if the cue were a cue worth playing with; but it is
not—it’s a cue that won’t move—his
own arm won’t move—in short,
there’s the devil to pay in the brain of the
poor Levantine; and perhaps, the next night but
one he becomes the ’life and the soul’
of some squalling jackal family, who fish him out by
the foot from his shallow and sandy grave.”
Hunger is the handmaid of genius
—Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s New Calendar.
One day during our stay in Bombay there was a criminal
trial of a most interesting sort, a terribly realistic
chapter out of the “Arabian Nights,” a
strange mixture of simplicities and pieties and murderous
practicalities, which brought back the forgotten days
of Thuggee and made them live again; in fact, even
made them believable. It was a case where a
young girl had been assassinated for the sake of her
trifling ornaments, things not worth a laborer’s
day’s wages in America. This thing could
have been done in many other countries, but hardly
with the cold business-like depravity, absence of
fear, absence of caution, destitution of the sense
of horror, repentance, remorse, exhibited in this
case. Elsewhere the murderer would have done
his crime secretly, by night, and without witnesses;
his fears would have allowed him no peace while the
dead body was in his neighborhood; he would not have
rested until he had gotten it safe out of the way
and hidden as effectually as he could hide it.
But this Indian murderer does his deed in the full
light of day, cares nothing for the society of witnesses,
is in no way incommoded by the presence of the corpse,
takes his own time about disposing of it, and the
whole party are so indifferent, so phlegmatic, that
they take their regular sleep as if nothing was happening
and no halters hanging over them; and these five bland
people close the episode with a religious service.
The thing reads like a Meadows-Taylor Thug-tale of
half a century ago, as may be seen by the official
report of the trial:
“At the Mazagon Police Court
yesterday, Superintendent Nolan again charged
Tookaram Suntoo Savat Baya, woman, her daughter Krishni,
and Gopal Yithoo Bhanayker, before Mr. Phiroze
Hoshang Dastur, Fourth Presidency Magistrate,
under sections 302 and 109 of the Code, with having
on the night of the 30th of December last murdered
a Hindoo girl named Cassi, aged 12, by strangulation,
in the room of a chawl at Jakaria Bunder, on
the Sewriroad, and also with aiding and abetting
each other in the commission of the offense.
“Mr. F. A. Little,
Public Prosecutor, conducted the case on behalf
of the Crown, the accused
being undefended.
