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    mystify the evidence fit their own will ; forged documents , eon ? - tradictory oaths can be supplied to suit any demand , and the judge know little of the matter , but what his native advisers choose to tell him . He cannot enter into the modes of living , and thinking , and feeling of the people before him ; he must take the version of their law which is offered ; where perplexed , he must

    decide at random ; where pretty sure of his case , he may * as likely as not , pronounce an outrageously unjust decision , through a misunderstanding of some figure of speech , or ignorance of some local custom . If dismayed at the accumulation of business , which he can never hope to dispatch , he turns some of it over to his native officers ; he hears on all sides of their partialities and op pressions , and finds that , through the process of appeal , all has to

    be done over again some time hence , while despair is crushing the spirits , and disaffection swelling in . the hearts of the subjects of this most paternal species of government . Even English law affords no resting place for the judgment of him who administers it in India . The regulations published from year to year by the local government , form a cumbrous and intricate mass , the portions of which sometimes appear as inconsistent with one another ,

    as with the Hindoo and Mahomedan laws , with which they are expected to coalesce , The resemblance of a jury , which once formed an imperfect safeguard to Indian clients , has degenerated into a mere instrument of arbitration . The Punchayet ( whose rpembers were jurors ) was formerly resorted to by parties in a suit , or government handed over causes to its jurisdiction ; but , for want of due supervision and responsibility , the Punchayet fell

    off ; and now , the most that can be made of it , is for each party to appoint one of its members , and the judge a third , to arbitrate ; and sometimes one arbitrator is agreed by the parties to be sufficient . The restoration of the Punchayet to its original functions , under such regulations as would secure the discharge of its duties , 48 one of the measures most insisted on by the Rajah , as tending to ameliorate the judicial grievances of the people . The thorough

    knowledge of the native character possessed by its members , their comparative freedom from liability to bias , and the great facilities within their reach , for the detection of perjury and forgery , would at once obviate half the evils of the present system . There would also be much fewer appeals , much less delay , and a much more

    efficient dispatch of business . If , in addition , a proper communication was established between this jury and the judge , so that they might mutually understand black to be black , and white white , few other difficulties would remain , but those which regard the intricacies of the law , and the character of the judge ; little considerations common to other countries besides India .

    As for the intricacies of the law , it may be pretty safely predicted that no judge , be his character , intellectual and moral , wliftt it may , will ev « r be able to compact the provisions of thres

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 611, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/35/