* 250 MALAY SLAVERY LAW. : 
notwithstanding that their labour was forfeited to the master’s . 
service. 
The system of detaining persons in servitude as long as a 
debt for which they are liable is not discharged is very gene- 
rally spread among the Malay races of the Archipelago. 
Through injustice and oppression it has been productive of 
peculiar hardship in Perak. Crawrorp, in 1820, noticed the 
custom in the following passage :—— 
‘Tf a debtor is unable to pay his creditor he is compelled to 
serve him until the debt bedischarged, and heis then nearly in the 
condition of a slave. Every man has his fixed price, and if the 
debt exceed this, he either loses his liberty altogether or his 
family are compelled to serve the creditor along with him.” 
“he following two laws of Malacca have reference to this 
practice :--If a man be in debt to such an amount as to exceed 
his estimated price in the country, then it shall be lawful for 
his creditor to punish him by stripes or abusive language ; but 
after the manner of a free man, and not of slave. If aman 
deflower a virgin that is his debtor, he shall be compelled either 
to marry her or forfeit the amount of the debt.” * 
This universal custom is more distinctly expressed in the 
laws of Sumatra, as collected by the officers of the British 
Government. “ When a debt,” say these, “becomes due and the 
debtor is unable to pay his creditor, or has no effects to deposit, 
he shall himself, or his wife, or his children, live with the cre- 
ditcr as his bond-slave or slaves until redeemed by the pay- 
ment of the debt.” 
Among Rawa Malays of Sumatra (many of whom are 
settled in Perak ) it is, | am assured, customary to detain a debt 
bondsman for two years only. At the expiration of that time 
the debt, if not paid, remitted as alms. 
By Perak Malays, on the contrary, the national customs, 
when favourable to the debtor, have been openly disregarded, 
and every kind of oppression has been practised. 
Notwithstanding the existence of a well-defined custom that 
the wife and children of a debtor should not be lable for his 
~ * History of the Indian Archipelago, III, 97. 
