liquor, and is addicted to polygamy. One of them, who had been ten years in prison, being asked by Capt. Ramsay if, in the event of his liberation, he would promise to amend his life, shook his head and answered with a merry laugh:--"No, no, that would never do. Why should I become an honest man--work hard all day in the sun, rain, and all weathers, and earn--what? Some five or six pice a day! We Dacoits lead very comfortable and agreeable lives. When from home, which is generally only during the cold season, we march some fourteen or sixteen miles a-day for, perhaps, a couple of months, or say four, at the outside--commit a Dacoitee and bring home money sufficient to keep us comfortable for a year, or perhaps two. When at home we amuse ourselves by shooting, or visiting our friends, or in any way most agreeable--eat when we please, and sleep when we please--can, what you call an honest man, do that?" Another who had passed a like period within the gaol at Lucknow, returned to Dacoitee a few months after his release. "I was then young," said he, "and in high spirits--I had been confined with many other old Dacoits--and in gaol I used to hear them talking of their excursions, how they got 50,000 rupees here and 20,000 rupees there; and I used to long for my release, that I might go on Dacoitee and enjoy myself." The confessions of both these men would be readily endorsed by many inmates of our own prisons. Evil associations and the charms of a contraband career are equally potent in Europe and in Asia. But among the natives of India the profession of a Dacoit was not regarded as one of shame and disgrace. Indeed, even the Commissioner avowed he could see little difference, ethically, between expeditions in quest of plunder, and those for the purpose of conquest; it was a question of degree, not of principle. They themselves gloried in their calling. "Ours," they said, "has been a _Padshahee Kam_ (an imperial business); we have attached and seized boldly the thousands and hundreds of thousands that we have freely and nobly spent: we have been all our lives wallowing in wealth and basking in freedom, and find it hard to manage with a few copper pice a day we get from you." So energetic, however, and persevering were the measures adopted for the suppression of this "Padshahee Kam" that within a very few years after their inauguration, there existed in the Upper Provinces scarcely even the nucleus of a gang. The few who still remained at liberty were known by name and personal appearance, and only escaped apprehension by leading simple and inoffensive lives, gaining their daily bread by their daily labour.