Page:Madras journal of literature and science 3rd series 1, July 1864.djvu/26

14 more irrational than children, were, in matters of secular life, as shrewd and practical a race as the world could show.

But a further fact, as important as either of the foregoing, was this, that in matters of daily civil right the Englishman felt at liberty to be guided by his own common sense. He no longer felt that the questions submitted to his consideration were matters upon which it would be an insult to his own understanding to attempt to form an independent opinion. He returned from fairyland, and decided as a man adjudicating for men. Very high authority could be produced from Native treatises to show, that the contest between creditor and debtor should be carried on with the formalities and sequences of International Law. The creditor was first to make strong personal representations of his rights. He was then to resort to the moral pressure of mediation. If this failed, he might make reprisals upon his debtor's goods, and if even this did not bring the defaulter to reason, he might (if strong enough) "having tied the debtor, carry him to his own house, and by beating or other means compel him to pay." But we may be sure that such citations would have had little weight with a European Judge, who, as Police Magistrate, was responsible for the peace of his district, and who, in his private capacity, had a favourite Arab, which might be about an equivalent for his own debts in the bazar.

There were, however, some Hindú laws and customs, which were at once too anomalous to be recognized, and too deeply rooted to be either ignored, or overthrown by mere judicial decision. The practice of sitting dharṇa, according to which the creditor enforced payment of his demand by starving himself at his debtor's door, was forbidden by an