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London, England, 1853-07-02 00:00:00

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who were thus allowed to establish an imperium
in imperil) without attracting the jealousy—
perhaps without attracting the notice—of
native rulers. They professed only to ad-
minister the law of England, a little modified
to meet local emergencies ; and that law, un
reformed by Romilly and Bentham, was then
the most sanguinary code known in civilised
Europe. Death was the punishment awarded
for offences which are now scarcely held worthy
of transportation; and it did not make matters
better that, the legal maxim regarding igno
ranee being strictly adhered to, natives suffered
death for acts which they themselves consi-
dered meritorious, or at least not criminal.
Thus, a Bengalec who had detected his wife in
adultery (a capital offence according to Eastern
ideas) proceeded to inflict punishment by
cutting off her nose. The act was not denied,
indeed was vindicated, by the injured husband.
Before any native tribunal he would have been
dismissed without even a reproof. Before the
Calcutta Sessions he pleaded, not unrea-
sonably, the improbability of his having com-
mitted an act so certain to become notorious,
had its criminality by English law been made
known to him. The plea, however, proved
unavailing, and he was banged.
A few acts of this kind exhausted even the
patience of the patient Hindus. They did not
" agitate," as Sir C. Wood expects them to do
if his bill is thrown out, but they poured in
petitions vigorously, especially after the
hanging of one Radachuur Mcttra, a merchant,
for forgery ; and their complaints, and the
absolute necessity of doing something, pro-
duced the establishment of the Sudder Courts,
and the passing of the regulations of 1772—
in fact, the foundation of the actually existing
system. But of these regulations the good
effects were not immediately apparent. Powers
had been granted to the Supreme Court, the
creation of the Crown, which, exercised by
men unversed in Indian affairs, and who be-
lieved the law of Westminster-hall to be the
perfection of wisdom, well-nigh threw the
country into confusion, and aggravated the
evils they were intended to cure. The early
administration of the Company's courts, it is
probable, had been lax and tyrannical, savour-
ing somewhat of the Oriental character. The
pedantic and impracticable, though honest,
adherence of Impey and his colleagues to the
traditions of an English circuit, produced
a tyranny at once unintelligible and intolera-
ble to its objects.
Collisions between these rival authorities
were frequent ; until, in 1781, the British
Legislature interposed finally to define and
limit the powers possessed by each. But,
before that time, either private influence, or
consciousness of error on the part of the
innovators, had materially diminished the
violence of early quarrels.
Up to this date it could scarcely be said that
the Company's servants in the Molussil exer
cised any regular judicial functions. The col-
lectors were ex qificio presidents of the civil
provincial courts; but until 1780 the judicial
office was not separated from the collectorate ;
and during the union of the two it is reasonable
to suppose that the former engrossed, if it did
not monopolise, the attention of men who were
held to be, and who held themselves to be, the
financial agents of the Company. The criminal
courts remained exclusively in the hands of
natives until the days of Lord Cornwallis ; and
though, in 1700, the Mahometan judges were
superseded, the Mahometan law remained in
force up to the passing of the regulations of
'93. It is with these, in fact, that we have to
deal, as the true origin of the judicial system
of British India. They did good, and they did
harm. They interfered to shelter the accused
from summary sentences and barbarous
punishments. They threw round the prisoner
all those safeguards which English experience
had devised for the protection of his possible
innocence, and the control of those who were
to decide his fate. So fir the intention was
upright, and the tendency of the new legisla-
tion humane. The rest shall be told in Mr.
Kayc's own words :
• -

It is no new thing—it is nothing peculiar to Bengal that
justice should defeat its ouit ends—that the very earnest-
ness and laboriousness of its efforts should recoil upon
itself. In two ways, now, was this observable. That jus.
ticc should be cheap, and the judgtnent•aeat accessible, are

