23. But it is only the smaller local ministerial officers who are secure in their tenure of office under native Governments; those on whose efficiency the well-being of village communities depends. The greatest evil of Governments of the kind is the feeling of insecurity which pervades all the higher officers of Government, and the instability of all engagements made by the Government with them, and by them with the people. [W. H. S.] 24. _Ante_, Chapter 23, text at note [8]. 25. In the Gwâlior territory, the Marâthâ 'âmils' or governors of districts, do the same, and keep gangs of robbers on purpose to plunder their neighbours; and, if you ask them for their thieves, they will actually tell you that to part with them would be ruin, as they are their only defence against the thieves of their neighbours. [W. H. S.] These notions and habits are by no means extinct. In October, 1892, a force of about two hundred men, cavalry and infantry, was sent into Bundêlkhand to suppress robber gangs. Such gangs are constantly breaking out in that region, in most native states, and in many British districts. See _ante_, chapter 23, text following note [13]. 26. My poor guide had as little sympathy with the prime ministers, whom the Tehrî Râjâ put to death, as the peasantry of England had with the great men and women whom Harry the Eighth sacrificed. [W. H. S.] _Ante_, Chapter 23, beginning to note [9]. 27. The cruel practice of impressment for the royal navy is authorized by a series of statutes extending from the reign of Philip and Mary to that of George III. Seamen of the merchant navy, and, with few exceptions, all seafaring men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, are liable, under the provisions of these harsh statutes, to be forcibly seized by the press-gang, and compelled to serve on board a man-of-war. The acts legalizing impressment were freely made use of during the Napoleonic wars, but since then have been little acted on, and no Government at the present day could venture to use them, though they have never been repealed. The fleet sent against the Russians in 1855 was the first English fleet ever manned without recourse to forcible impressment: see the article 'Impressment' by David Hannay, in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th ed., 1910. The work by J. B. Hutchinson entitled _The Press-gang Afloat and Ashore_ (London: Nash, 1913) gives copious details of the infamous proceedings. 28. The Brahman chief of Jhânsî was originally a governor under the Peshwâ. The treaty of November 18, 1817, recognized the then chief Râmchand Râo, his heirs and successors, as hereditary rulers of Jhânsî. Râmchand Râo was granted the title of Râjâ by the British Government in 1832, and died without issue on August 20, 1835 (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 296). See _post_, Chapter 29.