up thieving he is disgraced and excommunicated. The
plunder is divided pro rata, and a certain portion is set aside
for their priests and as offerings to their gods.

There is a similar clan of organized robbers and murderers known
as Sonoriaths, whose special business is to steal cattle, and
the Mina tribe, which lives in the district of Gurgaon, on the
frontier of the Punjab Province, has 2,000 members, given up
entirely to robbery and murder. They make no trouble at home. They
are honest in their dealings, peaceable, charitable, hospitable,
and have considerable wealth, but between crops the larger portion
of the men disappear from their homes and go into other provinces
for the purpose of robbery, burglary and other forms of stealing.
In the Agra Province are twenty-nine different tribes who from
time immemorial have made crime their regular occupation and,
like all those mentioned, look upon it as not only a legitimate
but a religious act ordered and approved by the deities they
worship.

Special laws have been enacted for restraining these castes or
clans, and special police officers now exercise supervision over
them. Every man is required to register at the police headquarters
and receive a passport. He is required to live within a certain
district, and cannot change his abode or leave its limits without
permission. If he does so he is arrested and imprisoned. The
authorities believe that they have considerably reduced the amount
of crime committed by these clansmen, who are too cunning and
courageous to be entirely suppressed. No amount of vigilance
can prevent them from leaving their villages and going off into
other provinces for criminal purposes, and the railways greatly
facilitate their movements.

Nevertheless, if you will examine the criminal statistics of
India you will be surprised at the small number of arrests, trials
and convictions for penal offenses. The figures demonstrate that
the people are honest and law abiding. There is less crime in
India than in any other country in proportion to population, much
less than in England or the United States. Out of a population
of 300,000,000 people during the ten years from 1892 to 1902
there was an annual average of 1,015,550 criminal cases before
the courts, and an average of 1,345,667 offenses against the
criminal laws reported, while 870,665 persons were convicted of
crime in 1902, with the following penalties imposed:

Death