The form of the Burman administration may be thus briefly described. There is not here, as in other countries of the East, any official answering to the post of Vizier or Prime Minister. The place of such an officer is supplied by the councils mentioned above. The first or public council is the higher in rank, and it has received the name of Lut-d’hau or Lwat-d’hau. Its officers are four in number, and Sangermano adds four assistants as a staff,[31] which Crawfurd omits to mention.[32] The ministers bear the official name of Wun-kri (Burthen-bearers great). It is now understood to signify figuratively any one who is responsible; but in the days when the future colonists of Peru left the land, there is not a doubt that it was literally applied to the officers. For in the first place the designation would be applied to them as constantly bearing burthens, being continually in the presence of the king; and then, far from being a term of contempt, it would be a designation of honour and consideration. Thus they were literally, and are figuratively, Bearers of the Great Burthens.[33] The questions of state are discussed by this body, and the decision is by a majority of voices. Its sittings are held within the precincts of the palace in a spacious hall. All the royal edicts and grants pass through this council, and require its sanction; in fact, though they are the king’s acts, yet his name never appears in them. The custom is somewhat similar to our own of never mentioning the sovereign directly by name in the houses of parliament. The king is occasionally himself present at their deliberations. The edicts of the council are written upon palm-leaves, and a style of extreme brevity is adopted. Indeed, Sangermano assures us that “the more concise it is, the more forcible and efficacious the sentence is considered.” Would that our legislators and lawyers with their lengthy documents thought so! They may yet learn a lesson from barbarians.
The proclamations and writings of the council all bear the device of a sabre, to intimate the strength and swiftness of the punishment awaiting the transgressors of its decrees. The assistants or deputies are called Wun-tauk (Burthen-proppers). The literal signification was equally in force in ages gone by. Beside the Wun-tauks there are from eight to ten secretaries, called Saré-d’haukri (Scribes-royal great).
The second council, like the first, has deliberations with the king. But those of the Atwen-wun (Interior burthen-bearers) are private and preliminary to those of the Wunkri. They are considered to be inferior to the Wunkri, and yet they have a great deal of by-influence, from their position in the royal palace. The subjects of their deliberations are precisely similar to those of the Lut-d’hau, and they exercise the same judicial functions; and even now it is a question of some doubt as to which of the assemblies is in reality the higher. There are various officers attached to the Atwen-wun, as to the Wun-kri.
The number four is retained in the next rank of officers. They are the four general commanders and surveyors of the northern, southern, eastern, and western parts of the empire respectively. Then follow many subordinate officers attached in various capacities to the administration. None of this numerous staff of officers receive any regular salary, but their payment somewhat resembles the system of repartimientos established in the Spanish colonies of America, being assignments of the lands and labour of certain numbers of the people. These are granted to officers of the executive governments, in the same way as the king of Persia assigned various cities and lands to Themistocles in more ancient times.[34] Towns and lands are also granted to the ladies of the king’s harem, and to the other numerous members of the royal family. The whole country is looked upon as crown property; and the waste and uncultivated parts are at the disposition of any one who will settle in them. The only duty incumbent on the settler is that he must inclose and cultivate it. If he do not improve the land within a certain period, it reverts to the Crown, and may be settled by another. Strangely enough, this does not prevent the sale, inheritance, or leasing of land, which goes on just as in Europe, although, of course, contrary to law. The conditions of mortgage are simpler than with us; for the lender takes possession of the mortgaged estate, and he becomes the owner of it, if the borrowed amount be not returned before the expiration of three years.[35]
In civil disputes the parties have the right to select their own judges, while criminal causes are tried before the chief governor of the town or village.[36] At first this system of administering justice would appear to be a fair and equitable plan, being apparently merely an agreement to refer the matter to the consideration of umpires. This is, however, not the case. The orders of government forbid this, but nevertheless the prohibition is not observed; the utmost corruption prevails, for any complainant goes to a sufficiently influential person in the neighbourhood, and for a bribe obtains a decision in his favour. Sangermano sarcastically remarks, “It may be easily conceived to what injustice and inconvenience this practice must necessarily lead.” The severest calamity that can befall any person is “to be put into justice.” There is no small degree of wit in this Burman phrase.
Crawfurd mentions an instance of the strange proceeding of the Burman courts, which may be interesting.[37]
“In 1817, an old Burmese woman, in the service of a European gentleman, was cited before the Rung-d’hau, or court of justice, of Rangoon. Her master appeared on her behalf, and was informed that her offence consisted in having neglected to report a theft committed upon herself three years before, by which the government officers were defrauded of the fees and profits which ought to have accrued from the investigation or trial. On receiving this information, he was about to retire, in order to make arrangements to exonerate her, when he was seized by two messengers of the court, and informed, that by appearing in the business he had rendered himself responsible, and could not be released unless some other individual were left in pledge for him, until the old woman’s person were produced. A Burman lad, his servant, who accompanied him, was accordingly left in the room. In an hour he returned with the accused, and found, that in the interval, the lad left in pledge had been put into the stocks, his ankles squeezed in them, and by this means, a little money which he had about his person, and a new handkerchief, extorted from him. The old woman was now put into the stocks in her turn, and detained there until all were paid, when she was discharged without any investigation whatever into the theft.”
One would imagine that this circumstance was much more likely to have happened in our High Court of Chancery, under the “sharp practice” of a Dodson and Fogg. It seems to be a mutilated Burman version of one of our “great” institutions made into a matter of physical force by Malcom’s Oriental Chartist. I may here mention an affecting incident related by Sangermano,[38] and doubtlessly too true.
A poor widow, who was hard pinched to pay the tax demanded of her, was obliged to sell her only daughter to obtain the sum. The money was received, and heavy at heart she returned home, and put it in a box in her house, intending to lament that night, and carry the money to her inexorable creditor in the morning. But the measure of her sorrows was not yet full. Some thieves broke into the house and stole the money. In the morning she discovered her loss, and this additional circumstance caused the bounds of her grief to flow even beyond that of silence, and sitting before her door she gave herself up to loud lamentations. As she was weeping, an emissary of the city magistrate passed by, and inquired into the cause of her sorrow. He, upon hearing the sad story, related the matter to his master. The poor creature was then summoned to the court of justice, and commanded to deliver up the thief. Of course this was impossible. She was detained in the stocks until she could scrape together money enough to satisfy the rapacity of the judge.
Sometimes these affairs are very comical. The same author relates another, the circumstances of which are as follows:—