JUDICIAL PROCEDURE IN GOA 



clothing. The monsoon is very strongly felt here, the rain- 

 fall being 150 inches, while at Castle Rock, halfway between 

 Dharwar and Mormugoa, it is as much as 300 inches ! 



Mormugoa, Old Goa, with Panjmi, its modern head- 

 quarters, as well as the whole district under Portuguese 

 jurisdiction, are all extraordinarily out of date, more 

 especially in the matter of legislation, and judicial pro- 

 cedure, the Goanese (pure Portuguese * are very rare), 

 though very courteous and pleasant people, being tenacious 

 to an extreme of their ancient rights and dignities. 



The prisons are usually so full that many convicted 

 criminals who should be undergoing imprisonment, are 

 allowed to roam at large and live where they please, their 

 only obligation being to report themselves at stated 

 intervals to the officials. As an example of this quaint 

 method of dispensing justice, I quote the following incident: 



An employee of the S. M. Railway, who lived by the 

 seashore at Mormugoa, found a heap of putrid fish being 

 piled up by some natives close to his bungalow. He 

 asked them to remove it, but they refused, and continued 

 adding to it daily, till at length the odour became so 

 intolerable that he had it removed himself and thrown 

 into the sea. 



The owner resenting his action had him summoned, 

 and because he did not appear at once, caused him to be 

 arrested, then, instead of allowing him to settle the matter 

 out of court by paying compensation, he was forced to 

 undergo a lengthy, expensive, and irksome trial lasting 

 many days. 



One of my friends, a railway official, who was called 

 on as witness and was also representing the Railway 

 Company, was put to the greatest inconvenience, being 

 cooped up all the time more like a prisoner than a witness 

 and obliged to take all his meals in the tiny Court-house, 

 the atmosphere of which in the damp climate was perfectly 

 intolerable. 



Though when questioned his replies were mostly 

 monosyllabic, he was amused to find his answers all being 

 rendered by the interpreter into long flowing sentences, 

 without protest or remark from either the judge or advocate, 

 but subsequently discovered that the latter, who took 



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