I wondered to see men submit to such indignity; but was told that the custom had the sanction of time; that these boys were brought up in the church, and were regularly trained to this business.  “Besides,” added my informer, “the custom is not without its use; for it points out the candidates at once to a stranger, and especially him who is successful, those being always the most blackened who are the most popular.”  But it was amusing to see the ludicrous figure that the candidates and some of the voters made.  If you came near them on one side, they were like roses dripping with the morning dew; but on the other, they were as black as chimney sweeps, and more offensive than street scavengers.  As these Syringe Boys, or Goulmins, are thus protected by custom, the persons assailed affected to despise them; but I could ever and anon see some of the most active partisans clapping them on the back, and saying, “Well done, my little fellows! give it to them again!  You shall have a ginger-cake—­and you shall have a new cap,” &c.  Surely, thought I, our custom of praising and abusing our public men in the newspapers, is far more rational than this.  After the novelty of the scene was over, I became wearied and disgusted with their coarseness, violence, and want of decency, and we left them without waiting to see the result of the contest.

In returning to our lodgings, the Brahmin took me along a quarter of the town in which I had never before been.  In a little while we came to a lofty building, before the gate of which a great crowd were assembled.  “This,” said my companion, “is one of the courts of justice.”  Anxious to see their modes of proceeding in court, I pushed through the crowd, followed by the Brahmin, and on entering the building, found myself in a spacious amphitheatre, in the middle of which I beheld, with surprise, several men engaged, hand to hand, in single combat.  On asking an explanation of my friend, he informed me that these contests were favourite modes of settling private disputes in Morosofia:  that the prize-fighters I saw, hired themselves to any one who conceived himself injured in person, character, or property.  “It seems a strange mode of settling legal disputes,” I remarked, “which determines a question in favour of a party, according to the strength and wind of his champion.”

“Nor is that all,” said the Brahmin, “as the judges assign the victory according to certain rules and precedents, the reasons of which are known only to themselves, if known at all, and which are often sufficiently whimsical—­as sometimes a small scratch in the head avails more than a disabling blow in the body.  The blows too, must be given in the right time, as well as in the right place, or they pass for nothing.  In short, of all those spectators who are present to witness the powers and address of the prize-fighters, not one in a hundred can tell who has gained the victory, until the judges have proclaimed it.”