This building is not the private residence of the governor, but is, or was, only used on public occasions, and, in the year 1804, the roof was in so shattered a state as to admit the rain. Here the governor gives audiences, holds levees, receives ambassadors, and confers honorary distinctions on the natives. It has been occasionally employed as a theatre, as a ball-room, and as a place of worship, the church having fallen into a state of great dilapidation, and, I believe, has not been yet rebuilt. The Church of Wolfendal, where the Dutch inhabitants attend public worship, is situated on the summit of a gentle elevation, in the midst of the suburbs, about a mile and a half from the fort. It was built for the Cingalese and Malabar Christians, who still assemble in it every sabbath-day, one congregation succeeding the other. The building is in the form of a cross, with a lofty dome in the centre. About a mile apart from it stands the Portuguese Church, for the use of those natives who belong to the Romish communion. The portion of Columbo without the walls, is a mere mud village and bazaar, standing upon a peninsula projecting into the lake, and called Slave Island, from the circumstance of its having been formerly occupied by the slaves employed under the Dutch government. The outer town stands about a quarter of a mile to the eastward of the fort, and contains more houses than are within the fortifications. It is chiefly occupied by the Dutch and Portuguese, while the suburbs are principally inhabited by the Ceylonese. All the British inhabitants of Columbo reside within the fort. The population, in 1804, was estimated at fifty thousand. Since that time, however, it has probably much increased. The water is very brackish: what is used, therefore, by the Europeans, is brought from a distance of nearly two miles. Living here is expensive. No bachelor can keep house comfortably for less than eight hundred a year. Nearly all the foreign commerce is concentred at this fort, as is also a great proportion of the coasting traffic. Columbo is by far the most eligible place of residence in Ceylon, for besides the superiority of climate peculiar to its locality, there is an agreeable mixture of society, such as cannot be enjoyed in the more confined circles of the smaller stations. The highest mountain in Ceylon is Adam's Peak, which is estimated at 6450 feet above the level of the sea. It is sixty miles south of Columbo, and so lately as 1804, no European subject had ascended it. It is of a conical shape, like the Peak of Teneriffe, and is visible at sea, on the south-west coast, at a distance of fifty leagues. Two smaller peaks rise from the same mountain, which, when viewed from some parts of the interior, appear to be of equal height with the principal one. This mountain equally claims the veneration of the Boodhist and Hindoo, the Mohammedan and the native Christian; each of whom considers it a place of peculiar sanctity, and has attached to its sacred locality some superstitious legend. The apex of the cone is frequently enveloped in clouds, and during the entire period of the south-west monsoon, is perfectly hid by them. The first European who scaled the summit of this celebrated mountain, was a Mr. Malcolm, a lieutenant of the Ceylon regiment, accompanied by a party of Malay soldiers. The top of the first elevation was reached in four hours, after which, three other distinct ascents were accomplished before the peak was gained. The road from the base of the summit of the peak is rugged in the extreme, being covered with fragments of rocks, and of iron-stone, presenting obstacles to the traveller, which require not only great patience and perseverance to surmount, but likewise great resolution, endurance, and physical hardihood; nevertheless this mountain was ascended, and its extreme summit explored, in 1819, by three ladies, the Honourable Mrs. Twistleton, Mrs. Shuldam, and Mrs. Walker. The top of the peak is contracted to a small compass, being only seventy-two feet long by fifty-four broad, and is encircled by a parapet wall five feet high, generally very much out of repair. In the centre of this area, is a large rock of iron-stone, upon which the impression of Adam's foot is supposed to be traceable. By the Boodhists, however, the mark visible on this stone is declared to be the foot-print of their divinity, the other statement being a Mohammedan tradition. The sacred spot is enclosed by a frame of copper, fitted exactly to its shape, ornamented with four rows of precious stones, and the whole is protected from the weather by a small wooden building, twelve feet long, nine broad, and four and a half high. From this elevation, a most magnificent prospect expands before the traveller's eye. On one side, a vast extent of wooded hills, like an ocean of forest, seems to cover the space between the eye and the horizon, while in another quarter only the summits of the hills are perceptible, rising above the fogs, like a number of small