‘ 
194 VOLUNTEER POLICE FOR PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 
estate, arise from one source, 7gnorance, and can only be effectually 
cured by removing it. The system of village organization supplies _ 
the means of making a beginning in this work. ‘The attempts - 
hitherto made by Government to educate the Malays of the Pro- 
vince have failed, because the object aimed at was indefinite and 
too remote from their daily life and business. The Malays have 
already a large amount of valuable practical knowledge, well fitted 
to carry them successfully through life in a purely Malay country. 
The first step should be to add to it that business knowledge which © 
will adapt them to their present position as British subjects, 
Their first want is that of some plain elementary information about 
their duties in keeping the peace and suppressing crime, the powers 
and mode of arresting criminals, the positions and powers of the 
different officers and servants of Government, the rules relating 
to sales of Government land and assessment, the fees payable 
under the land, assessment and other regulations that affect them 
most closely, the effect of marriage and divorcee on rights to pro- 
perty, the mode of making wills, the division of the estates of in- 
testates, the maintenance of wives, the maintenance, custody and 
guardianship of children, as to what cases must be taken to a Ma- 
gistrate and what to the civil courts, what are the real powers of a 
Kah, &. They would also learn, what few of them know, that 
the courts are not shut in the face of those who are too poor to 
pay the usual fees. Short tracts in Malay, containing informa- 
tion of this kind, placed in the hands of the Katuas, ane supple- 
mented by occasional discussions with them and the vil lagers by 
the Magistrate when visiting the districts, would, I am certain, 
be valued by the Malays, and in time, give them a sufficient stock 
of useful knowledge to protect them from the more gross oppres- 
sions and exactions to which their ignorance now exposes them. 
In most of the villages one or more persons who can read are to 
be found. 
The first step having been taken and time given to make good 
their footing so far, tracts might follow containing some common ~ 
sanitary facts, shewing the advantages of eood - ventilation, of 
cleanliness in the kampong, house, dress and cooking, of vaccination, 
of drainage, that the proper place for dirt is not “under the house 
but under the eround at the roots of their trees; and while en- 
lightening them on these homely matters the opportunity might 
be taken to get the Katuas to set about the a adoption of. the 
sanitary provisions of the Conservancy Act and keeping the 
common village paths and drains in better order. . 
