History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. V.] THE PRACTICAL RESULT. 275

The valuable, lucid, and exhaustive report of the Parsi Law Commission which was presided over by a president at once so able, learned, liberal, and sympathetic as Sir Joseph Arnould, who, during his career on the Bench of the High Court, had won the affec-

will be seen from the address which the Parsi delegates presented to the Honourable Mr. Justice Melvill in the year 1883, when that learned judge retired from the bench, and the reply which he gave thereto. We quote here the address as well as the reply from a newspaper report of the day. :

Sir Jamshedji Jijibhai said : “ On this occasion, which may possibly be the last when your lordship presides in the Parsi chief matrimonial court, allow me, on behalf of my brother delegates and myself, to address you a few words of cordial farewell. It is now ten years since you first presided in this court, and I am expressing the feeling of the delegates who have during this period assisted your lordship in the investigation of the various cases that have been brought on for trial ; and I may say that your lordship’s decisions have throughout been distinguished for impartiality and ability, and for that discretion and that tenderness and sympathy for the feelings and customs of the class of litigants brought before you, which have inspired confidence in this court. In establishing a special court for the determination of matrimonial disputes between Parsis, the Government of India evinced a wise and benign consideration for the special position of the Parsi community in India ; and your lordship has tried to act up to the wise policy thus adopted, in making this tribunal one to which the Parsis might confidently appeal for justice, and where the law would surely find a just and true interpretation, consonant with the manners and sentiments of those for whose benefit this court has been constituted. Considering the delicate, sometimes the painful, nature of the cases brought before your lordship, the administration of justice in this court requires more than in any other tribunal the exercise of high qualities of discretion, tact, and patience, and a more than ordinary amount of experience, in all which your lordship has excelled; and had it not been for these high qualities and great abilities brought to bear upon such cases, our task would have been one of extreme difficulty. As it was, however, the delegates of this court had always the benefit of your lordship’s great attainments, dis-