in the Courts of the Madras Presidency. 17 



made by the Hindus within the last century, have been 

 caused by ourselves, and as the tendency of these advances 

 has been to assimilate the Native to the Englishman, it fol- 

 lows that whenever a blank was found in the Native law, it 

 could be at once supplied by a chapter out of an English 

 text-book. Nor did our Indian Judges ever shrink from 

 adopting this principle, though they were not always happy 

 in the way it was carried out. A great deal of so-called 

 English law will be found in the Sadr Reports of the last ten 

 years. But, by some singular fatality, it seems in general to 

 have been introduced into India, on the same principle as 

 that on which uniforms are exported to the colonies — ^because 

 they have been cast off at home. Champerty and Estoppel, 

 which had long since fallen into disfavour in Westminster, 

 have been absolutely petted in Madras. Oral evidence has 

 been pronounced inadmissible, (not merely untrustworthy) 

 to an extent which goes beyond the strictest requirements of 

 the Statute of Frauds. Ignorant Natives have been held 

 bound by what they had said, and even by what they had 

 not said, in their pleadings, with a rigour surpassing that of 

 Baron Parke in his sternest moments. This current of deci- 

 sions set in about the time that the Sadr Court was first at- 

 tended by a professional Bar, and no doubt the two facts 

 were connected as cause and effect. I have no doubt that 

 the presence of the Bar was, on the whole, of the greatest 

 benefit in the administration of justice. But it is certain 

 that when professional advocates practise before unprofes- 

 sional Judges, the tendency is to cause technicality of deci- 

 sion. Without the least wish to mislead, the pleader natu- 

 rally presses those cases which make most in his own favour, 

 while the Judge, not clearly seeing the principle on which 

 they rest, or not having before him other cases by which 

 they are explained, yields, overpowered, as he thinks, by 



authority. When we remember, too, that in the majority of 



3 



