THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. 
273 
great educational work of the central authority, 
a natural feeling of dissatisfaction arose as to the 
basis of the legal and constitutional code. The 
old disregard of human life, and the terrible 
oppression exercised by corrupt and rapacious 
administrators, were dealt with summarily, and 
we have good authority for saying that the 
statute book of Madagascar will now compare 
favourably with that of many European countries. 
Capital punishment, only two generations back 
so fearfully frequent, is now restricted to those 
crimes for which alone it is decreed in our own 
country, and the slave even has rights now which 
are secured to him by judicial authority. The 
entire constitutional proceedings have been so 
modified, that the Government may be really 
described now almost as a “limited monarchy.” 
The will of the sovereign is respected, and even 
reverenced ; but the old idea of “ the divinity 
which doth hedge a king” no longer influences 
the Malagasy, although once so strong with them 
as to amount to a kind of superstitious adoration 
of even the belongings of their monarch, or the 
utensils from which he ate. The people have a 
voice in all great national questions, and the 
person of the king or queen is accessible at all 
times to the higher authorities and officers of 
rank, who enjoy the royal confidence, and are 
always consulted in matters of State. 
s 
