Leonard Woolf As A Judge in Ceylon

LEONARD WOOLF AS A JUDGE IN CEYLON
LEONARD WOOLF
AS A
JUDGE IN CEYLON
First Edition 1996

Second and revised Edition 2016
M. C. W. Prabhath de Silva 1996 (print)
M. C. W. Prabhath de Silva 2016
(print and electronic)
ISBN : 978-955-0028-69-6
Second and revised Edition published and printed in Sri Lanka by
Neptune Publications (Pvt) Ltd.
302, Pahalawela Road, Pelawatta, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.
ii
LEONARD WOOLF
AS A JUDGE IN CEYLON
A British Civil Servant as a Judge in the Hambantota
District of Colonial Sri Lanka (1908-1911)
M. C. W. Prabhath de Silva
Neptune Publications (Pvt) Ltd.
iii
To
the memory
of my parents
PREFACE
(Second and revised edition 2016)
The first edition of this book was published in 1996 under title:
Leonard Woolf: A British Civil Servant as a Judge in the Hambantota
District of Colonial Sri Lanka (1908-1911). This is the second and
revised edition published after 20 years. During the year 1992,
when I served as Magistrate of Tissamaharama in the Hambantota
District of southern Sri Lanka, I was able to peruse a collection of
old case records stored in the Record Room of the District Court
of Hambantota. This collection included records of some civil cases
Leonard Woolf had heard as a judge during his tenure as the Assistant
Government Agent of Hambantota (1908-1911). The writing of this
book was stimulated by the fascination derived from the reading of
these old case records, Woolfs experiences and reflections as a judge
at Hambantota recorded in his autobiography and official diaries, as
well as the court scenes portrayed in his novel The Village in the
Jungle
This book is the fruit of a personal research in which I was
engaged for more than three years in my spare time- I express my
sincere gratitude to Mr. Sunil Rajapaksha, who was the District Judge
of Hambatota in 1992, for his kind permission for the perusal of old
case records as well as for the reproduction of the proceedings of
Case No. 2668 in Chapter VI and Appendix. Miss. Amanda Liddel,
Miss. Rosalind Parkes, Miss. Deloraine Brohier, Mrs. Patricia
Temple, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Cameron, Dr. Jane Russell, Professor
E. J. H. Scharage, Professor S. Faber and Dr. Tammo Wallinga read
the manuscript at different stages of its formation and made their
vii
invaluable suggestions and comments before the first edition of this

book was published in 1996. Late Justice J. F. A. Soza, Retired Judge
of the Supreme Court and Director, Sri Lanka Judges Institute wrote
a foreword to the first edition of book in 1996. At the book launch
of the first edition organized by the Law and Society Trust in 1996,
Justice J.F.A.Soza, Dr.Neelan Tiruchelvam Regi Siriwardene spoke
on the book. I remember them all with a profound sense of gratitude.
Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 1996,
several works have appeared on Leonard Woolf and his novel The
Village in the Jungle. I have paid attention to these new publications
in the revised edition. When I was preparing the revised text for the
second edition, I had the privilege of meeting Dr. John D. Rogers
and Dr. Michael Roberts. Their suggestions and comments were very
helpful. Dr.John D.Rogers has written a foreword to the second and
revised edition of this book. I owe them a debt of gratitude.
I express my thanks to the University of Sussex and The
Society of Authors in England as the Representatives of the Literary
Estate of Leonard Woolf for their permission for the quotations taken
from Woolfs autobiography and novel The Village in the Jungle,
and for the photographs.
I express my gratitude to the Law and Society Trust,Colombo
and its Executive Director, Mrs. Dinushika Dissanayake for
organizing a book launch again for the second and revised edition
of this book.
I thank Mr.Dinesh Kulatunga, Managing Director, Neptune
Publications (Pvt) Ltd for undertaking the task of publishing and
printing of the second and revised edition. Finally I thank other
individuals who have helped me in many ways although I have not
mentioned their names here.
Prabhath de Silva
October 2016
viii
Foreword
(Second and revised edition 2016)
I welcome the publication of this second and revised edition

of Prabhath de Silva's book on the judicial work of Leonard Woolf,
who tried many civil and criminal court cases when serving as a
member of the Ceylon Civil Service at Hambantota from 1908 to
1911. De Silva has taken pains to collect extensive evidence from
many sources, including Woolf's official diary, his autobiography,
manuscripts found in the record room of Hambantota District Court,
and his famous novel, The Village in the Jungle. These sources are
woven together to provide a vivid account of Woolf's approach to
law and justice. In this new edition, de Silva has expanded his use of
foreign and local secondary sources in order to place Woolf's judicial
work in a wider context. De Silva's analysis shows that Woolf's
distinctive personality affected the way he approached the cases he
heard. At the same time, the book also has wider implications for
understanding colonial justice and the ideological foundations of
British rule in Ceylon.
John D. Rogers (Ph.D., University of London)

