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The different punishments for offences are these, increasing with the enormity of the crime:—Fines, the stocks, imprisonment, labour in chains, flogging, branding, maiming, pagoda slavery, and death. The last, which seldom occurs but for murder and treason, is inflicted by decapitation, drowning, or crucifixion. But killing slaves is not criminal, and is atoned by fines. A libel is punished by the infliction of the punishment corresponding to the crime unjustly charged upon the plaintiff by the libeller: however, if the truth of the charge be proven, it is not a libel. In our country, it is a well-known fact that the truth alone is a libel, a falsehood needing no refutation. Judgments, as in England, go by default of appearance, though that is no rule in Burman practice, whatever it maybe in theory.

The husband has power to chastise his wife for misbehaviour, after repeated admonitions and remonstrances in the presence of witnesses. In the event of continued offences, he has the power to divorce her, without appeal. A woman whose husband has gone away with the army is at liberty to marry at the expiration of six years; if his object were business, she must wait seven years; and if he was sent on any religious mission, she must wait ten years. The slave-laws are very strict, yet favourable on the whole; but I should imagine that judge’s opinion settled the matter.