him to tear open the seed. The Jews are surmount those difficulties if we enforce realready a reforming people; perhaps few forms in the shape of persecutions, and persections of society have done so much to come petuate the barbarisms we want to remove up with the spirit of the age. They are re-by constituting the instruments martyrs and strained, like many of us, by religious diffi- enlisting the very feelings of humanity in culties; but we shall not enable them to their defence. produce a habit of increased action and flow of blood to those parts, in other words, -more or less inflammation of the brain, sometimes temporary, sometimes chronic. Let this only go on for years, a little stronger each time, and, finally, there must be a settled disordered action of some portion of that great nervous centrethe medium through which the mind acts. And thus, at length, wherever certain associations are called up, they instantly excite into activity that chronic and deranged action to which there is a tendency. THE POWER OF THE WILL TO CONTROL INSANITY. We have sometimes heard it questioned whether any person is perfectly sane at all times and on all subjects. Certain it is that many are literally "mad" when they become angry, and more when they are in love. Much learning maddens the few, and the want of regular mental employment deranges multitudes. Strong drink destroys the balance of the victims, of some for a time, of others permanently. Riches and poverty, joy and sorrow, politics and pleasure, religion and profanity, have all their victims. Every extreme of life Persons who on ordinary subjects are remarkhas produced its candidates for the insane hos- ably accurate in their observations, and sound pital, while a far greater portion run at large, in judgment, will, on some point and at certain pass through the world as sane, which they are times, manifest a strange and subtle erroneouson most subjects and at ordinary times, thoughness of perception or of judgment, a fatuity of really insane on one or two topics, and under purpose perfectly unaccountable. certain circumstances. One hardly can tell where to draw the line, or if indeed it can be drawn; that is, if any one may be pronounced always perfectly reasonable. The chief remedy lies within a man's own self. He must, at the outset, be made aware of the danger of inflammation of the brain, or any portion of it, through excessive mental action, or concentration of the mind on some one subject. Let every man look this danger fully in the face, for it is one to which all are most assuredly guard against and overcome it in his own case. A little watchfulness and experience will show any resolute man, who feels himself even on the verge of insanity, various methods of lessening cerebral excitement occasioned by the recurrence of any subject or class of subjects; methods that cannot be applied by anything but his own firm will. In crowded cities and amid the nervous bustle of clashing interests, passions, and intellectual excitements, all men are more or less diverted from the equilibrium of a clear, correct judg-liable, and then consider how he can best and ment; and at certain times it becomes a part of the daily struggle and duty of life in each man to wrestle against incipient or temporary disorder of mental action in some form or other. Many do this unconsciously, others consciously, but secretly. It would be well for mankind if it were more openly recognized as a part of the wisdom and duty of all men to be on their guard against the beginnings of many peculiarities, Besides the consciousness of danger from over the neglect of which may plunge them into un-excitement of the brain, let there be also a soundness of mind, more or less extensive and permanent. A few years ago, an admirable little treatise was published in London, on the power of men to control insanity by an effort of the will. It suggested the idea that the essence of virtue is to have all the powers of thought and affection under the control of a strong and vigorous will, and that will subjected supremely to a sense of duty. This alone is true sanity. remembrance that nearly all are more or less injured by it at some period of their lives, and on some subjects to which their thoughts are most addicted. Let each then struggle against it, conscious that where understood by the individual himself, in its early stages, there will be hardly a single failure of success. The chief difficulty, however, is to set before the mind itself a motive sufficiently strong to induce this constant self-control, since the disThe habitual indulgence of any train of ease consists chiefly in a fascination of the imthought-i. e., the concentration of the mind agination by the objects to be guarded against. upon it invariably produces a certain in- For this purpose, a supreme sense of duly to a creased circulation of blood in some portion of man's own self, to his family, to his Maker, can the brain, if not in the whole. Sir Astley alone suffice. Indeed, the lack of this supreme Cooper was once trepanning the skull of a man sense of responsibility controlling all the powers who had met with an accident. A letter was must be regarded as always an incipient desuddenly brought in from his wife, and as he rangement, i. e., an abnormal condition, of read it the increased pulsation was so percep- mind leading to all other follies, and itself the tible that the excitement had to be stopped. chief insanity of all. Philadelphia Public Such excitement, often renewed, must and does | Ledger. From the Athenæum. Now, notwithstanding the painful surprise Report of the Commissioners for the Investi- which the charge created when brought forgation of alleged Cases of Torture, in the ward in Parliament, we regret to say that it Madras Presidency. Submitted to the Right Hon. the Governor in Council of is by no means