and do not perpetrate dacoities. Another wilder section of them haunts the country between Pálkonda and Párvatípur, living in temporary huts in the jungles. They are said to be called Nakkalas either because of their eating jackals or from their slinking ways. They live partly by making date mats and snaring small game, and are said to have a thieves' slang of their own. The Málas and Yátas (toddy-drawers) are also responsible for a good deal of the crime in the southern corner of the district.

Further north, in the centre of the plain country, the Yáas again contribute to the total, and in some villages (e.g., Ballanki and Bánádi of Srungavarapukóta and Gópálapatnam of Vizagapatam) are coteries of Mádiga housebreakers. But the greater part of the offences are committed by the Konda Doras, who differ from their namesakes of the hills in not eating beef and in other respects, and are nominally cultivators. Some villages (e.g., Nílamrázupéta of Vizianagram and Chinnabántupalli of Gajapatinagaram) are almost exclusively inhabited by these people. They travel widely in search of loot; and where they are thickest they have persuaded the villagers to employ some of their numbers as watchmen under an implied promise of exemption from open molestation.

Still further north, in the Párvatípur country, the Paidis (Paidi Málas) do most of the crime. They are more daring and violent than any of the castes yet mentioned, often committing dacoities on the roads. Like the Konda Doras, they have induced 203