&c. The punishments are imprisonment, or fine, or both. This Chapter is constructed out of the Revenue laws of the three presidencies, analyzed and reduced to a small number of general heads.

The next Chapter treats "Of Offences relating to Coin," which is defined "metal used as money, and bearing some mark that it is issued by the authority of some Government in order to be so used." The counterfeiting of King's or Company's coin is punishable with imprisonment, or fine, or both.

The next is "Of Offences relating to Weights and Measures." Chapter XIV., "Of Offences affecting the Public Health, Safety, and Convenience," comprehends wanton acts likely to spread infection, adulterating food or drugs, driving a vehicle or navigating a vessel negligently, so as to indicate a want of due regard for human life; dealing, in like manner, with poisonous substances, or fire, or machinery, or buildings, or animals. These offences are punishable with imprisonment, fine, or both.

Chapter X V. is important; it is devoted to "Offences relating to Religion and Caste." The note on this Chapter explains the principle on which it is constructed.

The principle on which this chapter has been framed is a principle on which it would be desirable that all governments should act, but from which the British Government in India cannot depart without risking the dissolution of society. It is this, that every man should be suffered to profess his own religion, and that no man should be suffered to insult the religion of another.

The question whether insults offered to a religion ought to be visited with punishment does not appear to us at all to depend on the question whether that religion be true, or false. The religion may be false, but the pain which such insults give to the professors of that religion is real. It is often, as the most superficial observation may convince us, as real a pain, and as acute a pain, as is caused by almost any offence against the person, against property, or against character. Nor is there any compensating good whatsoever to be set off against this pain. Discussion, indeed, tends to elicit truth. But insults have no such tendency. They can be employed just as easily against the purest faith as against the most monstrous superstition. It is easier to argue against falsehood than against truth. But it is as easy to pull down or defile the temples of truth as those of falsehood. It is as easy to molest with ribaldry and clamour men assembled for purposes of pious and rational worship, as men engaged in the most absurd ceremonies. Such insults, when directed against erroneous opinions, seldom have any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and to give a character of peculiar ferocity to theological dissension. Instead of eliciting truth, they only inflame fanaticism.

All these considerations apply with peculiar force to India. There is perhaps no country in which the Government has so much to apprehend from religious excitement among thepeople. The Christians are numerically a very small minority of the population, and in possession of all the highest posts in the Government, in the tribunals, and in the army. Under their rule are placed millions of Mahomedans, of different sects, but all strongly attached to the fundamental articles of the Mahomedan creed; and tens of millions of Hindoos, strongly attached to doctrines and rites which Christians and Mahomedans join in reprobating. Such a state of things is pregnant with dangers which can only be averted by a firm adherence to the true principles of toleration. On those principles the British Government has hitherto acted with eminent judgment, and with no less eminent success: and on those principles we propose to frame this part of the Penal Code.

The Chapter provides as follows :

Whoever destroys, damages, or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons, with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons, or with the knowledge that any class of persons are likely to consider such destruction, damage, or defilement as an insult to their religion, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years and must not be less than one year, and shall also be liable to fine. Whoever voluntarily causes disturbance to any assembly lawfully engaged in the performance of religious worship, or religious ceremonies, if in causing such disturbance he assaults any person, or makes show of assaulting any person, or threatens to assault any person engaged in such worship or ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and must not be less thau six months, and shall also be liable to fine. Whoever, in any place of worship, does any thing whereby he voluntarily causes disturbance to any assembly lawfully met therein for the performance of religious worship or religious ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both. Whoever, with the intention of wounding the feelings or insulting the religion of any person, commits any trespass on any place of sepulture, or offers any indignity to any human corpse, or causes disturbance to any assembly assembled for the performance of funeral ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both. Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or makes any sound in the hearing of that person, or makes any gesture in the sight of that person, or places any object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both. Whoever does any act with the intention of causing it to be believed in any quarter that, by doing that act, he renders some other person an object of divine displeasure, or of causing it to be believed that by doing that act he obliges some other person, on pain of divine displeasure, to do any thing which that person is not legally bound to do, or to omit any thing which that person is legally entitled to do, or threatens any person with doing any act which would, in any quarter, be believed to render the person threatened an object of divine displeasure, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or fine which may extend to one thousand rupees, or both.

