Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Seite 707

CALLOUSNESS AND APATHY
667
troduced by Europeans into their country err considerably
on the side
of leniency.
They consider them
quite inade-
quate to protect society against evil-doers. To keep peace
and order amongst a nation constituted like the Hindus,
they say, much harsher measures must be resorted to.
Even capital punishment appears to produce no impression
whatever on these apathetic people. The sight of an exe-
cution, far from moving the spectators to feelings of pity
and
or compassion, is only looked upon as an amusement
they are even much diverted by the convulsive contortions
Perhaps
of the poor wretch who is hanging on the gallows.
the utter want of feeling shown by the crowd under these
circumstances was one of the reasons why native princes
Probably they
so rarely resorted to capital punishment.
reflected that punishments were inflicted quite as much for
the sake of their deterrent effect on others as for the chastise-
ment of the guilty. Mutilation appeared to them to be
a much more efficacious way of repressing vice. Criminals
deprived of nose, ears, or right hand, dragging out their
miserable existence before the eyes of all men, were living
and lasting witnesses of the severity of the law, and their
woeful appearance served as a daily example to others.
See, they seemed to say to every passer-by, what a sad fate
;
awaits those who break the laws
The death penalty, on the other hand, barely excites a
passing terror, and I very much doubt whether the fear of
it ever restrained any Hindu who was bent on committing
a crime.
!
CHAPTER IX
—
The Military System of the Hindus. Ancient and Modern Methods of
Warfare.
The Material formerly composing their Armies. The
Poligars.
Military Game of Chess invented by the Hindus.
Different Weapons that have been in Use at various Times in
—
—
—
India.
Here my
self-imposed task should have been brought to
hardly to be expected that I can treat the
subject-matter of this chapter satisfactorily, seeing how
foreign it is to my profession.
However, as nearly all the
public monuments of India, both civil and religious, com-
memorate some war, and as all the Hindu books are rilled
a close, for
it is