Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/225

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WITH A STUFF GOWN IN THE MOFUSSIL. BY AN ENGLISH BARRISTER PRACTISING IN INDIA. MOFUSSIL, an Anglo-Indian word, de signating the up-country as opposed to the city, is the name given to the vast area of townships on which European civilization has not yet had time to imprint its veneer of shops and tramways, gas lamps, and conven tional streets, and where the kerosene oil tin is still practically the only visible and tangi ble sign that the Western civilization is abroad, save that little group of thatched bungalows far away from the native city's hubbub — dubbed a station — where the English rulers live. These few dwellings are almost always clustered round a court-house; there may be many courts, there may be but one, but among the dwellers in the bungalow there will surely be a barrister. It is apt to be forgotten when the question is asked, " Why do so many men still get called to the Bar? " that the Inns of Court provide counsel for the whole of the countries over which the British flag waves — the lands on which, ve are told, the sun never sets. At the well-known dinners which have to be eaten to qualify as a barrister, there may meet, at the same mess of four, the counsel who are to appear on behalf of the American, the African, and the Asiatic litigant, cheek by jowl with the man who has elected to re main and help his European countrymen in their home litigation. Your counsel is your true cosmopolitan. Many- men go to India from the Inns of Court, but most of them to the Presidency towns — that is to say, to conditions of legal life which are European in method and every thing else, save in " the strange sea change" that has come over the matter in litigation. One thing the barrister practising in the mofussil and he who seeks his fortune in the Presidency town have in common — er.ch

leaves his wig safely locked up in its tin box, and, though clad in his gown and bands only, is not denied audience. Thus, to describe the life of the counsel in the Presidency towns is simply to repeat the life of the home-stayer here, briefless and briefed — only out there the weather is hot. But the man in the mofussil is different; he may be a native, or he may be a European. Of the former who shall speak? He is a language and a law unto himself. The Eng lishman who goes up-country to practise at the Bar generally does so more or less by chance. In Calcutta and Bombay the Court language is English; in the mofussil depths it may be anything from Marathito Pushtuk, and this is a deterrent to the English born tyro. However, there are a number who do make the venture, from one reason or an other, and for a time expatriate themselves. The plunge over, the barrister finds himself in the heart of Central India, far from the use and wont of ordinary town life, the proud possessor of a number of bare, matted rooms and a large verandah, instead of chambers, with a native clerk. Word has gone throughout the bazaars of the native city that a new " Balister Sahib" has come from the great " Wilayet " the 1 lomeland. Counsel sits and waits for' briefs. His office opens out into the verandah where his " chuprassie " sits; he might wait forever. Solicitors there are none in the mofussil land; counsel's advertisement board, with his style and designation in English and vernacular, painted thereon and stuck up on one of the two pillars at the end of the drive up to the bungalow, is his only possible direct appeal to the multitude. However, that is quite enough; there is nothing the natives like better than litigation,