which it contains are the most favourable that have ever existed in any country, for authors and their families. They will encourage men of talent to compose great and serious works by the certainty that their families will possess in them for a long time an honourable patrimony.

"Dramatic works required a special regulation. They have in fact a double existence, that of representation and that of publication. In the latter point of view they belong to the class of other writings; but, as regards representation, it at first seems possible to give to the author and his heirs more than a temporary right. Here, in fact, the privilege of the anthor and his family would not cease for the benefit of the public, but would terminate only for the benefit of the theatres. Would it then not be just to prolong this right, and to attach it, as it were, to all the posterity of an author? But this regulation would bring with it all the consequences of a right excepted from the general law; and it would then be necessary to make the dramatic property of an author unalienable, and to entail it in the direct line. This, however, would restrict the author in the exercise of his own rights. If, on the other hand, this hereditary and unlimited privilege were transferrable by alienation, it would afford no secure provision for the author's family, and the descendants of a great poet might live in indigence by the side of a speculator enriched by their spoil. The Commission, therefore, has thought it better not to deviate from the common rule, but to render the law uniform, by limiting to fifty years, for representation as well as for publication, the exclusive right of the heirs of a dramatic author, and by leaving to the author himself the power of disposing of it.

"The productions of the fine arts are the subject of a separate title in the proposed law. The painter who procures his design to be engraved, and the sculptor who has a cast taken from his work, alone will have the right of multiplying the copies. This right will be transmissible to their heirs in the same manner as that in scientific and literary works. It has been considered that this protection might be granted by the law without any inconvenience. Inferior productions will not profit by it, and productions of real merit are worthy of it.

"No difficulty presented itself with respect to musical works: as regards both representation and publication, they fall necessarily under the rules already fixed for literary works.

"As the succession to an author's work may often be an object of considerable importance, it was necessary to determine the rights of the state in case of the failure of heirs. The solution of this question was not difficult in a law, the sole object of which was the protection of literature. It has, therefore, been thought that the state ought to give up its claim in favour of public competition, without prejudice however to the rights of the creditors of the author.

"To conclude, Sire, the benefit of a law emanating from your initiative power would not be complete, if the application of it were to be postponed to some distant period, and did not immediately come to the assistance of those whose rights are not yet expired. It has, therefore, seemed fit, Sire, that the law, at whatever time it should be presented, should apply to the then existing state of things, that it should leave to the public all works which should then have reverted to it, and should prolong the property of those authors, families, and grantees only, whose right should be still in force under the existing laws. This regulation which was necessary to render the proposed law complete, might offer some legal difficulties in its application. The commission has endeavoured to solve them in the

double interest of the authors and their grantees, by dividing between them, as it were, the benefit of the law.

"As the proposed law creates no new offence, but only gives a new extension to a property already recognized and protected by the existing laws, no penal sanction has been considered necessary.

"Such, Sire, is the general view of a law, the object of which is to realize an intention originating with your Majesty. The members of the Commission, who have applied themselves to the discussion of this work with as much minute attention as ardour, will be happy if the result of their labours shall appear worthy to promote the generous views of your Majesty, and to carry into effect your benevolent intentions towards literature and the fine arts."

DRAFT OF THE LAW VOTED BY THE COMMISSION.

"FIRST TITLE.

"Of the Publication of Writings by Means of Printing,
Engraving, or Lithography.

"Art. I. The exclusive right to publish, or permit the publication of a work by means of printing, engraving, or lithography, is secured to the author during his life.

"II. After the death of the author, the exclusive right of publishing, or permitting the publication of a work, shall last for fifty years in favour of his widow, heirs, legatees, or donees;-the whole conformable to the rules of the civil law.

"III. The extension granted by Art. II. shall not take place, except subject to the obligation of reprinting within twenty years from the death of the author.

"IV. The proprietor, by inheritance, or any other means, of a posthumous work shall enjoy, during fifty years, the exclusive right to publish, or permit the publication of it.

V. The author may sell the exclusive right of publishing his works, either for the whole period granted to him and his heirs by the above articles, or for a shorter period.

"In the latter case, his heirs shall enjoy the copyright during the period for which he has not disposed of it.

"VI. The exclusive right of the state to works composed by its order and at its expense, and that of academies and learned bodies legally established to works published under their directions, shall last for fifty years, to date from the first edition.

"The present article shall be without prejudice to the rules generally adopted by academies, which secure individually to each of their members the separate property in works which they have furnished to the collection.

“SECOND TITLÈ.

Of the Right of Authors of Dramatic Works.

"VII. It shall not be lawful to represent on any theatre the dramatic works of living authors without their consent.

"VIII. Contracts between authors and managers of theatres shall continue to be free. No authority shall have the power to fix the allowance, or to raise or diminish the price agreed upon between them. The benefit reserved to the author shall not be liable to be seized or attached by the creditors of the the theatre.

"IX. After the decease of the author every theatre duly authorized shall have liberty to represent his works upon paying to his widow, heirs, legatees, or donees a recompence equal to that which he received at the time of his decease.

"This recompence shall last for fifty years.

"X. As regards the printing of dramatic works, the rights of the author, his widow, heirs, legatees, and donees, shall be subject to the general rules laid down in the first title of the present law.

"THIRD TITLE.

"Of the Productions of the Fine Arts.

"XI. The author of a drawing or picture, who has it engraved, or of a piece of sculpture, who has it cast, shall alone have the right to multiply or authorise the multiplication of the copies.

"This right shall last during the whole life of the author.

