( 87 ) 



(p. ix), no separate establishment is proposed; and in 

 Haidarabad (p. cxi) that no establishment would be ne- 

 cessary. 



LXXXVII. Thirdly, legal objections. Here, however, 

 . . such difficulties are advanced that 



they can scarcely be replied to. The 

 principles of English law are entirely absent from some of 

 the reporters' replies, and statements are advanced so utterly 

 incorrect, that it has appeared better to reply to them where 

 raised, and to give a short synopsis of what the British law 

 really is : only drawing attention to the fact that license 

 gives no right (p. lxiv), but is revocable at will. The Col- 

 lector of Puna remarks — no private rights really exist, but 

 that of prescription may be claimed (p. xlviii). Without 

 reference to such being invalid by the law of Great Britain, 

 I here give the observations of an officer in the North- 

 Western Provinces (p. civ) on this subject: — "The prescrip- 

 tive rights of the people will possibly require legislative 

 action, but it is quite time that the common-sense principle 

 was declared, once for all, that no people in the world, other 

 than savages, who do whatever pleases them, have a pre- 

 scriptive right to do anything which destroys or diminishes 

 a spontaneous source of food. The same principle has been 

 applied in the use of water and timber ; why should it not be 

 applied to so important an article as human food ? * * Pre- 

 scriptive right to do wrong things, or injudiciously exter- 

 minate a natural source of food-supply, has only existed 

 until now, because there has not been a Government strong 

 or civilized enough to control it. Thus ' suttee,' ' thuggee', 

 4 human sacrifices' were all prescriptive rights in their way, 

 and had, moreover, a certain amount of legal sanction, and 

 yet, because they involved loss of human life, they were very 

 rightly swept away, and so can this right of wanton de- 

 struction of human food be." Plights exist, according to the 

 Madras Revenue Board (p. xc), for people to catch fish how 

 they please in their own fields, a right not admitted by the 

 British law, but highly punishable ; even if such is legal, as 

 observes the Collector of South Canara, — " I cannot but think 

 that the time has arrived when intelligence should interfere 

 between ignorance and waste." Communal rights are ob- 

 served upon (p. lxxviii), as existing amongst village commu- 

 nities to fisheries within the limits of their own villages ; 

 whilst the Collector of Tanjur (p. lxxix) remarks that the 

 right to the fishery of all tanks, as well as village 



