The Evolution of Law. 129 



" admits of no expiation. To this principle may be traced 

 "the practice called dharna. The Brahmin proceeds to 

 " the door or house of the person against whom it is di- 

 " rected, or wherever he may most conveniently arrest him ; 

 " he there sits down in dharna, with poison or some instru- 

 "ment of suicide in his hand, threatening to use it if his 

 " adversary attempts to molest or pass him. He thus coni- 

 "pletely arrests him. The Brahmin fasts, and by the 

 '' rigor of etiquette the debtor also fasts ; and so they 

 " remain, until satisfaction is obtained. Failure is rare ; 

 " for if the arrested party were to suffer the Brahmin to 

 " perish by hunger the sin would lie forever upon his head." 

 It is said that this method of procedure '' has been put 

 '' under the ban of the British law, and chiefly survives in 

 " an exaggerated air of suffering worn by the creditor, who 

 " comes to ask a debtor of higher rank for payment, when 

 "he is told to wait." 



In Persia the man who is to fast sows barley in front 

 of the debtor's door, and sits down, with intent to stay 

 till the debt is paid or the barley grown so as to give him 

 bread. We do not know that any connection has ever been 

 traced between this and a similar custom which formerly 

 obtained in Ireland. 



Illustration of variations of law due to influences of race 

 and time is found in the history of the testamentary dis- 

 position of property. The idea that a man has the right 

 to direct the course which his property shall take after 

 his death is modern, and even now does not prevail in parts 

 of the East. In India, the theory of the native law is 

 that descendants receive the property of their ancestor in 

 trust for continued performance of the rites prescribed for 

 worship of ancestors. Essentially the same law held in 

 early Rome, and centuries passed before fiction and equity 

 so modified it that testamentary disposition became free. 

 In England lands could not be devised according to the 

 wish of a testator until the reign of Henry YIII. 



The growth of Criminal law is a subject of great 

 interest, rich in material for the investigation of the stu- 

 dent of comparative law. There is space here for but a 

 single point. The interference of the State in what 

 modern law calls crimes made its appearance late in history. 

 For generations, murder, theft and robbery were regarded as 

 private wrongs, to be settled by the method of retaliation. 



