"As every native juryman, whatever his cast or religion may be, or in whatever part of the country he may reside, appears before the Supreme Court once at least every two years; and as the judge who presides delivers a charge, at the opening of each session, to all the jurymen who are in attendance on the court, a useful opportunity is afforded to the natives of the country, by the introduction of Trial by Jury, not only of participating themselves, in the administration of justice, but also of hearing any observations which the judges, in delivering their charge, may think proper to make to them, with respect to any subject which is connected, either with the administration of justice, or with the state of society or morals in any part of the country. The difference between the conduct which was observed by all the proprietors of slaves in Ceylon in 1806, which was before the introduction of Trial by Jury, and that which was observed by them in 1816, which was five years after the introduction of Trial by Jury, is a strong proof of the change which may be brought about in public opinion, by the judges availing themselves of the opportunity which their charging the jury on the first day of session affords them of circulating amongst the natives of the country such opinions as may promote the welfare of any particular class of society. As the right of every proprietor of slaves to continue to hold slaves on Ceylon was guaranteed to him by the capitulation, under which the Dutch possessions had been surrendered to the British arms, in 1795, the British government of Ceylon conceived that, however desirable the measure might be, they had not a right to abolish slavery on Ceylon, by any legislative act: a proposition was, however, made on the part of government by me, to the proprietors of slaves in 1806, before Trial by Jury was introduced, urging them to adopt some plan of their own accord, for the gradual abolition of slavery. This proposition, they at that time unanimously rejected. The right of sitting upon juries was granted to the inhabitants of Ceylon in 1811. From that period I availed myself of the opportunities which were afforded to me, when I delivered my charge at the commencement of each session to the jurymen, most of whom were considerable proprietors of slaves, of informing

tlemen, let us ascribe it to the true causes; to the long and steady experience of the blessings of a government administered on British principles; and, above all, to the introduction of the Trial by Jury.

"To this happy system, now (I may venture to say) deeply cherished in the affections of the people, and revered as much as any of their own

oldest and dearest institutions, I do confidently ascribe this pleasing alteration; and it may be boldly asserted, that, while it continues to be administered with firmness and integrity, the British government will hold an interest in the hearts of its Singelese subjects, which the Portuguese and Dutch possessors of this island were never able to establish.

them of what was doing in England upon the subject of the abolition of slavery, and of pointing out to them the difficulties which they themselves must frequently experience in executing with impartiality their duties as jurymen, in all cases in which slaves were concerned; a change of opinion upon the subject of slavery was gradually perceptible amongst them; and in the year 1816, the proprietors of slaves of all casts and religious persuasions on Ceylon, sent me their unanimous resolutions to be publicly recorded in court, declaring free all children born of their slaves after the 12th of August, 1816, which in the course of a very few years must put an end to the state of slavery which had subsisted on Ceylon for more than three centuries.

NOTE.-The following interesting fact connected with the above subject will, we have no doubt, be acceptable to our readers:

A Brahmin of one of the northern provinces of Ceylon was tried some years ago by a jury of Brahmins of the same province, on a charge of having murdered one of his own relations, with a view, after his death, of getting possession of his property. All the witnesses who were examined at the trial gave such decisive evidence of the prisoner's guilt that the jury were about to find the pri soner guilty, when a young Brahmin, who was one of the jurymen, stated to the court, that he entertained considerable doubts of the prisoner's guilt, and therefore requested that all the witnesses might be called back again into court, and that he might be permitted to examine them. Although almost every one of the jurymen, with the exception of the young Brahmin himself, were fully convinced, from the nature of the evidence which had been given, of the guilt of the prisoner, the court acquiesced in the application; and on the witnesses being brought back again into court, the young Brahmin cross-examined them with such talents and skill, that he in a very short time satisfied his brother jurymen and the people who were present, that all the witnesses who had given such decided evidence against the prisoner were engaged in a conspiracy against his life, and that all the evidence which they had previously given with such apparent consistency was utterly unfounded. The prisoner was accordingly acquitted by the jury, without a dissentient voice, and the young Brahmin was publicly applauded for the great acuteness and perseverance with which he had elicited the truth, and confounded the artifices of those who had conspired against the life of the prisoner. Sir Alexander Johnston, who presided in the court on the occasion, was so much struck with the talents which the young Brahmin had displayed throughout the trial, that he sent for him after the trial was over, and asked from him the nature of the education which he had received, and the course of studies which he had pursued. The young

Brahmin in reply informed Sir Alexander, that he attributed any skill which he might have shown in examining the witnesses at the trial, not so much to the nature of the education, which had been the same with that of most of the other Brahmins, as to the study of a work which he had procured while he was travelling through the peninsula of India, and which he frequently perused and studied, because it had strengthened his understanding more than any other work which he had ever read. Upon examining this work, it was discovered to be a short summary of the Dialectics of Aristotle, which had been translated from Arabic into Sanscrit, and been copied upon a few palm leaves in the Devenagerie character.

