Confession is Good for the Soul?
| Published date | 01 October 1932 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3200500409 |
| Date | 01 October 1932 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Confession is Good for the Soul?
By C. R. P.
NATHAN
SINGH
was by caste a Jat. Now the [ats are
a very fine race of yeomen, and make most excellent
farmers and cultivators; astrong, stolid, sturdy race, who for
generations have tilled the ground or bred livestock; very
fine fighters and good soldiers,
but
like the yeomen of England
of old, their brains are less subtle and quick than those of some
of their physically weaker brethren.
Nathan Singh was typical of his caste. His ancestors had
been in the army, and with a long string of recommendations
dating back from the Sikh wars, he had no difficulty in getting
the coveted nomination to the Police Training School for
sub-inspectors. There he spent eighteen months, during
which time he was supreme in games and horsemanship;
but
in the matter of book learning, he occupied a very mediocre
place. He was slow to learn and altogether wanting in imagina-
tion-moreover
he had no faculty of profiting from his own
mistakes. However, in due course he passed out of the school,
and being a great asset on the hockey field, was retained in the
force of the district in which the training school was situated.
There he spent a year or two learning the practical side of
police work, and qualifying himself to take charge of a police
station, the ambition of all young cadets.
At the school, besides the sub-inspectors, there were a
number of young British officers also under training for
the
superior posts of the police, who in time would be posted to
districts, and under some of whom Nathan Singh would some
day or other be bound to work.
So, when one day he received an urgent summons to
investigate a case of theft in the Officers' Mess, he saw in it a
chance to distinguish himself in the eyes of his future officers.
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