a novel one. Many writers Fort St. George, on the 16th of April, on India, as Mill, Norton, Shore, and others, 1855. With Appendices. Madras, printed have alluded to it. The Calcutta Review has at the Fort St. George Gazette Press. discussed it more than once; and, above all, In the pride and excitement of conquest, it has formed the subject of repeated Minutes. or the enjoyment of its more substantial fruits, Orders in Council, and other official papers nations are but too apt to overlook the obli- during the last fifty years; and it speaks little gations which it imposes. It is viewed in a for the efficiency of our Indian Government, purely material light. The nation looks with that not only the home officials, but even the easy complacency on the new province to Governor of the Madras Presidency himself which its arms have been carried, and balances (as appears from the very Minute in which in the public ledger the cost of the war with the inquiry was ordered), should have been the advantages which it seems to have secured. ignorant of what is now proved to have been Te Deums are sung, illuminations are ordered, a matter of frequent occurrence throughout salutes are fired, the nine-days' wonder the entire Presidency. passes, It is satisfactory to and men sit down once more in the old routine, unreflecting, uninquiring, unconscious of any new relation induced by the great events which they have just been celebrating. Nevertheless, there is no more certain principle of public morality than that conquest not only does not extinguish right, but that it even creates new and well-defined obligations. The new ruler succeeds not alone to the authority, but also to the duties, of him whom he has displaced. How little we have thought in England, while we have been adding million after million to the overgrown population, and province after province to the unwieldy bulk, of our Eastern Empire, of the fearful responsibilities which we have thus been heaping up for ourselves, the startling Report just issued from the Government Press at Madras is, we fear, but one of many evidences. think, however, that the inquiry, when it was at last ordered, appears to have been as far as it went a very honest and searching one, and to have afforded a fair opportunity of testing the statements made in Parliament, at least in all their substantial particulars. Three gentlemen of undoubted ability and integrity were appointed as Commissioners ; returns were ordered from all the officers of the civil and criminal departments; ample publicity was given to the nature, objects, and powers of the Commission by means of notifications in all the various languages of the Presidency, which were circulated extensively through each locality; and all complaints, whether written or verbal, which were preferred before the Commissioners, were carefully and impartially sifted in an open court held at Madras. Much more, no doubt, might have been done by carrying the inquiry into the various localities instead of holding the court exclusively at Madras; but enough has transpired to reveal a state of things which must fill every right-minded Englishman with shame, and we may almost add remorse, and which calls from the Cominissioners themselves 66 In a debate which took place in the House of Commons during the session before last on the state of the Madras Presidency, it was alleged by several Members that, in the collection of the land-tax (which in that Presidency was described as excessive), it was the ordinary practice of the native officials to re- a sweeping declaration of their belief in the sort to torture, and torture of a most disgrace- general existence of torture for revenue purful and revolting description. This allegation poses" throughout the Presidency of Madras. was received with professions of amazement Many of the details revealed in the course and incredulity by the Home Government, of the inquiry are too disgusting to be alluded and the President of the Board of Control to; but it is a duty to our fellow-subjects in only abstained from giving it a positive denial India, and indeed to humanity itself, to prebecause he had then heard it for the first time." He undertook, nevertheless, that inquiry should be instituted; and the volume now before us is the result. sent, at least in summary, the leading results of this remarkable inquisition, as they are embodied in the careful and candid Report of the Commissioners. The notification of the intended sittings of to meals, or other calls of nature; preventing the Commission called out no less than 519 personal complaints (in some of which the complainants were obliged to travel 300, 400, and in one case 1,000 miles), and 1,440 letters. A considerable proportion of both classes of complaints were, as might naturally be expected, irrelevant some of them ludicrously so-to the real objects of the Commission; but above 300 of the personal charges, and a much larger number of the inculpatory letters, were found to contain grave matter for investigation. The report of the Commission, however, is not founded exclusively on these complaints. The Commissioners applied themselves to six different sources of information:-to the Minutes or other official records of former proceedings bearing upon the question; to the returns made by the collectors and other civil officers by order of the Government; to the testimony of disinterested eye-witnesses of the practice of torture; to the evidence of the actual sufferers themselves; to the confessions and admissions voluntarily made by the native officials under a promise of impunity; and lastly, to the criminal calendars containing records of cases in which the alleged use of torture had been made the subject of judicial investigation. From a consideration of the whole of these, the Commissioners" have been necessitated to come to the only