A woman employed in cooking fish for dinner was called away for an instant. The cat, watching her opportunity, seized a half-roasted fish, and ran out of the house. The woman immediately ran after the cat, exclaiming, “The cat has stolen my fish!” A few days afterwards she was summoned before the magistrate, who demanded the thief at her hands. It was of no use that she explained that the thief was a cat. The magistrate has nothing to do with that. His time was valuable, and the expenses of the court must be paid.
The report of Captain Alves, cited in Crawfurd,[39] contains ample accounts of the court charges.
How very similar the Burman law courts are to our own! The following extract from the good father’s work will show it:[40]—“In civil causes, lawsuits are terminated much more expeditiously than is generally the case in our part of the world, provided always that the litigants are not rich, for then the affair is extremely long, and sometimes never concluded at all. I was myself acquainted with two rich European merchants and ship-masters, who ruined themselves so completely by a lawsuit, that they became destitute of the common necessaries of life, and the lawsuit withal was not decided, nor will ever be.” Just like Jarndyce and Jarndyce,—the same costly affair everywhere!
Witnesses, both in the civil and criminal causes, are sometimes examined upon oath, though not always. The oath is written in a small book of palm-leaves, and is held over the head of the witness. Foreigners, however, take their own oaths. The substance of the Book of Imprecations, or, as the Burmese call it, the Book of the Oath, is as follows:[41]—
False witnesses, who assert anything from passion, and not from love of truth,—witnesses who affirm that they have heard and seen what they have not heard or seen, may all such false witnesses be severely punished with death, by that God who, through the duration of 400,100,000 worlds, has performed every species of good work, and exercised every virtue. I say, may God, who, after having acquired all knowledge and justice, obtained divinity, leaning upon the tree of Godama, may this God, with the Nat who guards him day and night, that is, the Assurâ Nat, and the giants, slay these false witnesses.
[Here follows the invocation of many different Nats.]
May all those who, in consequence of bribery from either party, do not speak the truth, incur the eight dangers and the ten punishments. May they be infected with all sorts of diseases.
Moreover, may they be destroyed by elephants, bitten and slain by serpents, killed and devoured by the devils and giants, the tigers, and other ferocious animals of the forest. May whoever asserts a falsehood be swallowed by the earth, may he perish by sudden death, may a thunderbolt from heaven slay him,—the thunderbolt which is one of the arms of the Nat Devà.
May false witnesses die of bad diseases, be bitten by crocodiles, be drowned. May they become poor, hated of the king. May they have calumniating enemies, may they be driven away, may they become utterly wretched, may every one ill-treat them, and raise lawsuits against them.[42] May they be killed with swords, lances, and every sort of weapon. May they be precipitated into the eight great hells and the 120 smaller ones. May they be tormented. May they be changed into dogs. And, if finally they become men, may they be slaves a thousand and ten thousand times. May all their undertakings, thoughts, and desires, ever remain as worthless as a heap of cotton burnt by the fire.