not to say religious, can contemplate without some feeling of interest, nor regard with indifference the social penalties to which they are liable, from the exercise of the rights of man and rights of conscience. The law alluded to confined itself simply to giving relief against some of those penalties-particularly the penalty of disinheritance of vested rights of property. Such subjects as these are proper for the Council of State of India. That Council of State ought to have the inherent strength to deal with them, independently of the Leadenhall Street proprietory oligarchy: but at present the Council seems to want both the strength and the independence requisite.

We cannot also but think a new MARRIAGE LAW, one of the things which might justly have been expected from the Legislative Council of India: for, whether the lex loci on the subject of marriage, and in relation to British subjects proper, be Lord Hardwicke's Act, or the older common law, it is certain, that neither is suited to the various classes comprized within its scope, nor to the circumstances of India. On this important subject a large body of information was supplied in the sixth number of this work. Since then, various memorials have been addressed to the authorities in India and at home. But, hitherto, nothing has been done; though the necessity for Legislative interference is every year becoming more palpable.

It has been seen that a very considerable portion of the whole Act Book consists of ACTS FOR PARTICULAR PRESIDENCIES AND PRESIDENCY TOWNS,-for Bombay, Madras, the Straits Settlements, &c., and our readers must have often remarked in these, a very narrow spirit and exploded principles. We ascribe their origin entirely to the local Governments. They are the Legislation of the Presidency Governor in the name of the Legislative Council, and display the tastes, objects and passions usual in small corporate bodies. Undoubtedly the local authorities must be consulted on what concerns their own districts: but still local legislation admits of the application of general principles; and the use of a grand Council of State is, to see that every thing, howsoever originated, squares with imperial, philosophic, recognized or statesmanlike standards.

Of Acts, properly POLITICAL, there appear to us, to be but two: the Act commonly called for establishing the liberty of the press, and the Act placing offences against the state under the cognizance of the ordinary tribunals. Arbitrary power had attained its grand climacteric on the deportation of Mr. Buckingham; and, brought on a premature decline by the overstrained vigor of that occasion. In the former of these Acts we see E l

it, in relation to the press, in an apparent state of old age, in its decrepitude, and, if we may pursue the metaphor, gouty and bed-ridden. This Act is its crutch, which in any fit of momentary paroxysm, we may see it snatch up, as a weapon to beat down opposition. Connected with it there are provisions, such as the form of registration, which it is very easy to neglect; and the neglect or violation of which may form a ready instrument of oppression to any official who may be arbitrarily or despotically disposed. Indeed, it is by no means improbable that any use which is ever likely to be made of this Act, will be found to be an abuse of it. A law cannot lay under a heavier ground of condemnation.

In the class of ACTS AFFECTING COMMERCIAL CAPITAL, it is remarkable how very small is the number of Acts for the incorporation of Joint Stock Companies, compared with the very great number of such companies actually or recently in existence. The Assam Company, whose Act was passed in 1845, the Bengal Bonded Warehouse Company, and the three Semi-Government Banks in the three presidencies respectively, are the only incorporated companies in India. We here, are as aware as the merchant, the lawyer, the capitalist in England are, how ill adapted, how fatal often, the rules of the Common Law are to the interests, in any sort of business, of a numerous Joint Stock proprietory body: but we are obliged to submit to a settled policy. The desire for incorporation is choked in its first impulse by the hostile maxims which are known or supposed to prevail at the India House, the inheritance, we may surmise, of the official men of the present day, from the days of monopoly. The late Union Bank is the only Joint Stock Bank, which has obtained power to sue and be sued by its public officer; to which power are superadded a few special provisions to make shareholders liable to creditors.

The ACTs relating to the COURTS of the East India Company are numerous, and embrace a very great variety of subjects. Generally they must have originated with the local authorities. Collectively they exhibit a most respectable amount of reform, and the credit belongs, we believe, to the Sudder Dewany Adaluts and the Indian Law Commissioners. In our previous notices we have distinguished several of them; but cannot forbear again referring to the Act requiring the English judges to record their decisions in English. Most of our readers are aware that the proceedings are in the native languages. The intention probably was, to form a valuable collection of law reports; this intent has not been realized: jurisprudentially considered, and as

records of law and precedents for other courts and judges, they are a mass of rubbish; but to those who care for the reform of the courts, they furnish a large and valuable body of evidence, and prove, as we deem, incontestibly the want of juridical skill in this highly honorable and generally untarnished class of functionaries.

