Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 113

NOMAD SELF-GOVERNMENT
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majority of votes. They are commissioned, during the
time that their authority lasts, to enforce the caste rules,
to settle disputes, and to punish all misdemeanour and
But however heinous offences may be, they never
crime.
involve the penalty of death or mutilation. The guilty
person has only either to pay a fine, or suffer a severe
Travelling
flogging or some other corporal punishment.
ceaselessly from one country to another, these vagrant
the majority
families pay no tax to any Government
possess nothing, and they have consequently no need of
the protection of a prince to guard them against spoliation.
Further, they have no claims to take before the courts,
and being with-
since they administer justice themselves
out any ambition, they ask neither pardon nor favour from
:
;
nomadic tribes stink in the nostrils
owing to the kind of life which t