On the whole the duties on almost every article were lowered during my term of office, and the imports largely increased. Indeed, but for the cumbersome system of levying the custom charges, they would have been no grievance at all; and as it was they hardly added anything to the cost of the articles when sold in Manipur, many of which could be bought for little more than the price paid in Cachar, plus the charge for carriage.
Slavery of a mild form existed in Manipur, the slaves being hereditary ones, or people, and the descendants of people who had sold themselves for debt, their services being pledged as interest for the debt. For instance a Naga (a very common case), marries a girl of another Naga village, thereby incurring a debt of forty rupees to the father, that being the price of a Naga bride. The man not being able to pay, his father-in-law says, "Sell yourself, and pay me." This is done, and the man pays the forty rupees and has to work for his master till he can pay the debt, something being sometimes allowed for subsistence, or they agree upon a monthly payment, which if not paid is added to the principal. The wife probably works and supports the family, and, if the creditor is a fairly good fellow, things go smoothly, and the debtor never attempts to fulfil his obligations more than he can help. The law allows a man to transfer his services to any one who will take up the debt. Here and there great abuses crop up, and the master takes advantage of the corrupt courts to bind the slave more and more securely in the chains of debt, and then every effort is made to escape. I often paid the debts of slaves who came to me for help and let them work off the money. Once a little girl named Nowbee came to me. Her mother had sold her to pay her father's funeral expenses. She stayed with us, working in the nursery for years, and when I left I forgave her the remainder of her debt which was unpaid, as, of course, I did with all the others. I once offered to redeem the mother, who, in turn, had sold herself, but the old woman declined, as some one told her that we should take her to England, and she was afraid to go. Sometimes cases of very cruel ill-treatment came before me, or cases where people had been made slaves contrary to the laws, and then I made a strong remonstrance to the Durbar, and insisted on justice. Once or twice I took the complainants under my protection immediately, and insisted on keeping them. One day a young man and a small boy came to me for protection: the case was a bad one, and I at once took them into my service as the best way of settling the difficulty, the young man as a gardener and the boy to work in the kitchen and wait at table; both were named "Chowba," i.e. big; a name as common out there as John in England. We gave little Chowba clothes, and he stood behind my wife's chair at dinner, the first evening crying bitterly from fear. However, he learned his work, and became an excellent servant. When I went on leave in 1882, I offered to place him with my locum tenens, but the boy said, "No, sahib, you have been kind to me; I have broken your things and you have threatened to beat me, but have never done so; you have threatened to cut my pay, but have never done so; I will never serve any one but you!" The poor boy kept his word; he preferred hard toil, cutting wood and such-like work; but unfortunately died before I returned.