and the book containing it is studied by the bicháris, and others whom it may concern. [Another respondent, on the other hand, says, with reference to the customary laws: "They are not reduced to writing; nor are the dit'has or bicháris regularly educated to the law. A dit'ha or bichári has nothing to do with the courts till he receives from the government the turban of investiture; but that is never conferred, save on persons conversant with the customs of the country, and the usages of its various tribes; and this general conversancy with such matters, aided by the opinions of elders in any particular cases of difficulty, is his sole stay on the judgment-seat, unless it is that the ci-devant dit'ha or bichári, when removed by rotation or otherwise, cannot retire until he has imparted to his successor a knowledge of the state of the court, and the general routine of procedures." A third reply is as follows: "When cases of dispute on these topics are brought into the court, the judge calls for the sentiments of a few of the most respectable elders of the tribe to which the litigants belong, and follows their statement of the custom of the tribe."]

Question LXXXVIII. Are the bicháris regularly educated to the law?

Answer. Those who understand dharma and ádharma, who are well educated and practised in law affairs, are alone made bicháris. [By another authority: "Those who are well educated, of high character, and practically acquainted with the law, are alone made bicháris. It is not indispensable that they should have read the law Sástra, though, if they have, so much the better."]

Question LXXXIX.-The dit'ha is not often a professed lawyer; yet, is he not president of the supreme court? How is this?

Answer. Whether the diť'ha has read the Nyáya Sástra or not, he must understand nyáya (justice-law), and be a man of high respectability.

Question XC.-Are there separate bicháris for the investigation of the civil causes of Newárs and of Parbattias?

Answer.-There are not.

Question XCI.-In the dit'ha's court, if the dit'ha be the judge, the investigator, and decider, what is the function of the bicháris? Answer.-The investigation is the joint work of the dit'has and the bicháris. [Another respondent says: "They both act together: the decree proceeds from the diť'ha."]

Question XCII.

- In courts where no diť'ha presides, do the bicháris act in his stead?

Answer. See the answer to Question XXV.

Question XCIII.-Among Newárs and Parbattias, may not the creditor seize and detain the debtor in his own house, and beat and misuse him also? and to what extent?

Answer.--The creditor may attach duns to the debtor, to follow and dun him wherever he goes. The creditor may also stop the debtor wherever he finds him; take him home, confine, beat, and abuse him; so that he does him no serious injury in health or limbs. [Another answer states, that the creditor may seize upon the debtor, confine him in his own house, place him under the spout that discharges the filthy wash of the house, and such like; but he has no further power over him.] Question XCIV.-Is sitting dharna in use in Nepál?

Answer.-It is.

Question XCV. - Give a contrasted catalogue of the principal crimes and their punishments.

Answer.-Destruction of human life, with or without malice, and in whatever way, must be atoned for by loss of life. Killing a cow is another capital crime. Incest is a third. Deflowering a female of the sacred tribe subjects a man of a lower caste to capital punishment, and the confiscation of all his property. Robbery is a capital crime. Burglary is punished by cutting off the burglar's hands. [The subjoined scale is furnished by another respondent :

Killing in an affray.—The principal is hanged; the accessories before the fact severely fined.

Killing by some accident.-Long imprisonment and fining, besides undergoing prayaschitta.*

Theft and petty burglary.-For the first offence, one hand is cut off; for the second, the other; the third is capital.

Petty thefts. Whipping, fining, and imprisonment for short periods.

Treason, and petty treason.--Death and confiscation: women and Brahmans are never done to death, but degraded in every possible way, and then expelled the country.]

Question XCVI.--If a Newár wife commit adultery, does she forfeit her srid'hán† to her husband, or not? and how is it if she seek a divorce from him from mere caprice? If, on the other hand, he divorces her from a similar motive, what follows as to the srid'hán?

Answer.-If a Newár husband divorce himself from his wife, she carries away her srid'hán with her: if a Newár wife divorce herself, she may then also carry off with her her own property or portion. Adultery the Newárs heed not.

* Vide answer to Question XXX.

+ Srid'hán, dowry.

Question XCVII.-Among the Parbattia tribes, when the injured husband discovers or suspects the fact, must he inform the courts or the sirkár before or afterwards? and must he prove the adultery in court subsequently? What, if he then fails in the proof?

Answer. When a Parbattia has satisfied himself of the adultery, and the identity of the male adulterer, he may kill him before giving any information to the court or to the sirkár; he must afterwards prove the adultery, and if he fails in the proof he will be hanged.

Question XCVIII.-Are such cases investigated in the courts of law, or in the Bháradár Sabhá?