"Illegal entrance into, and residence in, the territories of the East-India Company," is the subject of the next Chapter; the clauses enforce the prohibition contained in the last Charter Act, under penalties of imprisonment, fine, or both.

Chapter XVII. treats "Of Offences relating to the Press," the penal provisions of which are taken from the local Act XI. of 1835. "Offences affecting the Human Body," which are the subject of the next Asiat.Journ.N.S. VOL.26.No.101.

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Chapter, consist of " voluntary culpable homicide," which may be either (1) murder, (2) manslaughter, (3) voluntary culpable homicide by consent, (4) voluntary culpable homicide in defence. "Manslaughter" is where the homicide is committed "on great and sudden provocation." Homicide "by consent" is where the person whose death is caused, being above twelve years of age, suffers death, or takes the risk of death, by his own choice." Murder is punishable with death, or transportation for life, or rigorous imprisonment for life, and also liable to fine. The other offences under this head are punishable with imprisonment, fine, or both. Causing voluntary miscarriage is punishable with imprisonment for not more than three years, or fine, or both. Voluntarily causing "hurt," defined as "all bodily pain, disease and infirmity," is punishable in the same manner. "Wrongful restraint and wrongful confinement," "Assault," "Kidnapping," "Rape," and a nameless offence, or "touching for that purpose," are classed under this Chapter, and punished with imprisonment, fine, or both. Under the head of "kidnapping," there is a clause punishing persons who export labourers by sea, in contravention of the recent local Act, in the penalties specified therein. This important Chapter is the subject of a very long explanatory

note.

Chapter XIX., "Of Offences against Property," is the longest in the Code, and embraces the various heads of "Theft," "Extortion," "Robbery and Dacoity," "Criminal Misappropriation of Property not in Possession," "Criminal Breach of Trust," " Receiving of Stolen Property," "Cheating," "Fraudulent Insolvency," "Mischief," and "Criminal Trespass," all of which are treated on the ground of being violations of the right of property. The various clauses, and the very long explanatory note, contain matters worthy of much attention. There is a simplicity in the mode of treating this important branch of criminal jurisprudence which will recommend the Code to many.

The next Chapter treats "Of Offences relating to Documents," or Forgery, which is carefully defined and illustrated; and the offence is punishable with imprisonment for various terms, fine, or both.

The three next Chapters, "Of Offences relating to Property-marks," "Of the Illegal Pursuit of Legal Rights," and "Of the Criminal Breach of Contracts of Service," are brief, and not important. The next, relating to Marriage, is still shorter: it punishes with imprisonment, or fine, or both, the offence of a party who, by deceit, causes another to believe that an illegal marriage with that party is a lawful one. The whole Chapter was published in our last Journal (p.291). In a note, the Commissioners explain the reasons which have induced them to frame this part of the Code on principles widely different from those of the English law of bigamy, owing to the peculiar circumstances of Indian society, Anglo-Indian and native. Some of these reasons, we apprehend, will meet with no very ready acquiescence amongst rigid moralists. They likewise assign reasons why they have not made adultery punishable; and it must be admitted, that this would be difficult in a country where parties marry when children, and where a wife shares the attention of her husband with several rivals. "To make laws for punishing the inconstancy of the wife, while the law admits the privilege of the husband to fill his zenana with women," is a course which the Commissioners were, very naturally, " most reluctant to adopt."

"Defamation" is the subject of the twenty-fifth Chapter. The definition of "defamation" is as follows:

469. Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs, or by visible representations, attempts to cause any imputation concerning any person to be believed in any quarter, knowing that the belief thereof would harm the reputation of that person in that quarter, is said, except in the cases excepted in the nine clauses next following, to defame that person.

Explanations. An imputation is not defamatory unless it be such as, if believed in that quarter in which it is intended to be believed, would harm the reputation of the person concerning whom it is intended to be believed.

Hence, an imputation, which is defamatory when directed against one person, is not necessarily defamatory when directed against another person; and an imputation which is defamatory when intended to be believed in one quarter, is not necessarily defamatory when intended to be believed in another quarter.