islands covered with trees. In this moist climate, however, the view is rarely of long duration, being soon obscured by floating mists from the valleys. J. H. C. SOCIETY. VIII. PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN WEALTH, considered AS TO ITS BEARING ON PUBLIC MORALS. SOCIETY, when once placed in a position a certain degree above utter barbarism, has a tendency, (so far as wars, unwise institutions, bad laws, and other such obstacles do not interfere,) to advance in wealth, and in the arts which belong to human life and enjoyment. How far such an advancement is favourable or unfavourable to that higher and better kind of civilization which consists in moral improvement, is a very important inquiry. At first, the division of labour would be but imperfect, and mutual intercourse between different parts of the country, difficult and limited. In each of the scattered villages, several different arts would be practised, with a very humble degree of skill, by the same person. Much labour would be wasted, through the want of tools, the clumsiness of implements, and the unskilfulness of workmen; and though the total produce of labour would be far less in proportion than in such a country as ours, there would be far fewer persons in proportion who could enjoy bodily leisure; and the leisure which some would enjoy would tend but in a comparatively small degree to their intellectual advancement, from their living within a confined circle, and wanting the excitement and the help of mutual communication. The advances which would afterwards be made as to each of these points, would all re-act on each other. Increasing division of labour would lead to an increase of exchanges, and this to the employment of money; and these latter improvements would, in turn, promote the first. All of these causes would tend to produce and to improve roads, canals, navigation, and other means of conveyance for goods and persons: and again, by thus making the intercourse more easy, both within the country and with foreign nations, you would cause an increase of the capital from which it had sprung. Thus a large number of the community would be at leisure from mere manual toil, and would be enabled to ment than mere sensual indulgence; while their turn their thoughts to some purer sources of enjoymutual intercourse would at once occasion an improvement of their faculties, and direct the zeal of many of them into a new channel. Some, indeed, of the wealthier members of this society, would vie with each other merely in expensive feasts and splendour of dress, or in the most trifling accomplishments; but others would be urged to direct their chief attention, or at least some part of it, to the pursuit of knowledge, either with a view to some useful end, or for its own sake. And here, again, we may perceive the wisdom and goodness of God, in not making the public good dependent on pure public spirit. He who labours to acquire, and then to impart to others, important knowledge, wholly or chiefly with a view to the good of his fellow-creatures, is not a common character. Knowledge would not have made the advances it has, For See Hamilton's description of Hindostan and the adjacent if it had been promoted only by such persons. the greater part of knowledge may be considered as countries, Vol. ii., p. 505. the gift, not of human, but of Divine, goodness, which has implanted in man a thirst after knowledge for its own sake, accompanied with a sort of instinctive desire to convey it to others. For there seems to be in man not only the desire of admiration (called in its faulty excess, vanity) which is a powerful spur to the gaining and imparting of knowledge, but also a desire (founded, perhaps, in sympathy,) of communicating it to others, as an ultimate end. This, and also the love of display, are, no doubt, lower motives, and will yield to a higher principle, in proportion as the character advances in moral attainment. These motives form, as it were, a kind of scaffolding, which should be taken down by little and little, as the building advances, but which is of vast use till that is finished. To these motives, then, with an addition, greater or less, of higher motives, we owe much of the progress of society in knowledge. Ulterior objects of utility also contribute to supply motives. It is proverbial, that "necessity is the mother of invention;" but the inventions thence arising will usually be of a simple and rude sort. The barbarous, and half-barbarous nations, which are the most necessitous-the most frequently compelled to use their faculties under this harsh teacher, have little to boast of in their contrivances, compared with those which arise in a more advanced stage of society. On those, however, who are not under the pressure of mere necessity, the desire of gain has often worked so as to sharpen their faculties and to extend their knowledge. But it is not wholly, or even chiefly, by an ulterior view to profit, that men have been urged to the pursuit