and of local, special, and personal laws; and, lastly, in the exemptions of the backward parts of India called the Scheduled Districts1 from the operation of rules too elaborate for their inhabitants or administrators. the intro In writing the introductions and notes, I have freely used Sources of the Statements of Objects and Reasons by which, according ductions to the practice of the Indian legislatures, all Bills are accom- and notes. panied, and the reports of Select Committees by which they are followed. The speeches made in the Viceregal Council have also furnished some valuable matter. The introduction to the Penal Code is to a large extent founded on Macaulay's notes to the draft. The introduction and notes to the Succession Act are for the most part taken from my own edition of that Code. In the introductions and notes to the Codes of which I was the draftsman, I have embodied the memoranda made before and while drawing the Bills. Some useful hints have also been got from the commentaries published in India by Messrs. Chalmers, Collett, Field, Henderson, J. M. Macpherson, Macrae, Mayne, Morgan and A. G. Macpherson, Rattigan, and Shaw, and from a letter received in the beginning of 1886 from Mr. R. J. Crosthwaite, now Judicial Commissioner of the Central Provinces. But my principal source of help has been the decisions of the High Court judges 2 published in the Indian Reports from 1862 to 1886 inclusive decisions which not only throw light on the ideas and customs of the people of India 3, but are, as a rule I: 207, n. 2: 208, notes 1, 3: 209, n. Criticisms on the Codes. (if I may say so without impertinence), admirable for their logicality and learning. Of these judgments none can be read with more pleasure, and few with more profit, than those of the Hindú Muttusámi Ayyár and the Muhammadan Sayyid Mahmud. For the subtle races that produce such lawyers 1, no legal doctrine can be too refined, no legal machinery can be too elaborate. A word in conclusion as to the criticisms which I have ventured to make on the Codes for which Macaulay, Sir Barnes Peacock, Mr. William Macpherson (the draftsman of the Succession Act and the Contract Act), Sir Henry Maine, Sir Fitzjames Stephen, and Lord Hobhouse are answerable either personally or officially. Mr. Pollock (and no one, surely, is better entitled to express an opinion on the subject) says that the Indian Codes are the best models yet produced; at the same time they are by no means faultless. It is easy to see various points in which they are capable of improvement, though it must be remembered that for the purposes of Indian administration labour and ingenuity would not improbably be thrown away in working them up to the refined exactness which is an English lawyer's ideal.' Feeling as I do the justice of this courteous censure, my criticisms have been made with a view to the amendment by the legislature of the Codes to which they relate, and not with any pleasure in picking holes in the work of men who, in the opinion of all competent judges, rank with the greatest among the many benefactors that England has given to India. W. S. 15 GRENVILLE PLACE, LONDON, S.W. 1 I take this opportunity to ac knowledge the help obtained, in drawing chapter iv. of the Transfer of Property Act, from the work of another acute and learned Native lawyer, Rashbehary Ghose, The Law of Mortgage in India, Calcutta, 1877. 2 A Digest of the Law of Partnership, 3rd ed., Introduction, xi. = = = = Ben. F. B....... = Bom............. Bom. H. C. Borr........ Bouln. Bourke = Reports of the High Court of Judicature for the North- Reports etc. containing Full Bench Rulings, Agra, 1867. = Bengal Law Reports, vols. i-xv (1868–1875). = = = Full Bench Rulings of the High Court at Fort William, Indian Law Reports, Bombay Series, vols. i-x, Bombay, Reports of Cases decided in the High Court of Bombay, vols. i-xii, Bombay, 1867-1875. Borrodaile's Reports of Civil Causes adjudged by the Court of Sudur Udalut for the Presidency of Bombay, vols. i, ii, Bombay, 1825. Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court at Fort William (1856-1859), by C. Boulnois. ....= Reports of Cases... in the High Court of Judicature at Fort William, by Walter M. Bourke, Calcutta, 1867. Cal........... Fulton Hyde. = Indian Law Reports, Calcutta Series, vols. i-xii, Calcutta, 1876-1886. = = Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Judicature at Reports of Cases, etc., by E. Hyde. Two vols., Calcutta, 1864. Reports of Cases decided in the High Court of Madras, vols. Reports of Cases on Appeal, Calcutta, by W. Marshall, 1864. Decisions of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort Reports of Cases heard and determined in the High Court, = = = = = Sutherland's Reports of Decisions of the Appellate High With the exception of Maddock's reports of cases temp. TEXT-BOOKS AND COMMENTARIES CITED. ANSON, Principles of the English Law of Contract, 4th ed., Oxford, 1886. ARCHBOLD, Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases, 19th ed., London, 1878. AUSTIN, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 4th ed., London, 1879. BELL, Principles of the Law of Scotland, 6th ed., Edinburgh, 1872. BENJAMIN, On the Law of Sale of Personal Property, 3rd ed., London, 1883. BENTHAM, Works, ed. Bowring, II vols., Edinburgh, 1843. BLACKBURN, On the Effect of the Contract of Sale, 2nd ed., London, 1885. BULLEN and LEAKE, P ecedents of Pleadings, 4th ed., London, 1882. CHALMERS, The Negotiable Instruments Act, Calcutta, 1882. 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