AN INDIAN PUNISHMENT.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 587, 6 May 1876, Page 3

AN INDIAN PUNISHMENT.

The special correspondent of an Indian paper from Jummoo writes :—“ One of the most curious sights to me was the Maharajah himself seated, not on a throne if you please, nor on a golden howdah, but on the stone edge of the terrace, with his legs dangling simply over, just like an English schoolboy on a wall, and with only a couple of attendants; or rather companions. I had first passed him with indifference, taking him for one of his subordinate officers (who were, most of them, dressed much more showily than himself), when the expression of his features caught the toil of my eye, and I looked again. This time I had no doubt. I touched my hat and addressed the Maharajah Sahib, with which, and by the help of his I’rime Minister’s intelligent son, Dewan Anund Ram, I had ten minutes’ conversation. The characteristic of Maharajah Runbeer Singh would seem to be mildness, as if there was really nothing in this world much worth being ruffled about. But I would not trust (if I were a Cashmere rebel) this mildness too far. These Dogra princes have something much stronger than milk and water in their veins. Golab Sirgh was a particularly mild looking man, and I heard a story of him which goes far to reconcile me not to living for ever in the lovely region now governed by his son. A plot to poison Golab Singh had been betrayed, and the instigator and chief (intended) actor was brought bef ore him. What the Dogra prince did he himself described to my informant as follows ; —‘ I made them divide the skin of his head nearly in the middle from the root of his nose to the nape of his neck, so that onehalf of his scalp fed over one ear and the other half over the other. I then told them to put both halves carefully back, and had a strip of plaister spread over the line of junction. I then patted him gently on the crown of the head and said— 4 Now go, my child.’ (Obee jao, baba.) ‘But didn’t the poor wretch die,’ asked my informant of the Rajah. ‘ Die ! ’ screamed the gentle prince, in huge disgust at being thought such a fool as to kill his enemy without torture, ‘he lived a week ! ’