History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

cHaP.v.| PUNISHING A DELINQUENT. 229

excommunication. The offender was therefore summoned before a police magistrate, to whom Jamshedji expressed his regret for what had occurred and his willmeness to abide by such punishment as the Panchayet might award him. He made this submission in the belief that that body would deal leniently with him. In this he was destined to be disappointed. The Panchayet immediately convened another meeting of the Parsis, at which the following humilating resolution, which must have been particularly exasperating to Jamshedji, was passed : — That the said Jamshedji Beramji Laskari should take one of his own shoes in his hand, and with it strike himself five times on his face, in the presence of the community, which would be assembled for the purpose of witnessing the punishment; and, further, with a halter round his neck, ask the pardon of the priest whom he had assaulted, and of the Panchayet which he had insulted, and recoup to the Panchayet the cost which it had incurred in engaging counsel for prosecuting the case against him.”

At a meeting of the community held in Dadiseth’s fire-temple on 16th June 1818, and at which a large number of Parsis were assembled, Jamshedji was made to carry out the requirements of the resolution, which must have been felt as particularly desrading by a man of his temperament. His

penalty did not stop here. Further humiliation was