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One would imagine that this circumstance was much more likely to have happened in our High Court of Chancery, under the “sharp practice” of a Dodson and Fogg. It seems to be a mutilated Burman version of one of our “great” institutions made into a matter of physical force by Malcom’s Oriental Chartist. I may here mention an affecting incident related by Sangermano,[38] and doubtlessly too true.

A poor widow, who was hard pinched to pay the tax demanded of her, was obliged to sell her only daughter to obtain the sum. The money was received, and heavy at heart she returned home, and put it in a box in her house, intending to lament that night, and carry the money to her inexorable creditor in the morning. But the measure of her sorrows was not yet full. Some thieves broke into the house and stole the money. In the morning she discovered her loss, and this additional circumstance caused the bounds of her grief to flow even beyond that of silence, and sitting before her door she gave herself up to loud lamentations. As she was weeping, an emissary of the city magistrate passed by, and inquired into the cause of her sorrow. He, upon hearing the sad story, related the matter to his master. The poor creature was then summoned to the court of justice, and commanded to deliver up the thief. Of course this was impossible. She was detained in the stocks until she could scrape together money enough to satisfy the rapacity of the judge.