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

CHAP. V.] THE MOFUSSIL PARSIS. 261

the draft code were, as amended by the Commission, deemed novel but expedient.

The fifth question was :—

Whether any case had been made out for the necessity of special legislation in regard to the points embraced in the draft code of inheritance and succession, or should the Parsis of the

Mofussil be left, as heretofore, to usage on those points, and the Parsis of Presidency towns to English law ?

In the course of its inquiry under this important head it became clear to the Commission that the Mofussil Parsis were completely at one with the Bombay Parsis in the conviction that the English laws of inheritance and succession and the English law of property as between husband and wife were absolutely unsuited to the requirements of the Parsi community. Rather than be placed as the Bombay Parsis were during the existence of the late Supreme Court, and since the establishment of the High Court, under the operation of English law on these points, the representatives of the Mofussil Parsis examined before the Commission emphatically stated that they would willingly adopt the draft code without any modification. Nothing, indeed, could exceed, the Commission stated, the energy of language with which the Mofussil Parsis deprecated the notion of being placed in the same legal position as that which was then occupied by their brethren of Bombay.

The select committee of the Legislative Council