in the Courts of the Madras Presidency. 15 



enactment of 1795. Widow-burning was first made criminal 

 in 1829. Slavery was abolished by an Act of 1843. An Act of 

 1850 provided that change of religion or loss of caste should 

 no longer be attended by forfeiture of civil rights. Finally 

 an Act of 1856 did all that legislation can do in favour 

 of widows' remarriages, by declaring them vaJid, and by 

 enacting that after any such remarriage the widow should 

 forfeit no rights which she had formerly possessed, except in 

 respect to property derived from her first husband. 



On the whole then it may be laid down, that with the 

 exception of one class of cases, viz., those of a purely caste 

 or religious character, the administration of Hindu and Mu- 

 hammadan law in this Presidency has conformed to the first 

 canon which I have ventured to propose. It has maintained 

 as much of the Native law as was necessary, for the preser- 

 vation of the Natives' national individuality, and no more. 



It is certainly curious that those who framed the Charter 

 of the Supreme Court, and the Mofussil Regulations after 

 them, should have fancied that all the Natives subject to the 

 East India Company were included in the terms Muhamma- 

 dans and Hindus ; or, as the Charter, absurdly calls them, 

 Muhammedans and Gentoos. Parsees, J ews and Armenians, 

 and all those aboriginal Hill-tribes who are as different from 

 the A'ryan Hindus, as an ancient Basque from a modern 

 Parisian, are passed over in utter silence. Practically our 

 Courts would in any given case be willing to allow them the 

 benefit of their own laws, if they could be ascertained. But 

 they are unascertained, and by ordinary research unascer- 

 tainable. The three former of these classes are remarkable 

 for their desire to assimilate themselves to the English, and 

 probably the simplest plan would be to place them under the 

 English law as it is applied in India to British subjects. 

 As to the Hill-tribes, they are probably not likely for some 

 time to come under judicial notice except as criminals. As 



