ae 
ae oe P 
VOLUNTEER POLICE FOR PROVINCE WELLESLEY. Lode 
they have aitected to hold their appointments from the Government. 
They have assumed as much of the powers attaching to the office in 
Mahomedan countries as they have been able to do in the presence 
of the regularly constituted Courts and Judges of the Settlement, 
and considerably more, probably, than they would be able to justify, 
were the question of their legal position and powers soy 
brought under judicial consideration. Appointed in so irregular 
a manner, and, as judges, laxly tolerated rather than recognised, 
the office has been deprived of those sateguards by which the 
reeular administration of justice is surrounded. The Government 
from which they profess to derive their appointments does not 
select them or subject them to any test of fitness in respect of 
character or learning, and it leaves them without control. No 
public courts are provided for them, and they exercise their judi- 
cial functions in their own houses or in small specs edn to 
them, which they dignify with the name of Balai shara. Their 
jurisdiction having no legal foundation and_being male limited by 
the ignorance or seus scence of suitors, shifts with the require- 
ments of plantiffs, but is generally understood to be confined to 
cases between husband and wife, embracing suits by the husband 
for restitution of conjugal rights, and by the wife for maintenance, 
dower, co-habitation and divorce. The Kal issues summonses Ao 
defendants and witnesses under his seal. For all such process 
and its service and for his judgments, he charges fees to a con- 
siderable amount. Particular Kalis have, from time to time, been 
notorious among the natives for their corruption and extortion. 
“They have hired themselves to men colluding with wives to obtain 
divorces and marry them, or with the parents of young married 
women seeking to free their daughters from the ne ace bond 
in order to marry them to more wealthy suitors. in such cases, 
the first step is for the woman to go, or be taken, to the Kali, 
where a complaint of want of sufficient maintenance or other 
cause of divorce is entered; or a pretended divorce set up, and the 
husband summoned. Adjournments are made from time to time, 
and further evidence adduced and in the meantime the Kali re- 
ceives bribes from beth parties and beeps the woman in his own 
house where she has no protection against his criminal advances 
Cases are even said to have oceurred in which Kalis have pandered 
_to their own sons and to friends. It must be said that such practices 
do not excite the universal disgust and indignation which might be 
expected and which indeed would prevent their being long indulged 
in. An old lady, the wife*of the founder of one of the mosques at 
Permatang Bertam, who enjoys a high reputation for piety and strict- 
