18 Mr. Mayne on the Administration of Native Law 



cases, an English Barrister on one side was either unopposed, 

 or only opposed by a Native Vakil, the chances were increas- 

 ed that the scales of justice would not be held strictly even. 

 Then the bad decision of one day was made a precedent for 

 a worse decision the next, or a judgment, which was in itself 

 perfectly sound, was rested on reasons so unsound as to be 

 a fruitful source of evil. Any one who compares the earlier 

 with the later decisions of the Sadr Court, will, I think, be 

 struck with the superior power and independence of mind 

 shown by the former, whether they were right or whether 

 they were wrong. 



Fortunately the amalgamation of the Sadr and Supreme 

 Courts took place at a time when the creation of a new body 

 of law, for which no precedent could be found in the juris- 

 prudence of any other nation, was becoming a serious evil. 

 Since the 15 th of last August much of the redundant growth 

 of the previous ten years has been pruned away, and we may 

 feel assured that for the future, chapters left blank in the 

 Native Law will not be filled in from a corrupt text. 



The second want, which arises from the growing unsuita- 

 bility of Native law to the advancing condition of the 

 people, is one which our judicial, and even our legislative, 

 system is singularly unfitted to remedy. In every other 

 country the law, as enunciated from the Bench, almost im- 

 perceptibly adapts itself to the changing requirements of 

 the people. In England our Common Law Judges, without 

 legislation, and even in defiance of legislation, struck off the 

 fetters which hindered the transfer of land, when those fet- 

 ters ceased to be beneficial. After the common law had 

 become too much hardened to receive any further shaping, 

 the Equity Judges stepped in, and practically remoulded the 

 common law, by relieving against much of its rigour, and by 

 redressing evils which it refused to notice. But the Judges 



