24 Mr. Mayne on the Administration of Native Law 



taken place in fact : and it was not till the case arrived in 

 the Sadr Court, that European Counsel took the objection, 

 that the alienation was invalid by law, and European Judges 

 held the objection to be fatal. I infer from this, that if it 

 had not been for the Sadr Court, the Native tribunals would 

 by this time have evolved a law, differing little, if at all, 

 from that of Bengal. There is no doubt that the Natives of 

 the Presidency town of Madras, have, for many years, been 

 in the habit of dealing with their property, with the sanc- 

 tion of the Supreme Court, in a manner which certainly 

 would not have been permitted by the Sadr Court. I do 

 not say that the Supreme Court was right according to the 

 Mitakshar&, but I am sure its decisions were consonant to 

 the wishes of the people, and to sound policy. Further, for 

 many years back the Sadr Court had two Pandits, of whom 

 the elder, whenever consulted, always gave his decision ac- 

 cording to strict Madras law ; the younger Pandit always, if 

 possible, according to Bengal law. This got to be so well 

 known, that the opinions of the latter on any point upon 

 which the two systems differed were invariably set aside as 

 a matter of course. But if the other Pandit had been of the 

 same reforming school, or if the Bench had not possessed a 

 J udge so skilled in Southern Law as Mr. T. L. Strange, and so 

 eager for its maintenance, we should probably, ere now, have 

 slid insensibly from the Mitakshara of Madras to the Daya- 

 bhaga of Bengal. And therefore I believe that the Ma- 

 dras Sadr Court has been preserving the purity of the law 

 against the wishes of the people, and that it has checked 

 the natural modification which the law would otherwise have 

 received. 



It is curious to trace the fate of Wills, as an instance in 

 which that modification was, by little more than an accident, 

 carried out. 