Also it may be defamation to repeat or circulate an imputation which it was not defamation originally to make; and it is not necessarily defamation to repeat or circulate an imputation which it was defamation originally to make. A deceased person may be defamed.

A collection of persons cannot, as such, be defamed. But an individual may be defamed by means of an imputation thrown on a collection of persons of whom he is one, or by means of an imputation made in the form of an alternative.

If the imputation be such that, if it were believed in the quarter in which it was intended to be believed, the reputation of the person concerning whom it is intended to be believed would not be harmed, then, though that person may suffer in his interest, he has not been defamed.

"Harm the reputation." No imputation is said to harm a person's reputation unless that imputation directly or indirectly lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person, or lowers the character of that person in respect of his caste or of his calling, or lowers the commercial credit of that person if he is engaged in trade, or causes it to be believed that the body of that person is in a loathsome state, or in a state generally considered as disgraceful.

470. First Exception. It is not defamation to attempt to cause any thing which is true to be believed in any quarter, concerning any person.

471. Second Exception. It is not defamation to express, in good faith, any opinion whatever respecting the conduct of a public servant in the discharge of his public functions, or respecting his character, so far as his character appears in that conduct, and no further.

472. Third Exception. It is not defamation to express, in good faith, any opinion whatever respecting the conduct of any person touching any public question, and respecting his character, so far as his character appears in that conduct, and no further.

473. Fourth Exception. It is not defamation to express, in good faith, any opinion whatever respecting the merits of any case, civil or criminal, which has been brought before any court of justice, or respecting the conduct of any per

son, as a party, witness, or agent, in any such case, or respecting the character of such person, as far as his character appears in that conduct, and no further. 474. Fifth Exception. It is not defamation to express, in good faith, any opinion respecting the merit of any performance which its author has submitted to the judgment of the public, or respecting the character of the author, so far as his character appears in such performance, and no further.

475. Sixth Exception. It is not defamation in a person having over another any authority, either conferred by law, or arising out of a lawful contract made with that other, to pass in good faith any censure on the conduct of that other in matters to which such lawful authority relates.

476. Seventh Exception It is not defamation to prefer, in good faith, an accusation against any person to any of those who have lawful authority over that person with respect to the subject-matter of accusation.

477. Eighth Exception. It is not defamation in a person giving directions for the management of his concerns to make an imputation on the character of another, provided that the imputation be made in good faith for the protection of the interests of the person making it.

478. Ninth Exception. It is not defamation to convey a caution, in good faith, to one person against another, provided that such caution be intended for the good of the person to whom it is conveyed, or of some party in whom that person is interested.

The penalties are imprisonment, fine, or both.

In the explanatory note appended to this chapter of the Code, the Commissioners enter very fully into the reasons which have induced them to give those very new features to the law of libel. We subjoin an extract :

The essence of the offence of defamation consists in its tendency to cause that description of pain, which is felt by a person who knows himself to be the object of the unfavourable sentiments of his fellow-creatures, and those inconveniences to which a person who is the object of such unfavourable sentiments is exposed.

According to the theory of the criminal law of England, the essence of the crime of private libel consists in its tendency to provoke breach of the peace; and although this doctrine has not, in practice, been followed out to all the startling consequences to which it would legitimately lead, it has not failedto produce considerable inconvenience.

It appears to us evident, that between the offence of defaming, and the offence of provoking to a breach of the peace, there is a distinction as broad as that which separates theft and murder. Defamatory imputations of the worst kind may have no tendency to cause acts of violence. Words which convey no discreditable imputation whatever, may have that tendency in the highest degree. Even in cases where defamation has a tendency to cause acts of violence, the heinousness of the defamation, considered as defamation, is by no means proportioned to its tendency to cause such acts: nay, circumstances which are great aggravations of the offence, considered as defamation, may be great mitigations of the same offence, considered as a provocation to a breach of the peace. A scurrilous satire against a friendless woman, published by a person who carefully conceals his name, would be defamation in one of its most odious forms; but it would be only by a legal fiction that the satirist could be said to provoke a breach of the peace. On the other hand, an imputation on the courage of an officer, contained in a private letter, meant to be seen only by that