conclusion which they believe any impartial minds could arrive at, namely, that personal violence, practised by the Native Revenue and Police Officials, generally prevails throughout the Presidency, both in the collection of revenue and in police cases," although they are bound to state their opinion that "the practice has of late years been steadily decreasing, both in severity and extent." cattle from going to pasture by shutting them up in the house; quartering a peon (policeman) on the defaulter, who is obliged to pay him his daily wages; the use of the Kittee; Anundal; squeezing the crossed fingers with the hands; pinches on the thighs; slaps; blows with the fist or whip; running up and down; twisting the ears; making a man sit on the soles of his feet with brickbats behind his knees; striking two defaulters' heads against each other, or tying them together by their back hair; placing in the stocks; tying the hair of the head to a donkey's or buffalo's tail; placing a necklace of bones or other degrading or disgusting materials round the neck; and occasionally, though very rarely, more severe discipline still.” 99 The Kittee, which is one of the devices named above, is an instrument " consisting of two sticks tied together at one end, between which the fingers are placed, as in a lemon-squeezer ; and, as the use of this instrument was denied by some of the witnesses, the Commissioners add, that, even when the Kittee, properly so called, is not employed, an equal amount of bodily pain must be produced by the practice which sometimes supersedes it—of "compelling a man to interlace his fingers, the ends being squeezed by the hands of peons, who occasionally introduce the use of sand to gain a firmer gripe; or making a man place his hand flat upon the ground, and then pressing downward, at either end, a stick placed horizontally over the back of the sufferer's fingers." The Anundal is a still more characteristic form of torture, though it varies very much in its details. It consists in tying a man down in a bent position, either with his own cloth or by a rope passed over his head and A very nice distinction has been taken by under his toes, with the ingenious addition of some of the officials, in their returns furnished a heavy stone laid on his back, varied occaby order of the Government. They admit the sionally by the peons sitting astride upon use of "personal violence," but object to him! Sometimes, moreover, the unhappy allow its being called "torture." Let the victim is compelled, in this position, to stand reader judge for himself the value of this reser- upon one leg," the other being held up from vation, when he shall have read the Commis- the ground by means of a string passing round sioners' enumeration of the various forms of the neck, and fastened to the great toe.” "personal violence" which have came before Mr. Simpson, a merchant of Tripasoor, saw them in the course of their inquiry. The at least a dozen ryots (cultivators) undergoing descriptions of violence commonly used in the this ordeal together, under the meridian sun, collection of revenue (suppressing some which in the hottest season of the year, at Burdare too indecent for publication) are, "keep-wail, in the Cuddapah district. So late as ing a man in the sun; preventing his going May, 1853, Mr. Willey, assistant overseer of the Godavery division, saw a man, at Kank-ment, in case of conviction, as infinitely out aranporoo, "tied in a sitting posture, with of proportion with the moral magnitude of a stone in each of his hands, the palms up- the offence. And what is far more effectual wards, in a line with his shoulder." Another in preventing all chance of redress, this conunfortunate wretch, by an ingenious combina-viction is so strongly impressed on the minds tion of both forms of torture, was placed in of the wretched victims themselves, that the sun, with a kittee applied to his hands, hardly any one will venture on the all-but and his head tied down to his feet, for four hopeless experiment of a complaint, especially Indian hours! Another, placed similarly in with the certainty that the attempt to seek the sun, had his head tied down, was beaten redress at the hands of the Europeans will with a whip, his thighs pinched, seemingly be sure to make him a marked man among with a kittee, stones being put in to make the native officials. the pain more excruciating. Others are kept Strange as it may appear that such prac in this stooping posture, by the peons holding tices on the part of the native officials could their heads down by the hair, while a peon be concealed from their European superiors, sits astride upon their back. Others are lifted the Commissioners entertain no doubt of the off the ground, and held aloft by the ears, by fact; and, indeed, some of the modes of the mustache, or by the hair. Others are applying torture, so as to avoid detection by forced to run up and down in the sun till the discovery of its traces upon the person, their strength is utterly exhausted. Some- are too shockingly indecent to admit of even times a biting insect (as the carpenter beetle) an allusion to their nature. is confined in a cocoa-shell, and applied to source of impunity for the officials, however, a sensitive part of the person;-sometimes lies in the degraded and prostrate condition the arms or thighs are seared with a hot iron; of the natives, too feeble to use even the -sometimes a coir rope is twisted tightly energy of complaint. about the arm or leg, and then wetted with cold water, so as to contract to a degree utterly beyond endurance! The great Nevertheless, of the existence and the prevalence of these hateful practices no possible doubt can henceforth be entertained. PosiOf the use of all these forms of torture in tively as it was discredited by the home connection with the collection of the land-tax