Year: 1874

As detectives, the East Indian police men, says a writer ill Oacc Week, ex- hibit an acumen that would not dis grace the most intelligent of our own force. will give an instance of this that happened lately. One day we'll dressed woman, apparently of the better class, entered the house of sowcar or money lender in Hyderabad. She seem- ed to be in the most dire distress, and crying bitterly. She informed the sow car that her husband was merchant, and that he had embarked his all in stocking shop that the shop keepers had agreed together to ruin him that they had succeeded in doing so and that now he was lying in prison, sunk under load of debt, at the mercy of his pitiless creditors. The only way of helping him that she could think of was to pawn her jewels, and that she had accordingly brought them with her, hoping that the sowcar would advance her such a sum on them as would be sufficient to liberate her husband. She then produced her treasures-diamond rings, earrings, pearl necklaces-ap- parently worth several thousand ru- pees, and entreated him to lend her two thousand rupees on them without de- luy. He accordingly, having first tested the gold setting, and found them of pure gold, judged the jewels to be also genuine, and thought that he might make good thing out of the transac- tion. So, after beating her down a hundred rupees, he gaveher the money. The woman left the shop and disap- pcared. The sowcar shortly afterwards happened to show these jewels to friend who was visiting him, and was advised by him to examine the stones carefully, which as yet he had not done. He had concluded at the time he made the bargain that, as the gold settings were undoubtedly of pure metal, the stones also would be genuine. He acted according to his friend't advice, and then discovered, to his horror, that they were all only clever limitations, worth nothing. There was only the gold, worth about G40, for comfort. He had been swindled cleverly out of fif- teen hundred rupees.

 The only thing that remained for him to do was to put the matter into the hands of the police, in the hope of cap turing the woman. They advised him to say nothing of his having been cheated, but to give out that his house had been broken into by band of thieves, that everything had been car ried off, among which was large quan- tity of jewelry-that belonging to the woman was to be minutely described and that he should offer large reward for the discovery of the stolen goods, as, from their having been deposited on pledge, he would be involved in great loss. This he did, having it cried with beat of tom-tom through all the bazars.

 Two or three days after man came to the sowcar, and said that he had been ill prison for debt ; that his wife had pawned her jewels to get him out that, since then, his father had died and left him property and that now he wished to redeem the jewels that had been deposited with him. Of course, the sowcar sail he could not produce them, as they had been stolen but would the man give him time This was refused, and the full value de. handed, less the sum lent and interest A great deal of haggling was done, in order to allow time for the police to be summoned. On their arrival he was taken into custody, and woman and man wore DuniSha1