Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. LAW AND JUSTICE. One of the greatest blessings conferred on the people of India in recent years has been the codification of the criminal law, and of the procedure, civil and criminal, of the courts of justice. So long ago as 1833, a commission, of which the late Lord Macaulay was the first president, commenced at Calcutta the arduous task of compiling a penal code for India. This code was prepared in 1837, but did not assume the form of an enactment until 1860, when it was passed by the Legislative Council, and is now, as the Indian Penal Code, in active and successful -operation throughout all the British possessions in India. Another commission was appointed, for the purpose of revising the laws of India, by Sir Charles Wood, when he was President of the Board of Control in 1853, which brought to bear on the subject the professional knowledge of such men as Sir John Jervis, Lord Romilly, Sir Edward Ryan, Mr. Lowe, and Mr. Flower Ellis, and the practical and intimate acquaintance with the customs and laws of India,which was possessed by Mr. Cameron, Mr. Macleod, and Mr. Hawkins. By this commission were prepared the admirable codes of civil and criminal procedure, which, substituting, as they did, simplicity and expedition for the complicated forms of pleading which had hitherto existed in the courts of India, became law in 1859 and 1861 respectively, and may now be said to be in force throughout nearly the whole of India. In most of the non-regulation districts, and in Bengal, including the North-Western Provinces, their introduction has been attended with marked success ; and the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal has reported the prevailing opinion on the merits of the civil code in the following words:—" The result of all " the inquiries I have made o...