OATHS — SE^F-MCRDER — PERJURY. 



275 



expurgation is, however, too repugnant to common 

 sense and English law to be tolerated. The latter 

 wisely removes this temptation to false b wearing. 

 1 recollect an instance of feeling" somewhat akin io 

 this. Two soldiers, natives of Bengal, who had been 

 iniimate friends, had a slight quarrel ; one of them 

 who thought himself aggrieved, deliberately shot 

 himself through the body close to where I happened 

 to be seated, and on my inquiring* the cause of 

 auch a rash act, be quietly replied that he desired 

 that his blood should lie on the head of the person 

 who had offended him : he dien expired. 



Generally considered, it is to be suspected, thai, 

 in the case of mahometans who are dei*ts — .of Ilhi- 

 <b>os »>f India, wh * arc blind poh flu ids — ,f li * >'M- 

 bists, who are a sort of atheists, and also materialists 

 in some degree, and of the mass which has embraced 

 ."several anomalous supei>titiona branching off from, 

 or existing independent of, these— that conscience is 

 satisfied by the jesuistry of striking a balance betwixt 

 perjury and religious zeal. Faith, in a mussulumn, 

 varnishes over more sins than the most charitable 

 or moderate men of European sects could desire in 

 their most sanguine mood. The fanatic has only the 

 power of looking objects in a camera obsctaa t 

 distorted by false light. 



Were oalhs to be dispensed with amongst the na- 

 tive population of the Straits, the last would proba- 

 bly gain instead of losing thereby. It can hardly be 

 ft inbttd that the sanction is nullified by the opera- 

 tion of two things: either that those who submit to it 

 would speak the truth without it, or that those who 

 would deliberately assert a falsehood without it, 

 would not be restrained by an oath from so doing. It 

 is only, it is" to be supposed, because a scale of pu- 

 ttiaUmenft suited to the degree of enormity of the per- 