"After his decease, his widow, heirs, legatees, or donees, shall enjoy this right conformably to the rules established in the first title of this law.

"FOURTH TITLE.

"Of Musical Works.

"XII. The law relative to musical works is made similar in all points, as regards representation, to that of dramatic works, and, as regards publication by any kind of printing, to that of printed works.

"GENERAL REGULATIONS.

"XIII. In cases where the property, which is the subject of the present law, becomes part of a succession where there is a failure of heirs, the state shall have no claim to it, but the reprinting, publication, or representation shall be free, without prejudice to the right of the creditors.

."TRANSITORY REGULATIONS.

XIV. "Those heirs, whose exclusive right resulting from the former laws, shall not have expired at the time of the promulgation of the present law, shall enjoy all the advantages that it secures.

"XV. In cases where the exclusive right of the heirs, as established by the preceding laws, has been disposed of for the whole term, either by the author, or by the said heirs, the grantee shall have power to take advantage of the extension of the exclusive right resulting from the present law, subject to the condition of paying to the heirs an additional price, which shall be settled amicably, if possible, if not, according to a valuation to be made by persons appointed judicially for that purpose.

"The grantee, who shall wish to take advantage of this power, shall be bound, in case he cannot settle this additional price amicably with the heirs of the author, to make a declaration of his intention to the proper tribunal within the first six months of the last year of the term of his exclusive right.

"The grantee, whose exclusive right shall expire in the year of the promulgation of the present law, shall have six months from the promulgation for making his declaration."

ART. X.-INTRODUCTION OF TRIAL BY JURY AMONG THE NATIVES OF CEYLON.

THE expediency of admitting the natives of India to the benefits of trial by jury has been for some time a subject of much discussion as well in that country as in England. The objections which have been urged against the measure are: that the natives of India, from their division into casts, from their want of intellect, education, and veracity, are incapable of exercising any judicial authority either with credit to themselves, or with advantage to their countrymen. These objections, however, have been completely disproved by an experiment which has been made in the island of Ceylon, under the auspices of Sir Alexander Johnston, while Chief Justice and first member of his Majesty's Council in that island.

The population of Ceylon consists of the four following classes: First. Of about half a million of people who derive their descent from the Hindoo inhabitants of the opposite peninsula of India, who profess the same modification of the Hindoo religion, speak the same language, and have the same customs, laws, and divisions of casts as those inhabitants.

Secondly. Of about half a million who claim their descent from the people of Ava and Siam, who have the same religions and moral codes, and the same customs, and who profess the same modification of the Buddhoo religion as the inhabitants of those two countries.

Thirdly. Of between 50,000 and 60,000 Mahomedan inhabitants, who are partly of Arab and partly of Mogul descent, who have the same customs and laws, and who profess the same modification of the Mahomedan religion as prevails amongst the different classes of Mahomedans, who inhabit the peninsula of India; and,

Fourthly. Of a very considerable number of the description of people who, in the rest of India are called half-casts, descended partly from Portuguese, partly from Dutch, and partly from English Europeans; some of them professing the Catholic and some the reformed religion, but all of them resembling in character and disposition the half-casts who are found in other parts of India.

As the population of Ceylon was composed of so great a number of each of the four leading divisions of people of which the whole population of India was composed, Sir Alexander Johnston conceived that, should the experient of extending the rights and privileges of Englishmen, in as far as they relate to the administration of justice, to all the half casts and all the other descrip

tions of natives on the island of Ceylon, be attended with success, it might thereafter be acted upon with great moral and political advantage in legislating for the half casts and for all the different descriptions of natives on the continent of India.

From the year 1802, the period at which the first royal harter of justice for the island of Ceylon was published on that island, to the year 1811, justice had been administered in the Supreme Court of Ceylon, both in civil and criminal cases by two European judges, according to what is called in Holland the Dutch Roman law, without any jury.

In 1810 it was determined by his Majesty's Ministers in England, on the representation of Sir Alexander Johnston, that the two European judges of the Supreme Court on that island should, for the future, in criminal cases be judges only of the law, and that juries composed of the natives of the island should be judges of the fact in all cases in which any native prisoners were concerned. In November 1811, accordingly, a new royal charter of justice, under the Great Seal of England, was published in Ceylon, by which, amongst other things, it was in substance enacted, that every native of the island, of whatever cast or religious persuasion he might be, when tried for a criminal offence before the Supreme Court, should have the right of being tried by a jury of his own cast, and that the right of sitting upon juries in all such cases should extend, subject to certain qualifications, to every half-cast and to every other description of native upon the island, to whatever cast or religious persuasion he might belong.

The experiment of extending the rights and privileges of Englishmen, as just described, to the natives of Ceylon having been found after 16 years experience to be productive of the greatest security to the government and of the greatest benefit to the people of the country, it naturally became a subject of serious consideration both in India and in England, whether the same rights and the same privileges might not also be exercised with the same good effect by all the natives of the East India Company's dominions in India; and Sir Alexander Johnston, at the request of the President of the Board of Control, wrote, in the year 1825, the following letter, explaining the reasons which originally induced him to propose the introduction of trial by jury amongst the natives of Ceylon, the mode in which his plan was carried into effect, and the consequences with which its adoption had been attended (a). As this letter contains an authentic account of the

(a) It was in consequence of this communication, we believe, that Mr. Wynn introduced into Parliament last session an act extending the right of sitting on juries in the three

presidencies in India to natives of all descriptions. By this statute, 7 Geo. 4, c. 37. It was enacted, that all good and sufficient persons resident within the limits of the several towns