of knowledge. On the contrary, it is, as Cicero observes, when men are released from the claims of necessary toils, that they are especially led to fix their desires on the hearing, the learning, the examining, of whatever is attractive, through its grandeur or novelty. Accordingly, many of the discoveries which have proved the most useful were probably the result of inquiries not begun with a view to utility. Those who first watched the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites had, we conclude, no thought of the important aid to navigation to which their discovery would lead. But indirectly, and as a help to the thirst of knowledge, the desire of gain has led to very grand results in this branch of improvement. The most important, perhaps, of all inventions, is that of a paper cheap enough to allow of its general use; for the introduction of printing would speedily spring from this, to meet the demand for books; and, indeed, some contrivance of the nature of printing is very obvious, and, though in an imperfect state, was known long before, but could never be extensively applied, till a cheap material for books should be invented. Now these arts were, perhaps, devised with a view to the profit of the inventors; but it was the demand for literary productions that must have held out the hope of their profit. from mutual intercourse, and keeping them apart from each other, in a state of barbarian rudeness and ignorance. If it be true, that man's duty is his real interest, both in this world and the next, the better he is qualified, by intellectual culture, to understand his duty and his interest, the greater prospect there would seem to be (other points being equal) of his moral improvement. For that integrity, temperance, and other virtues, which often require us to forego present pleasure, do in the long run promote our temporal prosperity and enjoyment, is a truth which is perceived more and more, as our minds become enlarged; and it cannot be perceived at all by those who are so dull and unthinking as hardly to look beyond the passing moment. Again, if our Religion be true, and be important for the bettering of mankind, it must be important that the knowledge of it should be spread abroad, and right views of it entertained. Now as a very poor community is likely to be a comparatively ignorant one, (since men all occupied in a hard struggle to subsist must have little leisure or wish for intellectual culture,) so the Religion of a very ignorant people must always be a gross and groveling superstition, either inoperative on their conduct, or mischievous in its effects. Christianity is designed and is calculated for all mankind, except savages and such as are but little removed above the savage state. Men are not, indeed (unhappily), always the better Christians, in proportion as they advance in refinement and intellectual culture: these are even sometimes found with utter irreligion. But all experience shows that a savage (though he may be trained to bow to a crucifix or an image of the Virgin,) cannot as a savage be a Christian. In all the successful efforts of missionaries among savages, civilization and conversion have gone hand in hand. The notions, then, of those who consider a poor and imperfectly civilized community as possessing superior or even equal advantages in point of moral improvement, appear as much opposed to reason and experience as they are to every rational wish : and as the Most High has evidently formed Society with a tendency to advancement in national wealth, so He has designed and fitted us to advance partly by means of that, in virtue, and true wisdom, and happiness. But every situation in which man can be placed has, along with its own peculiar advantages, its own peculiar difficulties and trials also, which we are called on to exert our faculties in providing against. The most fertile soil does not necessarily bear the most abundant harvest. Its weeds, if neglected, will grow the rankest. And the servant who has received but one talent, if he put it out to use, will fare better than he who has been intrusted with five, if he squander or bury them. But still this last does not suffer because he received five talents, but he suffers because he has not used them to advantage. D. HOW FAR THIS PROGRESS IN WEALTH AND KNOWLEDGE IS FAVOURABLE TO MORAL IMPROVEMENT. IF our early years were passed in laying up store for HUMAN nature being such as it is, it is idle to expect those whom God has given to be our nearest and dearest futurity, in practising the affections within the circle of that it will remain pure by being merely left unculti-ties, in cultivating intellect, and acquiring useful knowvated, and that noxious weeds will not spring up in it, unless the seeds of them are brought and artificially sown. The contrivance mentioned by Herodotus, of that Queen of Babylon, who removed every night the bridge over the Euphrates, that the inhabitants of the opposite sides might not pass over to rob