Native officers and sipahees, in the privilege of presenting petitions through the Resident, are now restricted to their own claims and those of their wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. They cannot petition through the Resident for the redress of wrongs suffered, or pretended to have been suffered, by any other relations. In consequence, it has become a common custom with them to lend or sell their names to more remote relations, or to persons not related to them at all. The petition is made out in their own name, and the real sufferer or pretended sufferer, who is to prosecute the claim, is named as the mookteear or attorney. A great many bad characters have in this way deprived men of lands which their ancestors had held in undisputed right of property for many generations or centuries; for the Court, to save themselves from the importunity of the Residency, has often given orders for the claimant being put in possession of the lands without due inquiry or any inquiry at all. The sipahees are, in consequence, much dreaded by the people among whom they reside; for there really is no class of men from whom it is more difficult to get the truth in any case. They have no fear of punishment, because all charges against them for fraud, falsehood, or violation of the rules laid down by Government have to be submitted either to a court-martial, composed of native officers, or to the Governor-General. Both involve endless trouble, and it would, I fear, be impossible to get a conviction before a court-martial so composed. No Resident will ever submit to a Governor-General the scores of flagrant cases that every month come before him; still less will he worry unoffending and suffering people by causing them to be summoned to give evidence before a military court.