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

248 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. v.

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nation. With that letter he transmitted a set of queries, prepared by order of the Government of Bombay, on subjects connected with the laws of inheritance, succession, and adoption, and with the law of property as between husband and wife.

To this communication no answer was returned to Government by the Parsis of either Surat or Bombay until the 18th of August 1836, eight years afterwards. Before that time, however, a circumstance occurred which made the Parsis living within the jurisdiction of the late Supreme Court of Bombay more anxious for positive legislation on matters connected with their rights of inheritance and succession, The circumstance referred to was the institution of a suit in the Supreme Court, in which the eldest son of an intestate Parsi claimed, by virtue of the English law of primogeniture, to be declared sole heir to the immovable estate of his deceased father. The Parsis took alarm, and on the 20th November 1835 transmitted to the Legislative Council a petition, very numerously signed, praying to be protected against this threatened application of the En glish law.

The petition had the desired effect. A resolution was passed by the Legislative Department on the 13th of January 1837, whereby the principle was affirmed that, “though the national usages of the Parsis were not, like the Hindu and Mahomedan rules

of inheritance, marriage, and succession, recognised