Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/389

Rh affixing the seal, with a view to increase of emolument, or from other interested motives. In practice, it sometimes, perhaps often, occurs that a candidate for the cazyship is sent to be examined by the mufti of the court, and on his report the candidate is recommended by the judge. Evil arises from the non-residence of the cazies. They invest the whole of their authority in deputies, who generally purchase their situations and make as much of them as they can by the most unjustifiable and illegal means. The Mohammadan law officers of the sudder dewanny adawlut gave a formal opinion, when the subject was referred to them, that the cazies have no power to appoint deputies unless expressly permitted to do so, and such permission they never do receive.

My personal inquiries in the different districts I have visited confirm many of these statements. The frauds arsingarising [sic] out of the non-regulation of the office of cazy were brought very earnestly to my notice and made the subject of strong representation. I happened to meet with a munsiff who is also the cazy of two separate pergunnahs and who performs the duty in both by deputy; and I was informed of two others who were only twelve and thirteen years of age, respectively,—one of them being still at school pursuing his studies. They were stated to be brothers, the sons of a person who was the former cazy of both pergunnahs, and whom after his death they were permitted to succeed. The point, however, to which I solicit special attention is the character, in respect of learning, of the former race of cazies compared with that of the present race. It is maintained by Mohammadans of the present day that even pergunnah cazies under the former Government were invariably learned men, and that it was indispensable that they should be so to enable them with credit to determine questions of Mohammadan law. At present they are, with scarcely any exception, unlearned, although the name of maulavi is sometimes assumed where it is not deserved. In one instance only of those that came under my notice and inquiry was the cazy a really learned man. Their usual attainments do not extend beyond a knowledge of reading, writing, and accounts in Persian. I infer from the abuses and frauds which are connected with the office, if not promoted by the office-holders, from the case of the two boys who succeeded their father, showing that the notion of hereditary succession to this office is not yet eradicated; from the case of the munsiff-cazy acting by deputy, proving that the opinion of the Mohammadan law officers of the sudder dewanny adawlut is not enforced; and from the generally unlearned character of the cazies, establishing that the “legal knowledge” shown by Mr. Harington to be required by the regulations is not possessed; from these premises I infer that the office of cazy needs reform, and what I submit is that the reform which it may receive should, in addition to other objects, be made the means of improving the state of learning amongst the Mohammadan population.