each other, was not more absurd, than the idea of keeping up virtue among men, by shutting them out ledge, we should need no further security against the mistakes of after-life. Religion, virtue, wisdom, and good taste, would be our guides as well as our protectors.MRS. BRUCE. Better WHENEVER our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own. to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security,―BURKe. Magazine. PRICE ONE PENNY. UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, VOL. VI. 174 THE JURY COURT OF CEYLON. THE NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY OF III. INTRODUCTION OF TRIAL BY JURY INTO CEYLON. PERHAPS the greatest advantage obtained by Ceylon, since it has been under British domination, is the introduction of native juries into the courts of law. This was granted by the British government under an especial charter, passed in 1810, by the advice of Sir Alexander Johnston, then just appointed Chief Justice and President of his Majesty's Council in that Island. In all the Indian settlements subject to British legislation, the right of sitting upon juries was, until within a few years, confined to Europeans. In Ceylon this exclusive right was first removed, and the privilege extended to every person, of whatever class or religious persuasion. The engraving prefixed to our present number, represents the trial of five high-cast natives for murder, before the supreme court, in its new Court-house at Columbo, where the new measure was first put into operation. The object of the engraving is to commemorate two events of great importance to the population of Ceylon, the only English settlement in India under the dominion of his Britannic Majesty:-the institution of native juries, and the abolition of slavery. To the liberal policy and zeal of the Chief Justice, the native Ceylonese* are indebted for two of the greatest political and social blessings that can be conferred upon a people, whether barbarous or civilized. Sir Alexander Johnston, conceiving that an extension to the natives of those political privileges which had hitherto been confined to Europeans, would not only tend to impart stability to the British authority in this island, but, likewise, have an extensive moral influence in elevating the native in his own estimation, as well as in that of his countrymen, proposed to the ministers at home, measures for securing to the Ceylonese a share in the benefits of our free constitution. These measures were finally approved, and Sir Alexander Johnston was appointed Chief Justice and President of his Majesty's Council, with full power to carry them into effect. The advantages of this liberal policy were soon perceived; for the proprietors of slaves, at the President's suggestion, and in order to signalize their high appreciation of the privileges to which they had been so liberally advanced, unanimously resolved, that children born of their slaves after the twelfth of August 1816, should be thenceforward free, and be brought up at the expense of their parents' masters till the age of fourteen, thus associating in the minds of those to whom this generous manumission has been extended, and to their posterity for ever, the memory of King George the Fourth, and all the blessings derived from a state of freedom. It is impossible to estimate the advantages which have accrued, and which must multiply in proportion as they become perceived and appreciated, from the adoption of a line of policy at once so liberal and constitutional. The legislative influence has been great, for the natives, now feeling themselves to be positive members of that government, by the wise administration of whose laws, their lives and properties are protected and their social condition improved, take an interest not only in supporting that government of which they consider themselves an integral portion, but in preventing such infractions of its laws as may endanger its stability, and thus render its permanency precarious. By snapping the links of that narrow policy, which, up to the period of 1811, had been adopted in all our Indian settlements, the partition-wall so strongly supported by the inveterate prejudices of caste, has, to a considerable extent, been broken down, and thus the desperate hostility, inseparable from those religious prejudices which are especially entertained among heathen communities, have been in a great measure dissipated; since now the highest and lowest castes meet together in the courts, and cheerfully unite their efforts to co-operate with the government, which has secured their confidence by uniting them with its ministers, although placing them in the lowest grade in which their active co-operation can be available. Owing to the ready intercourse of the natives of Ceylon with those of the peninsula, the fact of native juries having been introduced into the courts of that island, soon became known through all the English settlements in the East, and produced such an anxiety among