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

262 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. V.

had remarked in their report “that the English law of chattels real” had for a quarter of a century governed in cases of intestacy the transmission of all property of Parsis within the limits of the Supreme Court, and that they had no evidence before them that any evil, or what kind or extent of evil, had resulted from that state of the law.

Such evidence was abundantly supplied to the Commission by Mr. Naorozji Fardunji, who enumerated, in the course of his lengthened oral evidence before it, a great variety of cases showing clearly the nature and extent of the hardship imposed upon Parsis, and which had produced a feeling of profound dissatisfaction by the application to them, within the limits of the Supreme Court and afterwards within that of the High Court, of the English law of distribution of property in cases of intestacy.

This evidence was so valuable and conclusive that the Commission requested a reference to it by the Legislature.

With regard to the English law of property as between husband and wife, the Commission tre-

marked :—

“That common law of England which merges the wife in the husband and declares her absolutely incapable, during coverture, of contracting, holding, or disposing of property, the evidence of Mr. Naorozji Fardunji supplied the Commission with many striking instances, in which the enforced application of this law to Parsis, within the limits of the late Supreme Court