Читать книгу Burmah and the Burmese онлайн

38 страница из 59

Administration of the oath ten ticals. Messenger for holding the book one tical. Two other messengers’ fees two ticals. Recorders two ticals. Pickled tea used in the ceremony half a tical.

The pickled tea, as it is called, is a rough, coarse tea, chewed at the conclusion of the ceremony, and without it no oath is binding.

There is another way in which causes are decided on very rare and special occasions,—the trial by ordeal. This is either by water or melted lead. In the first instance, the plaintiff and defendant are made to walk into the water, and whichever can hold out longest under its surface is declared the winner. The other mode consists in putting the finger in boiling water or melted lead, and trying who can keep it in the longest. The stocks are a great torture in this country, for they are made to slide up and down, so that the head and shoulders touch the floor. Of the prisons, sad and disagreeable accounts are given, but they are very insecure.

I may here remark, that it is an accepted truth, that the only use to be derived from the examination of the institutions of other countries, is that they may be compared by us with our own, and that they may serve as a standard whereby to measure the enlightenment to which we have attained. I hope, therefore, that I shall find some one willing to excuse me for having mentioned our “noble institution,” that “bulwark of our liberties,” the most High Court of Chancery, in the same page with the law courts of Burmah, where so much equity and moderation prevail. Because, of course, it is only the “rabble,” the “herd,” the “great unwashed,” that suffer, and these are of no account whatever in either nation, British or Burman, especially in the eyes of Secretaries at War.