Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/34

26 THE Alcoran is to the Mahomedans at once the source of their religious institutions, of their civil law, and of the administration of justice in criminal cases. The two first of these heads have been as copiously commented as in any religion or government whatsoever. THE Mulla in Indostan superintends the practice and punishes the breach of religious duties, the Cadi holds courts in which are tried all disputes of property, and the Catwal is the judge and executor of justice in criminal cases. AN accurate description of the functions allotted to the Cadi and the Mulla, would require a volume, which we have not materials to furnish; and if furnished, this volume woidd leave us but imperfectly informed of the general administration of justice in the cases supposed to fall under the jurisdiction of these officers; since the sovereign or his delegate perpetually wrests all kinds of causes from the common forms of trial, and decides them himself without appeal. Some notion of the Catwal is given by Mr. Thevenot: the punishments inflicted by this tribunal, are different from those prescribed by the Alcoran; from the precepts of which the Catwal likewise deviates in exercising the torture, and it contradicts them, in being always open to bribery. WE see in those parts of Indostan which are frequented by the European nations, the customs or laws which regard lands subject to contradictions, not easily reconcileable. The husbandman who possesses a few fields has the power of selling and bequeathing them, at, the same time that the district in which these fields are included is annually let out by the government to a renter, who pays a certain sum of money to the lord of the country, and receives from the cultivator a certain part of his harvests. The renter sometimes quarrels with the husbandman, and displaces him from his possessions: clamours as against the highest degree of injustice ensue; the prince interferes, and generally redresses the poor man, who has so much need if support in such a cause of misery; and if he fails to give this proof of his inclination to justice, he is held in execration, and deemed capable of any iniquity.