428 
DECISION OF JUDGE. 
MODE OF PROCEDURE WHERE WITNESSES ARE 
NOT PROCUR ABLE. 
It is in Siam, as in every despotic country, that not only guilt hut 
its semblance is punished, without much regard to proof. 
In criminal cases, in general, where the presumption of guilt is 
great, and witnesses’are not. procurable, the accused suffers corporal 
punishment, 30 strokes of the rattan being inflicted on his back three 
several times unless he confesses,; should he bear the number patiently 
and without confessing the charge, his accuser undergoes the same 
operation, an admirable mode for preventing false accusations, but 
radically unjust as applicable to specific cases. 
In all criminal cases, with exception of treason and rebellion, the 
offender alone bears the whole burden of guilt. 
But in these latter instances all the members of a family generally 
suffer for the delinquency of one and are made slaves, their property 
being confiscated, or they are slain indiscriminately. 
Confession in minor criminal cases'mitigates punishment. 
The king of Siam pretends to he the father of his people and out 
of the tender mercies of a parent sometimes flogs these his adopted 
children to death. 
But any one of his officers who undergoes such parental chastise¬ 
ment, and recovers, is not considered to have been disgraced by the 
infliction 1 
DECISION OF A JUDGE. 
This chapter will be now concluded with a judicial case extracted 
from the Bali and consequently attributable to a Hindu code, but 
which is merely considered by the Siamese as an amusing passage,, 
not as a precedent. 
Pjhraramaneechan, a Brahman, having gone to a house in the vi¬ 
cinage of his own to ask for some provisions found that the muster 
had gone abroad. But his wife duly and religiously presented food 
to him. It happened however that in her haste to descend the 
stair she fell, and being with child a miscarriage ensued ; in the 
meantime her husband returned, and observing the mischief which 
