Page:Madras journal of literature and science 3rd series 1, July 1864.djvu/40

28 ments were criticised from a chronological point of view, the mutiny was quelled, and wills in the Madras Presidency are now placed on as firm a footing as they are in Bengal. And so an important social revolution was effected by a combination of chances, at least as unlikely as those which brought about the torpor to which Mr. Kinglake ascribes the Sebastopol expedition.

The result, then, of this long discussion seems to be that two problems press for a solution. We want to know what the law of the people really is, and what they wish it to be. The first presents little difficulty. The most important law-treatises are at present translated, and all others of admitted authority, such as the Smṛiti Chandriká and the Sarasvatî Vilása, should be published in the original with English translations interpaged. On collating these it would probably be found that the books of each school of law coincided in the main, but that they differed in minor particulars, and that each of them laid down various rules which would at once strike the mind as being obsolete or incapable of being enforced. A good many of these points, again, would be found to have been expressly adjudicated upon. Still a certain residuum of doubt would remain, and this ought to be made the subject of enquiry, by circulating questions to persons of learning—and experience, such as Judges, Native and European, Paṇḍits and others whose opinions would carry weight. The answers obtained might either be made the basis of legislative enactments, or might by their own force as responsa prudentum settle the law.

Some steps of this nature seem peculiarly necessary with regard to those parts of the country which are governed by unwritten local usage. It is to be feared that the Natives of such places have often been condemned to live under local usages, of which no one had ever heard till they arrived