the Hindoo popula* Under the term Ceylonese are included all the native inhabitants of Ceylon, of whatever cast or tribe. The reigning king's birthday. tion under British jurisdiction to have a similar establishment among them, that in 1826 an Act was passed granting a like privilege to the natives of all our territories in India. The boon was received with general enthusiasm and has done more to establish the stability of British domination, than any act of legislation since the first establishment by us of a colony in those distant regions. The trial by jury, which we consider one of the main buttresses of our admirable constitution, is now become an object of general interest to upwards of one hundred and twenty millions of people, inhabiting countries that contain, at least, three hundred thousand geographical square miles, and extend from the gulf of Cambay to the rivers Ganges and Burrampooter, and from the Himalaya Mountains to Cape Comorin. To the political foresight of Sir Alexander Johnston, is this country indebted for the credit of having performed an act of legislative justice towards the inhabitants of a country more than six times as numerous as our own, and the population of that country, under the authority of the British government, are equally indebted to him for those blessings which eventuall ́such an extension of privilege is likely to confer. The engraving in our first page, represents a trial in the supreme court of Ceylon, of five prisoners of the vellale, or highest caste, for murder. Upon this occasion, Hindoos of various castes, Mohammedans, Malabars, and Europeans, were assembled together without the slightest expression of that asperity so usual in Asia, when persons of high and low caste happen to be in each other's vicinity. The artist had, consequently, an excellent opportunity of representing, not only the costume of the jurors, of the slaves, and of their masters, but also that of the natives of every part of India. The picture accordingly exhibits with great accuracy, the costume of the priests of the Hindoo, Boodhoo, and Mohammedan religions, as well as that of the Protestant and Catholic Missionaries, and that of the Malabar inhabitants of the North, and likewise that of the Cingalese of the South, that of the Malay princes and their attendants from the Eastern islands, that of the people of the Laccadive and Maldive Islands, that of the Hindoo population of the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, and lastly that of the Moguls, Arabs and Parsees. Our engraving is copied from one executed after a painting made by Stephanoff, from an original taken on the spot by a native artist of Ceylon, who was himself a juryman upon this very solemn occcasion, and was highly delighted with the privilege conferred upon himself and his countrymen. From his elevated position in the jurybox, he had an opportunity of giving the exact situation of the different groups, which has been rendered with extreme fidelity. Many of the figures are portraits, and the distinctions of caste, as well as of national costume, are very carefully preserved. Many persons appear in the picture, who took an active part in the introduction of trial by jury, and in the emancipation of the slave children. As the whole subject is one of extreme interest, I shall give a brief explanation of the principal groups and single figures represented in the print. Upon the bench, appear the Chief and Puisne Justices, in their criminal robes. On either side, between the pillars, stand, upon the same elevation with the judges, the sword and mace bearers, two Cingalese headmen of the highest caste. On the left of the dock, appear the jury, composed of thirteen Cingalese headmen of the highest caste, in full costume, taking the oaths as jurymen. Immediately before the foreman stands the native interpreter, in the act of interpreting the oath. Below the president of the court, is seated the king's advocate fiscal, who, in criminal trials, executes in Ceylon the same duties that the Lord High Advocate does in similar cases in Scotland. Near him sits the prisoner's advocate, an appointment established by Sir Alexander Johnston, for the purpose of affording gratuitously, to all prisoners that might choose to avail themselves of his assistance, the best legal advice to be obtained in Ceylon. Immediately before him is an urn, out of which, from about one hundred names thrown in, indiscriminately, the registrar draws those of the thirteen jurymen. Just within the rail of the dock are the five prisoners, about to take their trial on a charge of murder. On either side without the rail, stand the fiscal's lascoreens, or sheriffs' officers, who have charge of the prisoners. In the witness-box, immediately opposite tc the jury, is a Boodhist priest, in the act of being sworn as ing to the form of his religion, upon a religious book, a witness, by another priest of his own persuasion, accordformed from the leaves of the Talipat palm: close by the |