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110
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JUNE, 1928
villages with which they were connected, and to act as trackers and thief-catchers in the case of crime oommitted by outsiders. Thus, when cattle were stolen in 1752 from a village in Wai, the Berade of the village, to which they were traced by the Patel and his watchmen, were called up and told to produce the culprit. They did so, and the thief was ordered to restore the cattle on pain of forfeiting his life. On another occasion & robbery took place in the house of an uncle of the Raja, who lived in a village entrusted for watch and ward purposes to a Berad named Santal Rana. The latter was ordered at once to trace the theft and restore the stolen property, and then to present himself at head-quarters (Satara), where doubtless he was called upon to explain his failure to forestall the robbery. In yet another case, when property was stolen from the residence of the custodian of government cattle at Vagholi, thirteen Berads-six from different forts and seven from different villages in Wai district
-were summoned to Satara and ordered to trace the theft. This system, which in fact, con. sisted in employing hereditary and professional criminals as part of the machinery for the prevention and detection of crime in rural areas, may have secured the recovery of a certain amount of stolen property, but was open to grave abuses and liable to degenerate rapidly in periods of disorder. Its defects are illustrated in the history of the Ramoshi Naik, Umají, who headed the Ramoshi revolt in Poona and contiguous districts during the administration of Sir John Malcolm.1
One of the points which strikes the reader of these records is the lightness of the punishment awarded for murder. A man who murdered the son of a weaver and stole his ornaments was ordered to pay a sum of Rs. 550, of which Rs. 350 were declared to be compensation for the murder and the remaining Rs. 200 were payable as a fine to the government. Two men who killed a government Karkûn in the course of a caste-dispute were placed in confiement at Satara, but were released on payment of a fine of Rs. 15,000 and permitted to carry on their usual business. On the other hand, when a Marath& employed at Vandangad Fort dis. covered his mistress and her paramour together and killed them both, he was granted a free pardon and directed to undergo the necessary purification enjoined by Hindu lore. In thus lightly letting off the murderer, the Marathê government was perhaps anticipating the doc. trine of grave and sudden provocation which is embodied in an important clause of the modern Indian Penal Code. The adulterer fared worse than the murderer, if one may judge by a curt entry of 1752-53 recording that a Gadkari of Mahimangad Fort had been guilty of this offence, and was sentenced to be shot or thrown down & precipice. Women who misoon. ducted themselves in this way, as Mr. Sen informs us, were usually sentenced to penal servitude and slavery, though occasionally they managed to purchase their liberty by the loss of their noses or by payment of a fine. It seems probable that male adulterers also were usually let off with something short of capital punishment. The severity of the fate awarded to the "Don Juan" of Mahimangad may possibly have been due to the fact that he was a mauvais sujet, of whom the Marath& authorities weloomed an opportunity to rid themselves.
Slavery was a recognised institution among the Marathas of the eighteenth century, 88 it was among the Mughals and among the English also at the same period. The diary mentions a woman of Baramati, who consented to become a slave, and having been valued at Rs. 12, was given to one Keshav BallAl Sabnis in part payment of his salary. Ten female
1 It seems possible that the word "Borad" is loosely used in the Raja's diary to signify "Ramoahf" The two tribes have affinities, but are generally regarded in these days Me Neparate social unita, the former being found in the Southern Maratha country and the Madras Presidency and the latter in the Doocan proper. The Berads or Bedars were historically more notorious than the Ramoshis, and it seems possible that the writers of the Maratha diaries used their name generically to signify any tribe of professional and heredi. tary forest-robbers and froo-booters, whom it was found advantageous to include in the rural police system, It is probablo, for example, that the "Berada of Wat" wore aotually Ramostie.
