The modern traveller in Egypt will bear witness to the admirable police system introduced under British rule, and to the security afforded to life and property in town and country by a well organised, well conducted force. In former days, under the Pashas, the whole administration of justice was corrupt from the judge in his court to the police armed with arbitrary powers of oppression. The chief of police in Cairo was charged with the apprehension of thieves and criminals and with his myrmidons made constant rounds nightly through the city. He was accompanied by the public executioner and a torch-bearer who carried a curious light that burned without flame unless waved through the air, when it burst suddenly forth; the burning end was sometimes hidden in a small pot or jar and when exposed served the purpose of a dark lantern. The smell of the burning torch often gave timely warning to thieves to make off. The chief of the police arrogated to himself arbitrary powers, and often put a criminal to death when caught, even for offences not deserving capital punishment. A curious custom obtained in old Cairo; it was the rule for the community of thieves to be controlled by and to obey one of their number, who was constituted their sheik and who was required by the authorities to hunt up offenders and surrender them to justice.
In old times the administration of the country districts was in the hands of governors appointed by the Pasha and charged by him with the collection of taxes and the regulation of the corvee, or system of enforced or unremunerated labour, at one time the universal rule in Egypt. The prompt and excessive use of the stick or courbash was the stimulus by which the contributions demanded were extorted, and the sheik, or headman of a village, might be severely bastinadoed when the sum demanded ran short. Everything was taxed, particularly the land and its products, wholly or in part, or they were sometimes seized outright and sold at a fixed price, but impounded to make good the debts of the cultivators to the government. Taxes were also levied in kind,--butter, honey, wax, wood, baskets of palm leaves and grain. The government granaries were kept full by the last named exaction and in this regard an amazing story is told.