The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 372: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TORTURES 343 The Burker replied in the affirmative, and besought mercy. “Take yourself off, then,’’ responded the officer, ‘‘ and beware how you are again found in the company of any of those lazy vagabond impostors who prowl about the country and impose upon the charitable. Depart! ”’ The Burker did not require to be again bidden to quit that scene of horrors, and he hastened away. We must here pause to assure the reader that we have dealt not in the slightest exaggeration while endeavouring to describe the process of diabolical tortures to which the natives of India are not merely liable, but to which they are often subjected. Perhaps it may be supposed that scenes of this description occur only in the domains of independent princes, but the very reverse is the fact, for they occur only in that part of India which groans beneath the tyranny of British rule. The object is to enforce the payment of the oppressive taxes which the Anglo-Indian government levies upon the native population, — chiefly upon the land-owners. India swarms with the collectors, and these harpies possess power to punish defaulters. The collectors themselves are for the most part of unprincipled character, and they conceal their own peculations, or administer to their extravagances, by compelling the natives to pay the same tax two or three times over. If a landowner should oppose their tyranny, he is seized upon and tortured; or if he hide himself, or under- take a journey in order to escape the importunity of the collector when visiting his district, his wife or his daughter may be rendered a victim in his place, — as was the case with those females whose sufferings we have just described. Moreover, in many towns of Anglo-India, mendicants and vagrants are subjected to the torture, and the license to use it being accorded to the local authorities, is frightfully abused. If a tax-collector or an officer of peons should chance to cast his eyes upon a handsome female, woe to her unless she surrender herself into the miscreant’s arms! It is no vain threat which he holds forth to take her to the torture- chamber, and he will ruthlessly stand by to contemplate the maiming or mutilation, the crushing or the laceration of the charms which in the first instance fired his passion. Yes, reader, torture exists in India under British rule; torture is inflicted by the officials of the Anglo-Indian govern- ment. Countless sums are subscribed annually at Exeter COnnICLOOOKS (S©)