Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



519 



LEGISLATION BY A SCRIBES MISTAKE, 

 ii is wfll known that Justices of the Peace are 

 continually exercising powers to take surety for good 

 behaviour from persons whose record is not suflicient 

 to justif\' imprisonment, who yet require to give 

 security for good conduct. An interesting paper in the 

 English Historical Review by C. G. Crump and C. 

 Johnson on the powers of Justices of the Peace brings 

 to light the curious copyist's mistake by which these 

 powers were supposed to be originally conferred. The 

 statute of 34 Edward III., passed to define the powers 

 of the justices of the Peace, especially in relation to 

 soldiers returned from the war, empowered them " to 

 take of all those who are of good fame, where they shall 

 be found, sufficient security and mainprise for their 

 good bearing towards the King and his people, and the 

 others duly to punish." Thus it is entered in the statute 

 roll. But in one of the books of the exchequer draw n up 

 in the fifteenth century the clause is altered : a " not " 

 is inserted so that the sentence reads : " to take of all 

 those that are not of good fame, sufficient security." 

 " The e.xchequer's scribe apparently hesitated to set 

 down that a person who was of good fame should be 

 called upon to find surety, and inserted the fatal not 

 in the hope of making sense of the passage." In any 

 case, his version of the statute was the one translated 

 into English in the great statute book of the realm, 

 which became a legal textbook. The " not " remained 

 unchallenged, and the power of the Justices of the 

 Peace to bind over persons not of good fame was based 

 upon it. Thus it is clear that " the undoubted power 

 possessed by Justices of the Peace to bind over persons 

 not of good fame to be of good behaviour, was conferred 

 upon them, not by the wisdom of the high court of 

 parliament at Westminster assembled in the thirty- 

 fourth year of King Edward III., but by an unknown 

 exchequer clerk, who made a blunder in his transcript 

 some time in the fifteenth centurv." 



ABOR MAN-TRAPS. 



It is quite possible to limit one's sympathy with 

 the aborigine, especially when he is an expert in 

 blood-letting. Our latest little expedition to the 

 Dehang River to avenge the death of Noel Williamson 

 was not marked by signs of protest, and we arc afraid 

 that the .Abors have few friends outside the area of 

 their own personal influence. 'I'hc author of " In 

 Abor Jungles " contributes an interesting article to 

 the United Sennce Magazine and describes the peculiar 

 methods of this warlike tribe : — 



No plai;t ill llic jungle depths, on the rivcr-li.ink or on the 

 mountain-side was so innocent in appeur.ince that it could not 

 conceal sonic eflcctlve reminder of the Abor methods of war- 

 fare. In the main thc-c traps look the form of shallow pits 

 lined with poisoned pangies— fire-hardened stakes of poinlc<l 

 bamboo, .iiid suflicicntly sharpened to pierce the sole of any 

 ordinary Loot. 



\ variaiiiin on the " foot. pit," as it was called, was an in- 

 genious ailaptaticn of the man-trap, fitted with ariows in place 

 of the cuMouiaiy nun. In this unwielily, thouyli pr-tiy reliable, 

 contrivance two hollow lengths of bamboo, each fitted with a 



poisoned arrow, were fixc<l in a bow which was fastened to 

 some bamboo growing conveniently near to a jungle path. 

 From the bow a length of bamboo fibre was carried across the 

 path at a fvw inches from the ground, and again at a slightly 

 liiglier elevation. This line was strung tightly, and in such a 

 way that the lightest touch on it released the spring which 

 discharged the arrows. 



THE INDIAN NATION. 

 DiscRlMlN.VTiNG politicians who are ready to yield 

 the claim of Ireland and tiny Wales to be considered as 

 separate nations will be interested in the claim made 

 by our Indian fellow-subjects through their mouth- 

 piece, the chairman of the last Indian National Congress. 



CHRISTI.-\NS WORSE THAN INDIANS. 



The Indian World gives full extracts from the speech 

 of the Honourable Babu Bhupendra Nath Basu, 

 whose home truths may not be palatable, but unfortu- 

 nately are incontrovertible. The present disestablish- 

 ment controversy cannot make edifying reading to 

 those who have taken due note that : — 



Not long ago Christian conimunilies in Europe were tortur- 

 ing and burning e.ich other for religious ditl'erences which led 

 to much greater mutual violence and recrimination than Islam 

 and Hinduism ever did in India, and at one time the ruling 

 dynasty of England lost its thrune because of the antagonism of 

 the faith of the monarch to that of the bulk of the people. The 

 bloody scenes which France witnessed on St. Bartholomew's 

 l'>e in 1572 have never been known in India. The Hindu and 

 the Mussalman have lived together in peaceful neighbourliness 

 for many centuries and have intermarried in the past. The 

 religious practices which a strictly neutral Government rightly 

 find it diflicult to meddle with and which create bad blood 

 between the ignorant classes on both sides are not such as to be 

 incapable of peaceful adjustment : the native states of India 

 where the Guveriiment is not hampered by the same considera- 

 tions as ours furnish an excellent object-lesson as to how the 

 Hindu and the Mussalman can live and work together in 

 harmony and peace." 



CASTE IN EUROPE. 



And the much-despised caste system of India is not 

 without its European imitators : — 



Sects have never acquired in India the acerbity of their 

 Western prototypes. Our Western critics have seen in the 

 connubial exclusiveness of caste a hopeless barrier to the 

 growth of the national idea. No .sensible person will defend 

 the system of caste as it obtains in India at the present day ; it 

 is undoubtedly an obstacle in the way of our progress, a source 

 of weakness in our social and political life ; 1 ut bad as it is, is 

 it fatal to the national aspiration of India ! Let us take other 

 countries. It is true that in Europe the same rigid connubial 

 law docs not prevail, but it would be safe to say that inter- 

 marriages between different strata of society, sometimes as 

 rigidly divided as cas)es in India, are not very common and are 

 certainly looked u|>on with disfavour. Vet such .social distinc- 

 tions have not hindered the formation and growth of the 

 national idea. With all its drawbacks, the constitution of an 

 Imliaii caste is absolutely democratic, and within its own fohl 

 the lowest is equal to the highest. 



This is turning the tables with a vengeance, and 

 reminds us that inhabitants of glass-houses should 

 refrain from throwing brickbats. It is, of course, 

 annoying that an imperial rare should be subject to 

 these odious comparisons, but we must remember 

 (paraphrasing Bacon) that our critics are our best 

 friends. 