The creation of a new class of magistrates,-the DEPUTY MAGISTRATES in Bengal, was in itself a good, and may we hope, be the first step to a new just and more economical and more efficient mode of recruiting the public service generally. The peculiarity of this measure is, that by establishing an inferior grade of magistrates, it opens that branch of the service to the public generally. The Deputy Magistrates have all been appointed from local candidates, either natives or Europeans. Considered as an experiment of "free trade," the appointment of Deputy Magistrates has completely answered, and is a good augury for giving the Local Government power to appoint Magistrates in a similar manner: indeed, though some of the Deputy Magistrates have little more power than the darogahs, others have full powers, and substantially are Magistrates, though paid inferior salaries and wanting the privileges of the Civil Service. By no other means is the magistracy at all likely to be raised, in numbers, to the public exigencies. Districts larger than any English county, have only one Magistrate. Parts of districts as large as many English counties have only a Deputy Magistrate. For every one of either class there ought to be many. The expence would be fully repaid by the security which would result to persons and property.

In adverting, as above we have done, to the considerable amount of reform which has been made in the judicial system, we are bound to guard against erroneous conclusions, our object being to disseminate truth, and put it in the place of a host of prevailing fallacies and delusions. We must therefore remind our readers of what to many of them will appear a mere truism: good rules do not secure good administration: and in the Indian system bribery and corruption, perjury and subornation of perjury, forgery and false personations are every where active and prevailing agents. The corrupted character of the people, and the corruptness of the native judicial establishments, mutually act and react as causes and consequences, and until a check is put to these reforms of system,-reforms not touching the administrative agents are fallacious.

Having now noticed the principal classes of Acts and the omissions, we will conclude by observing that on the whole the

new Legislative Council has disappointed the expectations raised both in and out of Parliament. Two eras are clearly distinguishable: its early and latter days. In the former, fresh from the brain of Jove, it gave many indications of its Parliamentary birth and origin: these are gone by; and in its latter days all the indications are of its Leadenhall-street connection. For the sake of India, for the sake of the Imperial interests of Great Britain, we pray that the period when the Charter Act expires may be the epoch of its regeneration.

Postscript.-In page 393, we have spoken of the Customs Act of 1845, in terms which might lead our readers to suppose that the Act has been totally repealed. The repeal is only of the differential scale; but the new tariff of enhanced single duties is not repealed. We observe with pleasure that the President of the Board of Control has been questioned on their subject in the House of Commons. We have also tidings of the intention of Mr. Mangles to defend the Land Revenue system. In the half of Bengal it is the permanent settlement: in another part of Bengal, it is the Khas system under one form, and in the N. W. Provinces the Khas system in another form. In Bombay again it is different. And no one defence can apply to all of them. A general defence of all would involve the greatest conceivable amount of inconsistency and contradiction.

ART. V.-1. General Orders of the Bengal Army.

2. Sketch of the Rise and Progess of the Bengal Army.-Calcutta Star, 1844.

3. Memoir of Colonel Thomas Deane Pearse of the Bengal Artillery; from the British Indian Military Repository.

4. Report of the Sub-Committee appointed for the purpose of making a revision in the several equipments in the British Artillery Service. 1819.-Ibid.

5. Proceedings of the Special Board of Artillery Officers assembled at Calcutta. 1836-38.

6. Remarks on the organization of the Corps of Artillery in the British service.

1818.

7. Memorandum on Horse Artillery; from the East India United Service Journal.

IN the article on the subject of Lord Hardinge's Administration, in the XVIth No. of this Review, we entered somewhat in detail upon the nature and extent of the reductions that had been rendered necessary in the Military Establishment of India, by the state of the Government finances. We then expressed our opinion that these reductions, being unavoidable under the cir cumstances of the time, had been carried out in a manner at once prudent and considerate towards the interests of those concerned; and we particularly alluded to the circumstance that no reduction whatever had been attempted in the Ordnance Establishments, but that, on the contrary, they had been put upon a more efficient footing generally, and more especially as regarded the condition of the seige and field Artillery on and near the frontier.

Since that article was written, events have occurred on the Continent of Europe, startling from their rapidity and most important in the results they are calculated to produce-events, too, which must ultimately, to a certain extent, affect our military position in the East.

Revolution has shaken empires to their foundations, dynasties have been overthrown, and a spirit of anarchy, under the specious name of liberty, has diffused itself over the length and breadth of the old world. At such a crisis, when a single false step on the part of any one of the leading nations of Europe might give rise to a general war; when all eyes are turned towards Egypt, whose fate is hanging on the slender thread of an old man's life; when our amicable relations with China are overclouded, and conspiracy and rebellion are rife upon our imme