AN OLD MINUTE BY SIR STAMFORD 

 RAFFLES, 



HE following interesting record was recently found 

 amongst some old documents in the Singapore 

 Treasury. It is signed by Sir STAMFORD RAFFLES, 

 and the concluding portion of the minute as well as 

 the final signature are in the handwriting of that 

 officer. The date is June, 1823, still legible as 

 when it was written, but the day of the date has been eaten 

 out of the paper. 



The Proclamation and the Minute which follows it may 

 accordingly be accepted as one of the first official utterances 

 of the founder of Singapore, after the transfer of the island 

 from the Government of Bencoolen to that of Bengal some 

 three years before its amalgamation with Penang and 

 Malacca. 



Apart from its intrinsic value as a state paper, this docu- 

 ment is interesting when we compare and contrast the pre- 

 sent state of our law r s with the provisions there indicated and 

 foreshadowed nearly seventy years ago. 



As the Minute is reprinted in extenso, I need only draw the 

 reader's special attention to the author's views upon gambling, 

 prostitution, registration of deeds, adulteration, the sanctity 

 of oaths, and municipal regulation, amongst many other points 

 touched upon. The doctrine of the liability of publicans may 

 raise a smile, but it is a theory which still finds support 

 amongst the apostles of temperance in England, where the 

 legal sanction of the publican's errors lies only in the hands 

 of the exponents of the licensing laws. 



