14 Mr. Mayne on the Administration of Native Law 



more irrational than children, were, in matters of secular 

 life, as shrewd and practical a race as the world could show. 



But a farther fact, as important as either of the foregoing, 

 was this, that in matters of daily civil right the Englishman 

 felt at liberty to be guided by his own common sense. He 

 no longer felt that the questions submitted to his considera- 

 tion were matters upon which it would be an insult to his 

 own understanding to attempt to form an independent 

 opinion. He returned from fairyland, and decided as a man 

 adjudicating for men. Very high authority could be pro- 

 duced from Native treatises to show, that the contest betweeif 1 

 creditor and debtor should be carried on with the formalities 

 and sequences of International Law. The creditor was first 

 to make strong personal representations of his rights. He 

 was then to resort to the moral pressure of mediation. If 

 this failed, he might make reprisals upon his debtor's goods, 

 and if even this did not bring the defaulter to reason, he 

 might (if strong enough) " having tied the debtor, carry 

 him to his own house, and by beating or other means com- 

 pel him to pay." But we may be sure that such citations 

 would have had little weight with a European Judge, who, 

 as Police Magistrate, was responsible for the peace of his 

 district, and who, in his private capacity, had a favourite 

 Arab, which might be about an equivalent for his own debts 

 in the bazar. 



There were, however, some Hindu laws and customs, 

 which were at once too anomalous to be recognized, and too 

 deeply rooted to be either ignored, or overthrown by mere 

 judicial decision. The practice of sitting dharna, according 

 to which the creditor enforced payment of his demand by 

 starving himself at his debtor's doorfa,), was forbidden by an 



(a) It will appear on the publication of the Brehonlaws that this prac- 

 tice also prevailed among the most westerly members of the Aryan race, 

 namely the Irish Celts. — W. S. 



