A former British inspector of prisons surveys crime and punishment across Asia and the Near East. He describes the Indian jail system, the secret strangling cult of Thuggee and its ceremonies, gang robbery, the penal settlement on the Andaman Islands, Burmese prisons, Chinese and Japanese justice, and the dungeons of Egypt and Turkey.
A vivid if thoroughly imperial survey, written with the outlook of a Victorian official, valuable as social history. Download the free EPUB.