NO. 47.— 1896.] EARLY LEGISLATION. 



95 



LEGISLATION IN CEYLON IN THE EARLY PORTION 

 OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.* 



By H. White, c.c.s. 

 In a few months' time a full century will have elapsed 

 since the English first occupied the maritime provinces of 

 this Island, Colombo having capitulated on February 15, 

 1796. Some are doubtless reckoning the commercial, some 

 the agricultural, some the educational, and some the moral 

 progress made during the century. 



In looking over the first volume of the Legislative Acts 

 of the Ceylon Government, a volume which embraces the 

 period from 1796 to the promulgation of the Charter in 1833, 

 it occurred to me that it would be interesting to note what 

 an immense gulf separates the legislation of to-day from 

 the legislation of that period, both in its form and in its aims. 



This volume contains 400 printed pages of Proclamations 

 and Regulations, as what are now called Ordinances were then 

 styled, many hundreds in number. Only thirteen of them 

 now appear in the latest edition of our laws. Some of 

 them were useful, some useless, a good many are amusing — 

 all are interesting. Let us examine some of them. 



In this volume we find Proclamations that might have 

 been issued by Cromwell, sumptuary regulations resem- 

 bling those of the Tudors and Stewarts, a police force that 

 reminds us of Dogberry and Verges, and Protectionist Acts 

 regulating the price of bread, mingled with minatory 

 exhortations to the people, which they apparently regarded 

 with philosophic indifference. 



By the Proclamation of September 23, 1799, torture 

 against persons suspected of crimes, and punishment after 



* A Paper on similar lines by Mr. J. P. Lewis, c.c.s., entitled " Dutch 

 Rule in Ceylon," appeared in the Ceylon Literary Register, Vol. III.,. 

 1888-89, pp. 850, 356, 364, &c. — B.. Hon. Sec. 