SATURDAY,

two of the first essentials of a pure judicial system, and
Cornwallis endeavoiued to secure both the accessibility
and the cheapness of the courts. But he did this for the
benefit of a people out of measure addicted to litigation ;
and it soon followed that the number of suitors so blocked
up the doors of the court that the judge was not accessible
to the most clamorous, and justice was not attainable at any
cost. It seemed, too, that the new English judges, eager
to administer the law strictly and conscientiously according
to the regulations, and to observe all the prescribed for-
malities, brought so few cases to an issue, that business
accumulated tearfully upon their tiles, and the people wrung
their hands in despair to think what a laggard was English
justice with the weight of the regulations on its back. In
good truth it could not keep pace with the litigiousness of
the native character. And so it happened that the very
measures which seemed to entitle our administrators to the

gratitude of the people worked grievously to their hurt.
It then appeared that justice was too cheap, and that our
courts were too accessible. A supposed remedy lay very
close at hand. Its application has been severely con-
demned. It was proposed to make justice dearer, and,
therefore, the courts less accessible, by taxing litigation
and so frightening suitors from their doors. The old sys-
tem of the deposit-fee on the institution of a suit was re-
vived, and for a time this measure seemed to have the
desired effect. But although the subordinate judicial
agency had been greatly increased by the authorisation of
the registers of the courts to determine snits, and the ap-
pointment of duly qualified natives to decide on disputes
of small amount, the accumulation of business was only
temporarily kept down ; and it was found, at the beginning
of the new century, that such was the enormous number of
undecided cases on the files that many of the suitors must
wait years fora decision; and in one district it was said that in
the ordinary course of events some of them would hardly
live to witness the adjudication of their suits. The evil
was always admitted—always striven against. The judicial
agency was from time to time increased; but still justice
was in arrears. The judges despatched a greater amount
of business, but still there was an accumulation. The
fatal tendency of the people of India to rush into the
meshes of the law was not to be repressed.

This apology is ingenious ; but we cannot
allow it to pass. Fees on judicial proceedings
arc certainly one way of diminishing the num-
ber of litigants, and thus of bringing the quan-
tity of business to be despatched within the
working powers of the judges. But they
operate just as unfairly as would a law to the
effect that every litigant should draw lots for
his chance of being heard, and that only one
suit in every ten should be allowed to come
before the court. Nay, in this imaginary case,
the actual injustice would be even less, inas-
much as men bear more hardly the mischances
which they impute to their station in life than
those which arise out of simple accident.
Taxing suits with a view to diminish their
number is merely, as was once said in the
House of Commons, declaring that courts of
justice shall be open, like the London Tavern,
tsi every one who can pay his way. It is put-
ting into the hands of the rich an instrument
by which they may oppress their poorer neigh-
bours, unpunished and unchecked, except by
fear of public opinion, which in India scarcely
exists on such questions. We dwell on this
topic because the dearness of law remains
still, after half a century, one of the worst
blots on Indian administration. Ample details
are furnished in Mr. Norton's pamphlet, which
we cannot here stop to discuss.
Other objections have been taken to the re-
gulations not unfounded in truth, but of which
we make less account, because they apply
equally to any written code whatever. It is
said and Mr. Kaye rather favours the
idea that men accustomed to adminis-
ter a law in which the precise penalty for
every offence is laid down, so that the
operation of adjudicating becomes almost
mechanical, are liable to lose their inde-
pendence of judgment, and act as mere rou-
tiniers or formalists, dealing with the letter
rather than the spirit of the law. The argu-
ment is plausible, to a certain extent it is true;
but it admits of this reply, that the same
check which prevents the judge from admi-
nistering justice precisely according to his
own ideas of right, prevents him from adminis-
tering injustice. The public may occasionally
suffer, but on the whole it gains more than it
suffers.

The forty years which elapsed between the
reign of Lord Cornwallis and that of Lord
William Bentinck passed unmarked by any
important judicial changes. Meantime, abuses
had sprung up like mushrooms. Everywhere
the complaint of the present day was echoed,
" that the revenue department absorbed all
the ability of the civil se►vice, leaving none
for the Mofussil bench." The Provincial
Courts had come to be a mere refuse for the

A./0...+0 .

