vice are now performed, the industrious: working for their idle brethren, it is next to impossible, that when he has once commenced his career as a Public Servant, he should find leisure for the arduous task. He must therefore, pick up by degrees what he ought to know from the beginning. The Lectures on the Regulations have long ceased to be delivered in College. Among the other economical retrenchments, the prizes to proficients in a knowledge of the regula tions and the prizes for Essays have been included in the proscription.

Government have lately offered a liberal reward for such high proficiency in the Sanscrit and Arabic languages, as shall enable those who obtain them, to consult in the original languages, the Hindoo and Mussulman law books. Would it not also be well to offer a reward yearly for the best Essay on subjects connected with the study of the Regulations and the administra

tion

tion of justice and the police of the country, and these rewards to be given not solely to Collegians, but to any one in the civil service whose Essays should deserve them?

For this long discussion on the defects and advantages of our present code, I shall not ask the indulgence of the reader; for, in the present chapter it was absolutely necessary. We shall now proceed with the subject of evidence.

CHAP.

CHAP. VII.

CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT OF EVIDENCE. -PERJURY.—DIFFICULTY OF ITS PROOF.-FURTHER FACILITY OF ESCAPE DURING THE TRIAL. -POWER POSSESSED BY THE NATIVE OFFICERS OF OUR COURTS.-INTRIGUES CARRIED ON BY THE FRIENDS OF THE PRISONERS.-DIFFIPROCURING EVIDENCE.-FURTHER

CULTY OF

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER AND RULES FOR THE EXAMINATION OF INDIAN WITNESSES.

THE more general rules of evidence, as laid down in the English law, and which are observed in India, ought to be known to every Judicial Servant of the Company: And from these general rules he will seldom, if ever, find it necessary to depart.

VOL. II.

L

The

young

The laid down in GILBERT's Law of Evidence, and more concisely and generally in BLACKSTONE'S Commentaries, BURNS' Justice, JACOB's Law Dictionary, and in almost every Elementary Treatise. I shall not take up his time by an abstract from these works, although the intention of the present Essay (to serve as a manual for young Civilians) might seem to require it; because GILBERT's Law of Evidence is very justly described by Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE as

writer will find them very fully

66

a work which it is impossible to abstract

or abridge, without losing some beauty, "and destroying the chain of the whole;" and because the other works are in the hands of every one. I shall only observe, that evidence should, in every case, be the best that is to be obtained: That on a trial it should be given in open court; but that this by no means prevents a Magistrate, (as in India is generally supposed), from privately examining witnesses: That to be a

competent

competent witness, it is only necessary that the person should possess common sense, -be of a competent age,—and of a character not infamous; and although on these last grounds of exception there have been many subtle arguments, yet, as Professor CHRISTIAN expresses it," the English "Courts have endeavoured to let the ob

jections go, rather to the credibility of "the witnesses than to their competency."

In India, where there are no juries, the Judges have to estimate the competency of the witnesses, as well as their credibility; and they will do well to regulate their conduct in this respect by that of the English Courts; for a witness unexceptionable, according to the Hindoo or Mussulman law, will not be found among a thousand. The evils of the Mussulman Criminal Code are in nothing more felt than in the matter of evidence.