1 108 THE-GOVERNMENT OF THE PUNJAUB.
2 additional very satisfactory reason that the fines
3 form a branch of revenue. But it is not the
4 criminal alone who pays. When the innocence of
5 an arraigned individual deprives the judge of a
6 pretext for lodging a heavy impost, he exacts
7 from the prisoner a present of gratitude called
8 shookurana. In civil cases pecuniary contri-
9 butions are also levied. The plaintiff, if he carries
10 his point, pays the shookurana, and the defendant
11 is mulcted as a punishment for being in the
12 wrong, and consuming the judge’s time. Muti-
13 lation is sometimes resorted to—to the extent of
14 cutting off the hands, the nose, or the ears; but
15 even in respect to this kind of penalty, money is
16 found to be efficacious. <A tolerable bag full of
17 rupees is often accepted as compensation in full
18 for the retention of a limb ora feature. High-
19 way robbery and burglary are visited by the
20 demand of a sum equivalent to the value of the
21 property taken away; but should opposition be
22 raised by the chief on whom the demand is made,
23 the sirdar, whose subject has suffered, proceeds
24 to retaliate by driving away many head of cattle
25 from the offender’s lands.
26 On the discovery of a petty theft, the sufferer
27 has to pay the fourth of the amount he may have
28 lost to his chief before it is restored to him; and
29 when the robbery has been committed by a body
30 of accomplices, the one who turns king’s evidence