238 Sir Joun D’Orxy’s Sketch of the 
most atrocious are held to be those committed upon the treasures or rother 
property of the King, of temples, or of' priests. 
Housebreaking, Highway Robberies, and those attended with Personal Duties. 
The most atrocious robberies, and necessarily the first mentioned, being 
reported to the King, are usually punished by whipping through the roads of 
Kandy, and imprisonment in a distant village in the country. 
Other robberies, which are not deemed of sufficient importance to report 
to him, are heardand decided by the Great Court, by the Adikars, and the 
several chiefs, and minor robberies by the provincial head men; and the 
offenders are sentenced at their discretion, according to their respective 
powers, to corporal punishment, imprisonment, or fine, all or either. 
But they sometimes escaped with no other punishment than imprisonment 
till they make satisfaction for the stolen property, and pay the fixed damages. 
It is an invariable rule that the robber must restore the stolen property o1 
its value to the owner, and except in petty thefts of’ fruits, vegetables, betel, 
&c., must pay fixed damages of thirty ridi, called Wandiya, and ten ridi, being 
double the sum which the owner is supposed to have paid to an informer for 
discovery, and which he recovers although there was no informer. 
Sometimes the chief recovers the property for the owner by imprisoning 
the robber in the stocks. Sometimes he delivers the robber to the owner, 
especially if he be a man of some rank, who has a right to bind, confine in 
the stocks, and beat him in moderation till his property or its value have 
been restored with damages, or security given. 
A fee or present is frequently promised before hand, and given by the 
owner to the person in authority, who has been instrumental in recovering it. 
If there be evidence which leaves no doubt of a prisoner’s guilt, and espe- 
cially if he be a man of bad character, the chief, and sometimes the person 
robbed, inflicts corporal punishment to extort confession of accomplices and 
discovery of property stolen, but they would be liable to severe punishment 
for ill treating a respectable and innocent person. 
If property found be disputed between the prisoner and the owner, and 
there is no proof, it is sometimes decided by oath at the temple. 
In cases of cattle stealing, the owner invariably recovers from the robber 
one head of cattle in addition to his own, or two for one, as well as the sup- 
posed value of the service of the stolen animal, for the period during which 
he was deprived of it, besides the damages of forty ridi above-mentioned. 