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PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS.

MUCH ridicule and obloquy have been cast upon the constituent and legisiative assemblies in France, on account of the multitude of laws which they promulgated during the revolution. The furor of legislation was indeed upon them; but great allowances are to be made for the intoxicating influence of the moment, and the exuberant energy of newly-acquired powers. It must be recollected also that the French cleared the ground before them; that they swept away the incongruous mass of legal rubbish, the barbarous and conflicting usages, the arbitrary edicts, which had stifled justice and oppressed the nation for ages. But what excuse can be urged for the English legislature, which, under a mature and settled constitution, has in the ordinary course of sober routine, within the short period of twenty-six years, added three thousand six hundred acts to a statute book, the bulk of which had long been complained of as a national grievance ?

To say that these 3600 acts were called for by the wants of the community, would be an insult to common sense. Το say that they originated in an arbitrary design to shackle and control the liberty of the subject, would, as a general proposition, be illiberal and unjust. Some, no doubt, sprung from that source. But a far greater number owe their being to mere legislative wantonness; to that petty, meddling, over-officious spirit, which would regulate by law what ought to be left to the morals, the tastes, the feelings, and the interests of mankind; which would render men pious, and humane, and prudent, and thriving, by act of parliament. Others again have been the result of personal influence; and the nation has on more than one occasion been constrained to bend and accommodate itself to individual convenience, and family arrangements. Lastly, no small portion of this mass of enactments may be traced to the vanity of law-making. "Apprenticeships," says Blackstone, are held necessary to almost every art, commercial or mechanical; a long course of reading and study must form the divine, the physician, and the practical professor of the laws; but every man of superior fortune thinks himself born a legislator." Now these legislators by intuition are the most industrious in enlarging the statute book,

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Great is the pleasure, as we are informed by philosophers, to be derived from a consciousness of existence; and that consciousness

is most effectually maintained and evidenced by action. The action of a senator consists in making laws: what therefore more natural than that he should endeavour to preserve, as well in others as in himself, a consciousness of his senatorial existence, by the introduction of an occasional bill? Other powerful allurements are not wanting. To one who has heard of the Lex Julia and the Lex Cornelia among the ancients, and Lord Erskine's Bill, Lord Ellenborough's Act, and Mr. Peel's Bills among the moderns, how captivating the idea of having his name also associated with some law, and sounded familiarly by bar and bench! How flattering to Mr. Tomkins, that a man should be sent to the treadmill by the salutary provisions of Mr. Tomkins's Act!

The facility, too, with which legislative propositions are admitted, is in itself an irresistible temptation to an aspiring senator. If he will but steer clear of those dangerous aud grating alliterations, reform and retrenchment; if he will make no attempt to disfranchise rotten boroughs, or to interfere with sinecures and vested interests; if he will leave untouched rents and dividends, and the privileges of chartered companies; if he will respect prerogative and established principles, the world of legislation lies before him, the "rascal many" are at his command. "In capite orphani discit chirurgus," says the Latin version of an Arabic adage. ~ In former times the Jews, and then the Papists, were the most convenient subjects for a young English legislator to try his hand on. But now the working classes are perhaps the safest; and on their heads he may solve his political problems. If he has none to solve, he need not on that account be idle; he may introduce an act to render more effectual a statute passed incerto tempore, for preventing butchers from buying flesh of Jews and selling the same to Christians; (a) or an act to regulate the mode of catching cockles; or an act to improve the culture of mignonette in pots, and for the better encouragement of window-parterres, and other civic vegetation.

The several weighty reasons for making laws, which we have enumerated, will account, in some measure, for the 3600 statutes of six-and-twenty years. But what is far more important than any speculation upon the origin of these statutes is the circumstance that every member of the community "is bound and presumed to know" their provisions, according to that reasonable maxim of the law, Ignorantia juris, quod quisque tenetur scire, neminem excusat. We think, therefore, that we shall be doing acceptable service to the public by giving abstracts of some, at least, of the 140 or 150 acts annually passed, and thus assisting persons to attain the voluminous knowledge required by law.

(a) This statute is actually in being. Stat. Inc. Temp. 1. c. 7.