officials, and even by the supreme Governor or of some of the corrupt and illegal demands of the Presidency himself, some of the officers of the collectors themselves, the evidence laid appealed to for returns express their astonishbefore the Commission, and submitted in the ment that its prevalence should ever have Appendix of its Report, furnishes the most been called in question. Three native colpainfully convincing proofs. It is not alleged lectors of revenue, J. D. Bourdillon, collector that such practices are ever resorted to by of Arcot, A. Tirvencatacharry, Head Sherthe European officials, or employed by their istadar at Madras, and a third, whose name direction, or with their sanction, or even with is not made public, avow, without hesitation, their knowledge. On the contrary, all ap-on their own part and that of their fellows, proach to such practices is prohibited by law, the frequency of the practice, which they and is punishable as a criminal offence. But evidently regarded as a part of the every-day there exists a feeling deeply rooted, and, it routine of office. Instances are cited in the may be feared, but too strongly borne out by experience, that, even whilst reprobation of such practices forms a leading principle of official discipline, it is, nevertheless, practically futile to hope for redress in case of its infringement. The Commissioners themselves, in the conclusion of the examination of the But by far the most painful evidence of criminal records of all the cases in which the existence of the practice, and of the such complaints have been brought to trial, hopelessness of redress from the European declare that they are "far from being con- officials, is to be found in the simple narrative vinced that the result of these trials has of their wrongs contained in the numerous been in accordance with the truth"; and, complaints of the native sufferers embodied in even if it were so, they regard the punish-the Appendix to the Report: - complaints Appendix of criminal returns, in which prisoners convicted in court claimed an exemption from punishment on the ground that "every one did the same." European officers, missionaries, surgeons, speak to the facts which they themselves witnessed. of actual torture inflicted upon them, for the purpose either of compelling payment of the land-tax or of extorting consent to the yearly assessment, or, in very many instances, of enforcing the illegal and corrupt demands of the officials themselves, whether, of money payments or of still more revolting compliances. To these narratives we consider it a duty to call the attention of all who feel concerned for British honor. The existence under British rule of such a system as they reveal, is a blot upon the national character. A few specimens must suffice. order to enforce payment of the tax, from In most of these cases we find the painful confession: "We did not complain. What is the use of a poor man like me complaining to the gentlemen? Who will hear us? It is not usual to complain in such cases, for who will hear?" In the month of April, 1854, Kistna Pillay, from whom a balance of 5 rupees (10s.) was claimed, and who refused to pay, because he alleged that he had already paid the entire land-tax of the year, was put in anundal (the torture already described) with his own cloth, his thighs beaten, and his fingers tortured with the kittee. Soobooroya Pillay, who owed a balance of 15 rupees (30s.) out of his year's land-tax of 240 rupees (247.) was tied in a stooping position, beaten with In the atrocious case last cited, though a whip, and pinched in the thighs. Naugun the marks of violence still remained on the Chaloovun, for refusing to pay an illegal poor woman's person, and were examined by claim of ten annas (fifteen pence), was placed an English surgeon, the charge was dismissed, in the sun, with his head tied down to his the chief offender being a "respectable perfeet, a stone being laid on his back, and the son"! kittee applied to his fingers. - Vyapoory We may add, that the complaints from Goundon, because he resisted a similar illegal which the above are but a specimen fill nearly claim of 10 rupees, was lifted from the 200 pages of the Appendix. We trust that ground by the ears, and threatened with the publication of these facts will render it deprivation of his land. - Parasoorama Gramy impossible to delay longer the thorough was subjected to anundal for three days, and reform of a system under which such revoltdetained a prisoner for forty-five. Thumbee ing practices could be tolerated for a day. Moodely, a lad of eighteen and the son of It is idle to speak of petty details of remedial a widow, was, for a balance of land-tax of legislation. There must be a sweeping reform 15 rupees, tortured with the kittee, and received a dozen lashes. - Caulathee Moodely, although he had paid his own tax, was beaten by the peons till he paid the tax due by one of his neighbors. Other villagers, for refusing to sell their land to a European, were tied with ropes, in a bent posture, with a large stone (some of the witnesses say that these stones weigh 12 or 14 lbs.) laid on their backs for four hours; the torture being repeated four several times. In another case the same torture was applied to the whole body of the villagers for three months, in of the scheme of revenue in which these evils originate, and of the system of administration under which it is collected. Nor can we accept the plea which is put forward on behalf of the higher authorities, that these practices have been carried on without their knowledge and against their will. Such a plea may possibly exempt individuals from actual criminality. But, on the part of a great Government it is highly discreditable. It amounts, in fact, to one or other of two almost equally dishonoring avowals:- the avowal of connivance or of incompetency. |