Pocket editions of these Codes are published, which may be carried about as easily as a pocket Bible; and I doubt whether, even in Scotland, you would find many people who know their Bibles as Indian civilians know their Codes." After describing the confusion and complication of the criminal law of our Indian Empire before it was taken in hand by the Commission of 1834, Mr.Stephen proceeds to say: "Lord Macaulay's great work was far too daring and original to be accepted at once.

It was a draft when he left India in 1838.

His successors made remarks on it for twenty-two years.

Those years were filled with wars and rumours of wars.

The Afghan disasters and triumphs, the war in Central India, the wars with the Sikhs, Lord Dalhousie's annexations, threw law reform into the background, and produced a state of mind not very favourable to it.