JULY 2, 1853.

destitute and idle. The gaol deliveries took
place only twice a year ; witnesses, prosecutor.
and prisoner being all left in attendance
meanwhile : in many instances a severer sen-
tence than any which the court was likely to
pronounce. Reform was greatly needed, and
in no respect more than in the utter inefficiency
of the existing police. Lord William took up
these questions vigorously. Many of his ex
periments failed ; against some the directors
remonstrated with success ; but the general
tendency of his acts was in the right direction.
and none of his successors have legislated with
equal boldness and success. The two great
changes which arts entirely due to him are,
the creation of a now Budder Court at Alla-
habad, and the employment of native judges.
In the latter respect his policy has l►eeu fol-
lowed to some extent by later g►►vernors, but
followed with a trembling hand. and in a spirit
far less liberal. Nothing can be more illusory
than the sham statistics so frequently quoted
by India-house advocates on this subject. A
mere per-cottage of all causes tried proves
nothing as to the amount of responsibility and
duty thrown upon native judicial officers.
That these officers require careful supervision
we believe ; but we believe also that the impu-
tations cast upon their honesty are in great
measure undeserved, and that, where they rest
on any fi►undation of truth, the cause lies in
the insufficiency of the pay as compared with
the power which these functionaries receive.
As regards the police, Mr. Kaye's opinion is by
no means favourable. He shall state it him-
self:—

About this time a further attempt was mule t►► improve
the general efficiency of the machinery of criminal justice,
by the elevation of the superior Haiti( e police officer►, known
a►" I►arogaha." Their salaries, which had been inexpe-
diently low, were now considerably raised. Rut they still
continued inadefinate to the required end ; and the depart-
ment of police still demanded the most vigilant superin-
tendence (tithe European officer to restrain it front bccom-
ing a mighty engine of injustice and oppression. Fruu►
the very first mar administmtots had contended in vain
against this gigantic evil. the evil of a corrupt police—a
police eontintudly in league with the greatest erimiteds in
the eountry, receiving their pay, sharing their spoils.
screening their offences, and probably carrying off i tttt (went
men to the magistrate's court, in their stead. From the
time when, in 179_, lord Cornwallis, declaring" the estab-
lishment of an efficient ►llee throughout the country,
whereby offenders may be deprived of all hopes of eluding
the pursuit of the officers of justice," to be " as essential
towards deterring iteople from committing crimes as the
slowly and impartial trial of 'Menders when apprehended,"
had ts ken the mansgement of the police ' etliately into
tiovernment hands, we have been endeavouring to secure
the services of a well-organised detective force : but con-
tinually acknowhslging that this very police is the weakest
point of our administration. If the remedy haul been as
apparent as the disease we sl 11l soon have eradicated the
latter. But clime in India was so vast, and its organisation
so intricate, that it seemed hopeless to construct out of
such materials a police force really effective for the pro-
tection of the country.

The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir
Edward Lytton Barrer, Bart. Vol. 111.

Loudon : Chapman and Hall.
Tins volume of Sir Edward Lytton's collected
poetry contains the tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth cantos of " King Arthur," a variety of
miscellaneous pieces grouped under the title
of" Corn Flowers," and several of his juvenilia,
the latter being curious illustrations of the
gradual formation of his carefully-cultivated
mind.

The poetry of Sir Edward Lytton presents
at the same time to the metaphysician and
the critic an interesting subject for study and
analysis. Displaying all the qualities which
have made his name classical, his poems have
not produced an effect corresponding to the
triumphs he has achieved as the most versatile
and artistic of living writers of fiction. Pro-
fusely endowed with fancy, unrivalled as a
mechanician in literary art, and with vast
resources as a stylist, he might, ill our
opinion, make his poetical utterances more
popular and captivating to the general ear.
In an age with a multitude of readers, his
Muse has addressed herself to that aristoemey
of elevated minds who can translate symbols
and apprehend subtle meanings and recondite
allusions. It has been thought by some that
his temperament is not sufficiently emotional
for the afflatus of poetry ; but we regard that
Opinion as little more than the mere cant of
criticism. Vulgar and coarse, indeed, though,