Lot 1641

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Description:

BRITISH INDIAN MURDER REPORT
Most unusual unsigned manuscript document, 2pp. long 4to., [Govindganj], April 21, 1906, to the "District Officer" in Rangpur, in modern Bangladesh. The writer reports on a murder and the subsequent conspiracy to hide the crime, and requests the intervention of the British administration, in small part: " Worshipped Sir – This is to communicate with due honor and esteem to your worship that one named Meherulla at Chaksrirampur, station Govindganj, bloodily dispatched his elder wife, daughter of Bajitulla, & inhumed her evasively at a very short distance from the culprit's house on the 17th day of January last..." The writer then lists numerous other individuals who aided in the concealment of the crime during the subsequent police investigation. He continues: "… A more grotesque thread of the quaint plot was a registered mortgage that bought off the redemption & revived the last cause, at an adroit coup de maitre of certain preux chevaliers, who disinterred & drowned the body into a river & replaced in its place some dry bones, forgetting to furnish them with any dresses or the cloth that covered the body in the grove; when thus disconcerting the concordance of the British organization, & indulging in full swing the orientalism... in the passionate love of patriotic feeling, the sweeping, sounding, & swelling chords, far beyond the range of the British bayonet. To sum up thus, thine humblest servant, now under a domino, bids thee farewell with faith & hope, that the fervent and resentful blood still staining with all its glow the atrocious hand that held the dagger would have a prompt & healing retaliation at an English tribunal, or would cast more thereat than it has done til now at the native marts." The plea is unsigned, and shows original folds with some splitting, partially repaired with cello tape, else very good.

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August 1, 2018 10:00 AM EDT
Chesapeake City, MD, US

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