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

NOMAD SELF-GOVERNMENT 73 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