" My Lords, this law
recognizes this kind of property; it regulates it with the nicest
accuracy of distinction; it settles the descent of it in every part and
circumstance. It nowhere asserts (but the direct contrary is positively
asserted) that the magistrate has any power whatever over property. It
states that it is the magistrate's duty to protect it; that he is bound
to govern by law; that he must have a council of Brahmins to assist him
in every material act that he does: in short, my Lords, there is not
even a trace of arbitrary power in the whole system.
My Lords, I will mention one article, to let you see, in a very few
words, that these Gentoos not only have an inheritance, but that the law
has established a right of _acquiring_ possession in the property of
another by prescription. The passage stands thus:--"If there be a person
who is not a minor," (a man ceases to be a minor at fifteen years of
age,) "nor impotent, nor diseased, nor an idiot, nor so lame as not to
have power to walk, nor blind, nor one who, on going before a
magistrate, is found incapable of distinguishing and attending to his
own concerns, and who has not given to another person power to employ
and to use his property,--if, in the face of any such person, another
man has applied to his own use, during the space of twenty years, the
glebe-land or houses or orchards of that person, without let or
molestation from him, from the twenty-first year the property becomes
invested in the person so applying such things to his own use; and any
claim of the first person above mentioned upon such glebe-[land or?]
houses or orchards shall by no means stand good: but if the person
before mentioned comes under any of the circumstances herein before
described, his claim in that case shall stand good.
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