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

CHAP. V.] A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. 255

Bombay, might receive the evidence of deputations from the Parsi communities of all the other towns from which petitions regarding this code have been received, or might hear the arguments of counsel on behalf of such communities, and might consult all the authorities, written or oral, to which reference has been or might be made, recording afterwards a deliberate judgment in respect to each point separately, and specifying what appeared in each instance to be the prevailing usage, tradition, or wish of the majority of the entire Parsi community as made known to them.”

This Commission was appointed by the Bombay Government on the 26th December 1861, and consisted of the Honourable Mr. Justice Arnould, Mr. Henry Newton, C.S., and Mr. Framji Nasarvanji Patel, president of the managing committee of the Parsi Law Association, as representing the Bombay Parsis, and Mr. Rastamji Kharshedji Modi of Surat, as representing the Mofussil Parsis. The first meeting of the Commission took place on the 15th of February 1862.

On that day the managing committee of the Parsi Law Association submitted to the Commission a supplemental draft code of betrothal, marriage, and divorce. It is necessary to explain how the Parsis came to prepare this supplemental draft code. In the year after the Parsi Law Association was formed a