28 Mr. Mayne on the Administration of Native Law 



nlents were criticised from a chronological point of view, the 

 mutiny was quelled, and wills in the Madras Presidency are 

 now placed on as firm a footing as they are in Bengal. And 

 so an important social revolution was effected by a combi- 

 nation of chances, at least as unlikely as those which 

 brought about the torpor to which Mr. Kinglake ascribes 

 the Sebastopol expedition. 



The result, then, of this long discussion seems to be that 

 two problems press for a solution. We want to know what 

 the law of the people really is, and what they wish it to be. 



The first presents little difficulty. The most important 

 law-treatises are at present translated, and all others of ad- 

 mitted authority, such as the Smriti Chandrika and the 

 Sarasvati Vilasa, should be published in the original with 

 English translations interpaged. On collating these it 

 would probably be found that the books of each school of 

 law coincided in the main, but that they differed in minor 

 particulars, and that each of them laid down various rules 

 which would at once strike the mind as being obsolete or in- 

 capable of being enforced. A good many of these points, 

 again, would be found to have been expressly adjudicated 

 upon. Still a certain residuum of doubt would remain, and 

 this ought to be made the subject of enquiry, by circulating 

 questions to persons of learning — and experience, such as 

 J udges, Native and European, Pandits and others whose opi- 

 nions would carry weight. The answers obtained might either 

 be made the basis of legislative enactments, or might by 

 their own force as responsa prudentum settle the law. 



Some steps of this nature seem peculiarly necessary with 

 regard to those parts of the country which are governed by 

 unwritten local usage. It is to be feared that the Natives 

 of such places have often been condemned to live under 

 local usages, of which no one had ever heard till they arrived 



