CHAPTER XIV.

Farther account of Okalbia—­The Field of Roses—­Curious superstition concerning that flower—­The pleasures of smell traced to association, by a Glonglim philosopher.

Though I felt some reluctance to abuse the patience of this polite and intelligent magistrate, I could not help making some inquiry about the jurisprudence of his country, and first, what was their system of punishment.

“We have no capital punishment,” says he; “for, from all we learn, it is not more efficacious in preventing crime, than other punishments which are milder; and we prefer making the example to offenders a lasting one.  But we endeavour to prevent offences, not so much by punishment as by education; and the few crimes committed among us, bring certain censure on those who have the early instruction of the criminal.  Murders are very rare with us; thefts and robbery perhaps still more so.  Our ordinary disputes about property, are commonly settled by arbitration, where, as well as in court, each party is permitted to state his case, to examine what witnesses and to ask what questions he pleases.”

“You do not,” said I, “examine witnesses who are interested?”

“Why not?  The judges even examine the parties themselves.”

I then told him that the smallest direct interest in the issue of the controversy, disqualified a witness with us, from the strong bias it created to misrepresent facts, and even to misconceive them.

He replied with a smile,—­“It seems to me that your extreme fear of hearing falsehood, must often prevent you from ascertaining the truth.  It is true, that wherever the interest of a witness is involved, it has an immediate tendency to make him misstate facts:  but so would personal ill-will—­so would his sympathies—­so would any strong feeling.  What, then, is your course in these cases?”

I told him that these objections applied to the credibility, and not to the competency, of witnesses, which distinctions of the lawyers I endeavoured to explain to him.

“Then I think you often exclude a witness who is under a small bias, and admit another who is under a great one.  You allow a man to give testimony in a case in which the fortune or character of his father, brother or child is involved, but reject him in a case in which he is not interested to the amount of a greater sum than he would give to the first beggar he met.  Is it not so?”

“That, indeed, may be the operation of the rule.  But cases of such flagrant inconsistency are very rare; and this rule, like every other, must be tried by its general, and not its partial effects.”

“True; but your rule must at least be a troublesome one, and give rise to a great many nice distinctions, that make it difficult in the application.  All laws are sufficiently exposed to this evil, and we do not wish unnecessarily to increase it.  We have, therefore, adopted the plan of allowing either party to ask any question of any witness he pleases, and leave it to the judges to estimate the circumstances which may bias the witness.  We, in short, pursue the same course in investigating facts in court that we pursue out of it, when no one forms a judgment until he has first heard what the parties and their friends say on the subject.”