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CHAPTER VUL 

 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



JUDICIAL 8c OTHER OATHS. 



Amongst the majority of the natives of all classes in 

 the Straits, truth, it is to be feared, is treated as a mere 

 abstract quality; which rises to the rank of a tempo- 

 rary virtue in proportion only as it can be rendered 

 profitable, whether perse, or by the greater degree of 

 value in the market which it may happen to give to its 

 opposite falsehood. But as truth is a virtue, the 

 want of which most of the long established religions 

 of the l ast have reprobated and denounced, so the 

 native who least puts it in practice, is loudeat in its 

 praise. A bias to truth has by some been deemed 

 natural to the human mind. Were such the case, it 

 is certain that the neutralizing" passions, where edu- 

 cation did not step in, would take from it the very ac- 

 cessaries which render it a virtue. Savages have 

 never been remarkable for any thing so much as a 

 disregard of truth, and the old remark, and the key 

 likewise to many anomalies in man's moral nature— 

 that lying is the defensive weapon of the weak — in 

 si Hue degree, accounts for this, and is a principle 

 which can betraced under the form of cunning through- 

 out a large portion of the inferior creation. Were this 

 natural weapon to be only employed against violence 