Answer. The investigation is conducted in the dit'ha's court; but when completed, the dit'ha refers it to the Bháradár Sabhá for instructions, or a final decree.*

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NOTE. -The "On Crimes and Punishments," drawn up by Mr. B. H. HODGSON, and referred to in the introduction to the preceding article, is intended for insertion in the next Number.--Ed.

* One of the respondents -- the person referred to by Mr. HODGSON in his Memoir on the Law of Adultery in Nepál, p. 48 of this volume-voluntarily appended some remarks of his own to these queries, which will be found in substance in the same passage.-ED.

ART. XXII.-Some Account of the P'hansigárs, or Gang-robbers, and of the Shudgarshids, or Tribe of Jugglers, by JAMES ARTHUR ROBERT STEVENSON, Esq., of the Madras Civil Service.-(Communicated by the Bombay Branch Royal Asiatic Society.)

Read 1st of February, 1834.

THE P'hansigúrs* are a tribe of, perhaps, the most deliberate and decided villains that stain the face of the earth. I hardly know whether they should be called a tribe, for they have no distinct religion or prejudices: they admit into their fraternity persons of all castes and persuasions; and the gangs which are found in different parts of the country appear to have no general knowledge of, or connexion with, each other, further than the diabolical compact existing among a few of the members who may at any period have acted in concert in their trade of villany. The following few particulars I gathered from the examination of part of a large gang which inhabited a village on the western frontier of the Nizáмs country, not very far from Bíjápúr.

The number of males in this troop amounted to about sixty, almost all of whom had families and houses in Dúdgí, which they considered as their head-quarters. They were subject to two náiks, or chiefs, who planned their expeditions, and regulated the division of booty, being themselves entitled to a double share: they were also responsible to the pattél, or head of the village, for the payment of a regular tribute, the price of his protection and silence. The greatest proportion of this gang were Muhammedans; but there were among them Rájapúts, and other castes. Their ostensible employment was agriculture and daily labour; but their only actual means of subsistence was the plunder obtained by the murder of their fellow-creatures. When their means of debauchery and indulgence became limited by the expenditure and waste of their ill-gotten wealth, fresh expeditions were ordered, and parties sent to make circuits in different directions, all the plunder being brought to their head-quarters to be shared. They were sworn to a fair division, to secrecy, and to inviolable fidelity to each other. Their standing rules were never to rob without first depriving their victim of life, never to attack by open force, and never to leave the smallest traces of their crimes; the bodies of the murdered being entirely defaced or deeply buried, and the property sent to a distant market. As all their murders are perpetrated by means of strangulation, no marks of blood are left on the spot; and

* From the Hindústání word P'hánsí, a noose.

so well have they generally kept their resolves and contrived their crimes, and so faithful have they generally proved to each other, that there are but few instances of P'hansigárs being convicted in a court of justice, although they have been repeatedly apprehended. A departure from their rules (the commission of a daring robbery which was quite out of their line) led to the seizure of the gang to which I have alluded.

Their methods of proceeding in their own horrid trade are various; but the chief object in view is to lull their victim into a sense of security before they proceed to deprive him of life, which is, as before remarked, always effected by strangulation. When a favourable opportunity presents itself, one of the party throws a noose, which is made with a tightly twisted handkerchief,* round the destined sufferer's neck; an accomplice immediately strikes the person on the inside of his knees, so as to knock him off his legs, and thus throw the whole weight of his body on the noose; and a very few seconds puts an end to the unfortunate man's struggles. The plan generally adopted by the P'hansigárs is to pretend to travellers, or to Company's sipahis proceeding to their homes on leave of absence, to have met them by chance, and to agree to pursue their journey together. They likewise fall into conversation with travellers whom they may meet on the road, or in the choultries and halting-places, and frequently share their provisions with them, proposing, at last, that, as they are all travelling the same road, they should, for the sake of companionship and mutual security, travel together. The first favourable opportunity that offers itself on the road is seized to murder the deluded traveller ; but so cautious and wary is the P'hansigár, that he will often accompany his victim several days' march before he can find a place and an opportunity sufficiently safe for his purpose.

Another mode of luring the traveller to his destruction is by the assistance of a woman. They select a pretty-looking girl of their tribe, and place her near some retired road, where she watches until she observes an object of prey fit for her purpose. She has a pitiful story ready to explain the cause of her having been left thus alone in the jungles, and seldom fails to interest the unfortunate listener, who almost always falls into the snare that is laid for him. The girl sometimes excites his passions, and having seduced him into a favourable spot, herself fastens the fatal noose, her companions being always near enough to afford timely aid. The traveller, if mounted, will perhaps

* This cloth, or handkerchief, is stated to be always of a white or a yellow colour, those being the favourite colours of their tutelary deity, MARIATTA, the goddess of small-pox in Malabar.