Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/93

 tAWS. 79 rality, and commercial regulations, are incongru- ously mtermixed. I proceed to render some account of the arr rangements for the maintenance of order and tran- quillity, and for the administration of justice. We are fully prepared to understand what the charac- ter of these miat be from what has been already said on the subject of government. As in all rude periods of society, the chief, lord, king, or sovereign, under whatever name recognized, administers the law. In the smaller communities, he does so in person ; in the larger ones by delegate. The ad- ministration of the laws is, in fact, but a subordi- nate branch of executive government, conducted by one and the same hands. In the law terms used by the Javanese, accordingly, any injury offered to the persons or property of the king's subjects are termed injuries to him : Thus doso i^ojo-brono, literally the crime against the king's property, is theft ; doso rojo-iatUy meaning literally wounding the king, is wounding or maiming in general ; and doso rojo-pati, the crime of killing the king, is murder. In the larger communities, to save trouble, the usual expedient, in such cases, of law assessors, has been had recourse to. The sove- reign or his minister has his assessor, — the dele- gates of the sovereign, in the administration of the provinces, theirs, — and all the subdelegates of these, in a third or fourth series, theirs also, the prin-