ANSWER.-It is.

QUESTION XCV.-Give a contrasted catalogue of the principal crimes and their punishments?

ANSWER-Destruction of human life, with or without malice, and, in whatever way, must be atoned for by loss of life. Killing a cow is another capital crime. Incest is a third. Deflowering a female of the sacred tribe subjects a man of a lower caste to capital punishment, and the confiscation of all his property. Robbery is a capital crime. Burglary is punished by cutting off the burglar's hands. [The subjoined scale is furnished by another respondent:

Killing in an affray.-The principal is hanged; the accessories before the fact severely fined.

Killing by some accident.-Long imprisonment and fining, besides undergoing práyaschitta.

Theft and petty burglary.-For the first offence, one hand is cut off; for the second, the other; the third is capital.

Petty thefts.-Whipping, fining, and imprisonment for short periods.

Treason and petty treason.-Death and confiscation: women and Brahmans are never done to death, but degraded in every possible way, and then expelled the country.]

QUESTION XCVI.—If a Néwúr wife commit adultery, does she forfeit her strídhan † to her husband, or not? and how is it if she seek a divorce from him from mere caprice? If, on the other hand, he divorces her from a similar motive, what follows as to the stridhan?

ANSWER-If a Néwár husband divorce himself from his wife, she carries away her stridhan with her; if a Néwar wife divorce herself, she may then also carry off with her her own property or portion. Adultery the Néwárs heed not.

QUESTION XCVII.-Among the Parbattia tribes, when the injured husband discovers or suspects the fact, must he inform the courts or the Sirkár before or afterwards? and must he prove the adultery in court subsequently? What, if he then fails in the proof?

ANSWER-When a Parbattia has satisfied himself of the adultery, and the identity of the male adulterer, he may kill • Vide answer to Question XXX. + Stridhan, dowry.

him before giving any information to the court or to the Sirkár; he must afterwards prove the adultery, and if he fails in the proof, he will be hanged.

QUESTION XCVIII.-Are such cases investigated in the courts of law, or in the Bháradár Sabhá?

ANSWER. The investigation is conducted in the dit'ha's court; but when completed, the dit'ha refers it to the Bháradár Sabha for instructions, or a final decree.

PART IL

ON THE LAW AND LEGAL PRACTICE OF NÉPÁL AS REGARDS FAMILIAR INTERCOURSE BETWEEN A HINDÚ AND AN OUTCAST.

THE Penal Law of Népál, a Hindú state, is necessarily founded on the Shástras; nor is there anything material in its marvellous crimes, and more marvellous proofs, for which abundance of justificatory texts may not be produced out of the Code of MENU and others equally well known on the plains.

The only exceptions to the truth of the above general remarks are, first, that, by the law of Népál, the Parbattia husband retains the natural privilege of avenging, with his own hand, the violation of his marriage bed; and, secondly, that this law expressly confounds Mohammedans with the outcasts of its own community. But it may be remarked, in regard to the first point, that the husband's privilege is rather a licensed violation of the law than a part of the law; and that all nations have tolerated, and do still, some such privilege.

Nor can it be denied, in reference to the second point, that if the followers of Islám are not expressly ranged with ordinary outcasts by the Hindú law Shástras, it is merely because the antiquity of the books transcends the appearance of the

Moslems in India; since, by the whole spirit and tenor of those books," all who are not Greeks are barbarians "—all strangers to Hindúism, Mléchchhas.

If, then, there be any material difference between the Hindúism of Népál, considered as a public institution, and that of the Hindú states of the plains, the cause of it must be sought, not in any difference of the law, the sanctity and immutability of which are alike acknowledged here and there; but in the different spirit and integrity with which the sacred guides, common to both, are followed in the mountains and in the plains.

The Hindú princes of the plains, subject for ages to the dominion or dictation of Mohammedan and European powers, have, by a necessity more or less palpable and direct, ceased to take public judicial cognisance of acts, which they must continue to regard as crimes of the deepest dye, but the sacredly prescribed penalties of which they dare not judicially enforce; and thus have been long since dismissed to domestic tribunals and the forums of conscience, all the most essential but revolting dogmata of Hindú jurisprudence.

We must not, however, forget the blander influence of persuasion and mutual concession, operating through a long tract of time. The Moslems, though the conquerors, gradually laid aside their most offensive maxims: the Hindú princes, their allies and dependants, could not do otherwise than imitate this example; and hence, if there is much diversity between the Hindú laws and Hindú judgments, now and for ages past given in the public tribunals of the Hindú princes of the plains, there is no less between the law of the Korán and its first commentators, and the judgments of AKBAR and his successors.

