1334.] On Slavery in Southern India, 246 



this traffic by sea, and that its more severe penalties supercede 

 those formerly established by the local Indian legislature. As con- 

 nected with this subject, however, I may be here permitted to point 

 out, that in any future Act of Parliament on the subject of India, a 

 modification of the Slave Act above mentioned is imperatively called 

 for. OiFences against it, by traffic in slaves by sea, may take place 

 in any part of the extensive coast, either on the Coromandel or on 

 the western side of the peninsula, under the Madras Government, 

 and by natives of distant provinces many hundred miles from the 

 Presidency. The removal of such persons, with the witnesses on 

 either side, from their own peculiar climate, as for instance, from 

 Maiabar to Madras, would be attended by an inevitable mortality, 

 similar to that of Europeans, if sent for trial to the deadly climate 

 of Sierra Leone : yet the Slave Act makes all offences under it, 

 even when committed by natives in the provinces, cognizable only 

 by the distant Admiralty, or Kings Supreme Court of Judicature, 

 confined to the Presidency itself, to the criminal jurisdiction of 

 which they are otherwise not amenable. The local provincial 

 courts, possessing power of life and death in matters of the highest 

 criminal jurisdiction, ought, as regards a breach of the Slave Act, 

 by natives in the interior, subject to their jurisdiction, to have p(^er 

 concurrent with that of the King's Court of Admiralty ; for to 

 carry into effect the law as it now stands in this respect, would, in 

 such cases, be no less inhuman than revoliing to the prejudices 

 of the people. Indeed, like ail laws at variance with the feelings of 

 the people, the Slave Act, as it now stands, must remain a dead 

 letter every where in the Madras territory, except at the Presidency, 

 until Parliament give power to the tribunals in the provinces to 

 enforce its penalties. In doing so, however, the punishment to be 

 annexed to the breach of its provisions in the provinces should be 

 proportioned to the punishment for other offences in the interior. 

 Death is there the punishment of murder alone; transportation is 

 the next grade of punishment, but never takes place except for 

 life, on account of the great civil forfeiture of caste, by which, in 

 India, it is ever attended ; and confinement in fetters, or hard 

 labour, for 14 and seven years respectively, alone are the punish- 

 ments equivalent to transportation from England, for these several 

 periods. 



In regard to food, clothing, employment, treatment and comfort, 

 there exists the greatest contrast between the domestic and agrestic 

 Slaves in the territories under the Madras Government. The 

 domestic slaves, confined principally to the Mahomedan families, 



