cut open the forehead of a girl of his party with
her own consent, and in so doing very nearly
severed an important artery. Then the two
opposing factions entered counter charges against
each other, of exactly the same nature.

When a magistrate's district is compact, and
the villages are easy of acess, his best plan in
the early part of his career is to act the detective
now and then. The knowledge that his
habits are locomotive, and that he will pass
down upon a place unexpectedly, is a great
point in his favour.

I remember spending half a day, when new
to my work, in trying to find out where a man
lived. The question was, whether he could have
heard the falling of certain cocoa-nuts from a
tree, in a case for stealing the fruit? The
adverse party said he did not live in the
hut where he said he did live, and heard
the sound. As I could come to no satisfactory
conclusion by the evidence, I found
some excuse for adjourning the case till next
day; and that evening about nine, I quietly
proceeded to the place, accompanied by a guide
and an officer of the court, who had been kept
in ignorance of my plans, and summoned the
inmates. Out stepped my friend fresh from
his mat, and made his salaam. I then sent a
man up the cocoa-nut-tree, which was at some
distance, while I stood close to the hut, to
ascertain if the fruit could be heard falling.
Soon there was a "thud" on the sand, another,
and another, so those two points were established.
Nevertheless, the case eventually was
shown to be a false one. This mode of procedure
may seem very irregular to English lawyers; but
in a land where the European stands alone,
where the rule is that every witness deceives if
he can, and that no regard whatever is paid to
the solemnity of an oath, or rather an affirmation,
it is a very good way, occasionally.

In the district where I write this, my predecessor
once went to a remote village on judicial
business. On his way, a man of influence came
to him, and said that his granary had been
broken into on the previous night, the paddy
(or rice with the husk on) stolen, his watcher
murdered, and the body made away with. The
judge went to the spot indicated, and there he
found paddy strewn about and blood upon the
sleeping mats of the watcher. An information
was laid against certain parties, and inquiry
duly made. Subsequently it turned out that
the murdered man was alive and well, but in
concealment; that the paddy had purposely
been scattered about, and the blood sprinkled
on the mat by the informant. In fact, the whole
affair was a false and malicious conspiracy.

In the north of the island, when a murder
or any other crime was committed, I used to go
to the house of the suspected murderer, and
leave a polite message for him to come and be
hanged. He always came. The hanging was
another affair. The fact is, that in that district
concealment was very difficult, and the
attachment of the people to their homes and
families is such, that a man preferred standing
his trial and trusting to the glorious uncertainty
of the law, rather than abscond and leave his
country for life.

But it is in the long-drawn land case, extending
over two, four, six, ten, years, that the native
is in his glory. There it is that he finds full scope
for his powers of plotting and counter-plotting.
Does the plaintiff file a mortgage bond? Straightway
he produces a release. Does he sue on a
bill? Here is a stamped receipt. Is it a will
that he goes upon? The defendant has a
testamentary paper of a later date. Has he a dowry
deed of 1801? Here is a purchase deed of 1798.
All these documents are drawn up in due form,
and are made to assume a venerable appearance:
the notary uniting with that office the more
lucrative one of forger. I once committed a
gentleman of the profession for forgery. It was
proved that at the time the victim's name was
forged he was sitting on an inquest at some
distance; and it is generally held that no
one can be in two places at once; but the
jury thought otherwise, and acquitted the
prisoner; "a fellow feeling makes us wondrous
kind." I have before me a plaint for "the
307-1920th undivided share" of a small patch
of land, and I could give numerous instances of
hard-fought battles for minute shares in a single
tree worth from six to twenty shillings.

In spite of all this, happily, submission to
constituted authority is one of the characteristics
of Asiatics; however excited, and however
numerous they may be, a single European
magistrate may go with perfect impunity among
contending factions, and they will submit to his
commands like children.

I was roused one night by the intelligence
that there was a grand uproar at a seaport
about four miles from where I lived. The
Tamul seafaring men are splendid fellows—free
and independent in their bearing, broad-chested
and muscular, and when they do fight, it is with
a will. It appeared, subsequently, that there
were two parties, the "East Indians" and the
"West Indians." The Westerns wished to
proceed in due state by torchlight in a wedding
procession through the east-end, and the
Easterns said it should not be. They might
perambulate the west-end to their hearts' content,
but beyond their boundary, they should not
come. The East Indians rallied at their barrier,
towards sunset, with clubs and other weapons,
and awaited the course of events. They had
not to wait long. Soon the sound of the
clarionet and tom-tom are heard in the distance.
"Hark, 'tis the Indian drum!" Nearer and
nearer comes the procession, the bridegroom
seated in an open car borne on men's shoulders,
and behind him a closed palanquin. A halt,
and a parley by the torchlight. "What do ye
in the East Indian country ?" A reply. Then,
"No you won't." "Yes we will." "Will you,
then?" (The Westerns are all unarmed.)
"Yes; who are you that speak so proudly?"
says an Eastern to a Western chief, and aims a
blow at him. (It was an Eastern that began
it.) The Westerns step back, and open fly the