SARAWAK, PAST AND PRESENT. 345 



Criminal cases are tried by jury, but there are no lawyers in the 

 territory, and no elaborate system of loop-holes known as "legal 

 precedents," whereby error is systematically perpetuated and jus- 

 tice perverted. 



The Sarawak murderer is certain to meet his just deserts, and 

 quickly, for the native juror has not yet acquired that degree of 

 civilized intelligence which would enable him to find a verdict of 

 " not guilty " for a wilful and brutal murderer. A short residence 

 in some of our more enlightened States would be a revelation to 

 their simple minds. In Sarawak it is the barbarous custom to hang 

 murderers as soon as their guilt is proven, instead of keeping them 

 in confinement and trying them again and again at great expense, 

 or putting them in prison to be pardoned out on the Connecticut 

 plan. Sarawak has very few laws, but "a heap of justice," which 

 is cheap, speedy, and of prime quality ; in all of which she is the 

 opposite of every other civilized country in the world. In Sarawak 

 no innocent man is convicted and no guilty man escapes. To most 

 of my countrymen this statement may sound preposterous and ab- 

 surd, but to any one who can imtigine a country absolutely without 

 lawyers to shield criminals and thwart justice, or "legal precedents" 

 and " technicalities " to convict the innocent and acquit the guilty, 

 the assertion is, perhaps, not beyond belief. 



Sir James Brooke's success was very largely due to the liberality 

 of his views on all political matters. When he framed the primary 

 code of laws for the government of his distracted little country, he 

 pleased the Mohammedan Malays and disarmed the suspicions of 

 their priests by incorporating in it many of the precepts of the 

 Koran. He was extremely tolerant of harmless native prejudice. 

 The dignity and candor of his character, his fii-mness and courage, 

 and his devotion to justice won the respect, confidence, and even 

 affection of the better class of Malays and all the Dyaks, save those 

 who were professional pirates. The latter soon had good cause to 

 fear him, for, with a large force of Dyaks, aided by Captain Keppel 

 and other officers of the British navy, the pirates all along the north 

 coast were thrashed into peaceful agriculturists, and their depreda- 

 tions stopped forever. 



Sarawak is a model of good government. It has already been 

 stated that the people are peaceful and prosperous, and that life is 

 secure in all parts of the country. With a revenue, in 1879, of 

 $229,302, the rajah managed to maintain a civil list which included 

 about twenty picked European officers and a host of Malays ; a mill- 