But neither persuasion nor example, nor coercion, has had room to operate such a change in these mountains; the dominant classes of the inhabitants of which, originally refugees from Mohammedan bigotry, have in their seclusion nursed their hereditary hatred of Islamism, whilst they bade defiance to its power; and they have latterly come very naturally to regard themselves as the sole remaining depositaries of undefiled, national Hinduism. Hence their enthusiasm, which burns all the fiercer for a secret consciousness that their particular and,

as it were, personal pretensions, as Hindús, are and must be but lowly rated at Benares.

The proud Khas, the soi-disant Kshatriyas of Népál, and the Parbattia Brahmans, with all their pharasaical assertions of ceremonial purity, take water from the hands of the Kachár Bhótias-men who, though they dare not kill the cow under their present Hindú rulers, greedily devour the carrion carcase left by disease-men, whose whole lives are as much opposed to practical, as their whole tenets are to speculative, Hindúism.

In very truth, the genius of Polytheism, everywhere accommodating, is peculiarly so to its professors and their like in Népál. Here, religious opinions are utterly disregarded; and even practice is suffered among the privileged to deviate in a thousand ways from the prescribed standard. The Néwárs, or aborigines of the valley of Népál, are, for the most part, Buddhists; but they are deemed very good Hindús nevertheless, pretty much in the same way as R'AM MOHUN RAYA passes for a good Hindú at Calcutta. A variety of practices, too, which would not be tolerated even in a Hindú below, are here notoriously and avowedly followed. They are omissions, not commissions, for the most part. But there are daily acts of the positive kind done in the hills which could not be done openly in the plains.*

Still these are matters which the Darbár would not brook the discussion of with us; and I am afraid that their known deviations, in many respects, would only make them more punctilious and obstinate in regard to those few which it is so much our interest and duty to get compromised, if we can, with reference to our followers. Unfortunately, these few topics are the salient points of Hindúism; are precisely those points which it is the pride and glory of this state to maintain from the throne and judgment-seat, as the chief features of the public law; because, nowhere else throughout India can they be maintained in the same public and authentic manner, or any otherwise than by the domestic tribunals of the people. The

The gallant soldiers of these hills cannot endure the tedious ceremonial of Hinduism. When preparing to cook, they satisfy the law by washing their hands and face, instead of their whole bodies; by taking off their turbans, instead of their whole dress. Nor are they at all afraid of being degraded to kúlis if they should carry tea days' provisions, in time of war, on their backs. Et sic de cæteris.

distinction between Hindús on the one hand, and, on the other, outcasts of their own race, as well as all strangers indiscriminately, it is the special duty of the judges of the land to ponder upon day and night, to pursue it through all its practical consequences, as infinitely diversified by the ceremonial observances created to guard and perpetuate it; and to visit, with the utmost vengeance of the Penal Code, every act by which this cardinal distinction is knowingly and essentially violated.

Of all these acts, the most severely regarded is intercourse. between the sexes of such parties; because of its leading directly to the confusion of all castes, of the greatness of the tempiation, and of the strong inducement to concealment; and the concealment is deemed almost as bad as the crime itself; for the Hindú agent or subject will, of course, proceed, till detected, to communicate as usual with his or her relations, who again will communicate with theirs, until the foul contamination has reached the ends of the city and kingdom, and imposed upon all (besides the sin) the necessity of submitting themselves to a variety of tedious and expensive purificatory processes, pending the fulfilment of which all their pursuits of business or pleasure are necessarily suspended, and themselves rendered, for the time, outcasts. This, to be sure, is a great and real evil, deserving of severe repressive measures. But is not the evil self-created? True: but so we may not argue at Káthmándú. The law of caste is the corner-stone of Hindúism. Hence the innumerable ceremonial observances, penetrating into every act of life, which have been erected to perpetuate this law; and hence the dreadful inflictions with which the breach of it is visited. Of all breaches of it, intercourse between a Hindú and an outcast of different sexes is the most enormous; but it is not, by many, the only one deemed worthy of punishment by mutilation or death. The Codes of MENU and other Hindú sages are full of these strange enormities; but it is in Népal alone (for reasons already stated) that the sword of public justice is now wielded to realise them. It is in Népál alone, of all Hindú states, that two-thirds of the time of the judges is employed in the discussion of cases better fitted for the confessional, or the tribunal of public opinion, or some domestic