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MALAY LAW IN NEGRI SEMBILAN. oe 
election, in troublous times the order in which the families 
stood for the election of the Chief had been taken wrongly. 
It may be understood how this disturbed the equanimity of the 
various families when the question of succession again had to 
be decided. First of all it was impossible to get the six fam1- 
lies to arrive at an agreement or an election. This being the 
case the question went on appeal to the Penghulu of Ulu Muar, 
who is an old man and imagined that with a British Officer in 
the State he could put in his favourite relation in the tribe 
regardless of families and be supported in so doing. The 
tribe however knowing that the constitution was being care- 
fully adhered to would not accept the Penghulu’s decision and 
the case went to the Dato’ of Johol who did not wish to inter- 
fere openly with the Penghulu of Ulu Muar and recommended 
that they should go to the Resident. The Raja was then con- 
sulted. He was of course indifferent as to who was elected 
Lembaga and the case was fully inquired into. One of the 
families had been missed over and the question was whether 
the chieftainship should return to that family and then go on 
or whether the order of the families should be proceeded with 
as if there had been no previous mistake. It was decided 
that what had been, had been (‘wang sudah, sudah”)and that 
the next family in order should take the rank. Directly this 
was decided and upheld there was no further trouble and in a 
few days all the families acquiesced in this being the best: it 
was then easy to elect the individual in the family to be 
_Lembaga. 
Nothing can be more dangerous in these States than for any 
one to practice what we call patronage. For instance, to say 
‘““T want this man as Chief. He is intelligent and he can read 
and write and I won't have this ignorant dirty looking indivi- 
ual.” Such action throws the whole system into chaos, and 
not only that but the intelligent reading and writing man 
imagines that he has more power than he really has because 
he has been selected above all others, regardless of custom, 
and before long the whole tribe is up in arms, generally justly, 
at his doings and he has to be dismissed. 
In Terachi, in 1887, there were two Penghulu. One of them, 
