Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/378

 Reminiscences of the Mafassal Law Courts of Bengal. the country. He has no counterpart in America, but he bears some resemblance to the old pettifogging and ignorant at torney with a few common points of prac tice at his fingers' ends — a race now extinct. He is the first recourse of the litigant who wants advice cheaply. Both the certificated "Muktar" and the empiric prowl about the purlieus of the courts in swarms, grabbing at every client that has any kind of lawbusiness in hand. Then a traditional and stereotyped mode of helping a client, and, as they think, improving his case, is by sup pressing some facts and adding others. Every witness, before he is allowed to go into court, is well drilled and taught, and has practised his evidence before them till he is believed to be tolerably safe. Unfortunately the necessity of improving their case — more especially perhaps, when it happens to be a very simple one — is so thoroughly rooted in the imaginations and habits of native liti gants, that the " Muktar" would stand little chance of getting on in his profession if he neglected or was above this mischievous trick; and the idea of winning a case by telling the simple, unvarnished truth has yet to be realized by the public. The conse quence is that a magistrate has sometimes to decide in favor of a litigant who, with every one of his witnesses, has perjured him self. Some magistrates say that they can readily detect when a witness is speaking untruth, but though I believe this to be to a great extent true, it helps little to the arriv ing at a just decision, to the unmasking of the whole deceit, or the discovery of the true state of facts. The " Muktar " often con ducts the case himself in the magistrate's courts. His chief aim there is to impress the client with his energy and zeal; and consequently every technical objection, how ever microscopic, is raised, and the patience of the magistrate is frequently strained be

339

yond judicial endurance. In cross-examina tion his efforts are chiefly directed to mak ing the witness contradict himself — which, as I have already observed, is not always of much importance in influencing the decision of the Bench — and it generally ends, after many irrelevant questions, by his being sum marily told to stop and sit down. In most cases the " Muktar" choses the advocate or pleader for his client, and he is not always above doing a little smart prac tice for himself at that time. He will some times, when his client is not able to look after him, pretend to have retained a junior pleader on a much smaller fee, pocketing the difference himself. Or he will, having retained the advocate at a fixed fee, debit his confiding client with just double the amount, so that he gets sometimes a good "haul " out of the case. In many instances, though, he is wretchedly paid, taking just what he can get. Nor do I mean to imply that there may not be some very honorable exceptions among the class. He has often the sole conduct of the case in the prelim inary stages, and, as often as not, the advo cate or pleader finds his services have been called in when some hideous blunder has completely or almost destroyed the chances of success. He has, as a rule, the first word with the client, and has the general conduct of the legal business, whether contentious or not, of certain regular clients, for whom he also registers documents, and gives all the information he can at the various stages of progress through which the business goes. He is, in short, the legal agent or servant of those wealthy natives, of whom it may be literally said that the business of their lives is the endless litigation they have in the courts, men who are never free from light contention of some sort. Sometimes where he instructs advocates or pleaders he as sumes a knowledge which he does not pos