324 THE laws Of THE INDIA# ARCHIPELAGO 
matter for regret is, that this indisposition to look the difficulties fair¬ 
ly in the face, coupled with the profession of administering the law 
in a liberal spirit, has had the effect of throwing a veil over a gTeat 
practical injustice,—the non-adaptation of the law, in some of its 
branches, to the personal feelings and habits of large masses of the 
people,—and thereby postponing the interposition of the legislature. 
For the truth is, that however well fitted, in the main, a considerable 
portion of the law of England is to the condition of a community al¬ 
most purely mercantile, (and more intelligent and intelligible as it un¬ 
questionably is than any Asiatic system that could be substituted for 
it,) it is, in some of its provisions, so irreconcileable with the habits 
of many classes forming the bulk of the population of Singapore, that, 
in its administration, these habits must continue to be disregarded, 
until a legislative remedy be provided. Unless the Court were to 
usurp legislative functions, to incorporate them with its administrative, 
it could not be more liberal in its regard to those habits than the law 
allows; and it would be a contradiction in terms to affirm that it could 
exercise that liberality at all in those cases where a just and tolerant 
spirit most Requires it,—those, namely, in which native suitors ask it 
to give effect to their usages because the law of England is wholly re¬ 
pugnant to them. 
To enable the legislature to interpose wisely and justly, it would be 
first requisite to ascertain, from the best available sources, what are the 
usages, and laws which have been embraced as usages, of every con¬ 
siderable class of the people, in relation to matters in which personal 
feelings are deeply concerned. It would then be necessary to enquire 
how far, with a view to the advancement of the people, and their gra¬ 
dual approximation to the higher civilization of Europeans, it might 
be expedient to deny all toleration to such of these usages as were 
manifestly and grossly inconsistent with the principles of natural jus¬ 
tice, and to merely tolerate others by restricting the interference of our 
Courts of justice with them. What remained of an innocuous arbi¬ 
trary character, and intimately connected with the social or personal 
virtues of a class, might be placed directly under the protection of 
the Churts by modifying the law, as regarded that class, so as to 
