18. BRYCE: THE EXTENSION OF LAW 597 United States also, all see this task before them. To them therefore, as well as to England, the experience of the Brit- ish Government in India may be profitable. VI. English Law in India When the English began to conquer India they found two great systems of customary law in existence there, the Musul- man and the Hindu. There were other minor bodies of cus- tom, prevailing among particular sects, but these may for the present be disregarded. Musulman law regulated the life and relations of all Musulmans ; and parts of it, especially its penal provisions, were also applied by the Musulman potentates to their subjects generally, Hindus included. The Musulman law had been most fully worked out in the depart- ments of family relations and inheritance, in some few branches of the law of contract, such as money loans and mortgages and matters relating to sale, and in the doctrine of charitable or pious foundations called Wakuf. In the Hindu principalities, Hindu law was dominant, and even where the sovereign was a Musulman, the Hindu law of family relations and of inheritance was recognized as that by which Hindus lived. There were also of course many land customs, varying from district to district, which both Hindus and Musulmans observed, as they were not in general directly connected with religion. In some regions, such as Oudh and what are now the North-West provinces, these customs had been much affected by the land revenue system of the Mogul Emperors. It need hardly be said that where Courts of law existed, they administered an exceedingly rough and ready kind of justice, or perhaps injustice, for bribery and favouritism were everywhere rampant. There were also mercantile customs, which were generally understood and observed by traders, and which, with certain specially Musulman rules recognized in Musulman States, made up what there was of a law of contracts. Thus one may say that the law (other than purely re- ligious law) which the English administrators in the daj'^s of Clive and Warren Hastings found consisted of —
