Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, TurkeyGriffiths, Arthur
Religion
Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, Turkey
Griffiths, Arthur
Crime -- Asia -- History; Crime -- Middle East -- History; Prisons -- Asia -- History; Prisons -- Middle East -- History
He was resolved to escape his fate of certain transportation. First
he tried to commit suicide with a piece of glass, then he simulated
madness and at last took to malingering. He was seized with a terrible
hacking cough and grew visibly worse, so that his release as incurable
was all but recommended. Then he apparently died. Leave was sought from
the local authorities to bury him and not burn him as was the usual
procedure with a Hindu corpse. His body was handed over for interment
to four or five low caste men engaged by an old and faithful follower
of his who had taken the garb of a mendicant and occupied a small
hut just outside the gaol gates. The undertakers were in the secret,
and they placed the living corpse in a shallow grave face downward,
covering it with thorns and brushwood, on the top of which a thin
layer of earth was laid. The defunct made no move, and after dark
the faithful Gosaen, who had been on the watch, came and dug up the
“dead” Kishen Sing. It was thus clearly proved that burial did not mean
death and that, provided a person is placed faced downwards with no
superincumbent weight of earth, life may be safely prolonged for hours.
The escape of Kishen Sing was not realised until he was discovered
alive and well in his native village. How he imposed upon the medical
officer whose duty it was to furnish a certificate of death does not
appear upon the record.
A curious feature in Indian Dacoity was that gangs were led in more
than one instance by female _jemadars_ or captains. One of the most
notable was a certain Tumbolin whose husband had met his deserts in
the Madras territory and had been executed. After his death, his wife
was installed in his place by the universal acclaim of his followers,
and she fully justified her appointment. She became a most capable
chief, ably managed all the affairs of the gang, sought out the needful
information as to the promise of spoil, the best methods of attack,
and settled every preliminary. She went with her men to the point of
action, but did not join personally in the fray, leaving the actual
command to a trusty lieutenant, by name Himtya, chosen by herself, and
who became her right hand man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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