Director, American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies
Author of Crime, Justice and Society in Colonial Sri Lanka'
(London: Curzon Press, 1987)
October 2016
ix
FOREWORD
(First edition 1996)
Prabhath de Silva on his being posted to Tissamaharama as
Magistrate in 1992 took the opportunity to delve into certain aspects

of legal history for which court records at Hambantota had hitherto
remained an untapped source.
When at Tissamaharama in the deep south of Sri Lanka,
Prabhath de Silva was constantly in touch with me in the course
of his researches into the work of Leonard Woolf, an outstanding
administrator and judge of colonial Sri Lanka who held office at
Hambantota as Assistant Government Agent, Police Magistrate,
Commissioner of Requests and Additional District Judge.
I have had the privilege of reading the manuscript on the
subject of Leonard Woolf: A British Civil Servant as a Judge in
the Hambantota District of Colonial Sri Lanka (1908-1911) on the
material he was able to gather.
The finished product of Prabhath de Silvas researches bear
ample testimony to the penetrative insights and conceptual analyses
which pervade the pages of his work. De Silva has paid special
attention to Leonard Woolfs performance as a judge and made a
remarkable evaluation linking it to the social milieu and cultural
ethos of the diverse racial groups that inhabited Hambantota during
the first decade of this century. Much of Leonard Woolfs thinking
was modern in a sense and he had an almost prophetic perception of
the looming ethnic crisis which plagues Sri Lanka today. De Silva
highlights these aspects of Woolfs life and times.
x
Prabhath de Silvas work is remarkable not only for the

depth of the conceptual analyses which he has carried out but also
for the amplitude of the illustrative material. This work must rank
as a significant original contribution to the legal literature of Sri
Lanka. This book will be of interest to lawyers, judges, law students,
academics and laymen.
J. F. A. Soza
Retired Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka
Director, Sri Lanka Judges Institute
March 1996
xi
CONTENTS
PREFACE - (Second and revised edition 2016)
vii
Foreword - (Second and revised edition 2016)
ix
Foreword - (First edition 1996)
Chapter
1 - Introduction
Chapter
2 - Nervous Tremor and Justice
15 - 22
Chapter
3 - Humour and Severity
23 - 32
Chapter
4 - Judicial Work in General: Murder,
Bribery, Communal Riots and
Other Cases
33 - 51
Chapter
3 - 14
5 - Engelbrecht: The Boer Prisoner of War 52 - 59
Chapter
6 - Among the Case Records of
Hambantota
60 - 71
Chapter
7 - Police, Village Headmen and Crime
72 - 77
Chapter
8 - The Village in the Jungle
Chapter
9 - Conclusion
78 - 126
127 - 140
Appendix -
141 - 150
Notes -
151 -164
Bibliography -
165 - 170
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The British colonial government ruled Ceylon (as Sri Lanka
was then known) for nearly one and a half centuries through its
premier bureaucratic institution known as the Ceylon Civil Service
which was established in 1802 when the maritime provinces of the
Island were converted into a crown colony of the British. ** From its
inception till the end of the British rule, the members of the Ceylon
Civil Service were an exceptionally privileged body of gentlemen.
They were especially recruited and trained as administrators, holding
the important key positions in the executive, legislative and judicial
branches of the colonial government. These Civil Servants exclusively
functioned as the provincial administrators in the Island while they also
held all important offices in the central government in Colombo - the
offices of the Colonial Secretary, Colonial Treasurer etc. Although the
Governor appointed by the Crown was at the pinnacle of the colonial
government as its chief executive, the Colonial Secretary, who was
usually a senior career Civil Servant with considerable experience,
virtually acted as the head of the colonial administration. Each of the
nine provinces of the island was headed by a Government Agent, and
the provinces were subdivided into districts each under the control
of an Assistant Government Agent. Each Government Agent had
* Sri Lankas ancient civilization came under the influence of western colonial powers
(Portuguese,Dutch and British) from the beginning of the 16 th century. The Portuguese ruled
the maritime provinces of Sri Lanka from 1505 to 1656. The maritime provinces were ruled
by the Dutch from 1656 to 1796. The British captured the maritime provinces of the Island
in 1796, and when the sovereignty of the interior Kandyan Kingdom was ceded to them by
the Kandyan convention of 1815, the whole Island came under their rule.Sri Lanka gained
independence from the British in 1948. The name of the Island changed from Ceylon to Sri
Lanka in 1972.
two Office Assistants (junior and senior) under his supervision. The
Government Agents and the Assistant Government Agents operated
from their respective provincial or district headquarters of the central
government known as Kachcheries. At the bottom of the colonial
bureaucracy was the newly recruited Civil Servant designated as the
Cadet. All officials from the Cadet to the Colonial Secretary in the
colonial administration were members of the Ceylon Civil Service.
Being the chief executors of the government policy in their
respective districts and provinces, the Assistant Government
Agents and the Government Agents were entrusted with numerous
administrative duties. At the village level the Assistant Government
Agents were assisted by native headmen who functioned as
the intermediaries between the colonial administration and the
villagers. 1 The Assistant Government Agents, in addition to their
administrative duties, functioned as the judges of the Police Courts,
Courts of Requests and District Courts in their respective districts,
even though this curious combination of executive and judicial
powers in a single official would seem inconsistent with the doctrine
of separation of powers.2
Leonard Woolf, who was a member of the Ceylon Civil Service
from 1904 to 1911, and whose judicial work in the Hambantota
District (1908 - 1911) constitutes the central theme of this book,
describes the administrative role of the Government Agent, in his
autobiography:
One of the extraordinary things about the life
of an administrative Civil Servant in those days was
the variety of his work. The Government Agent was
responsible for everything connected with revenue and
expenditure in his province (other than expenditure on
main roads, public works, and major irrigation works).
He was at the head of the customs, the prisons, the
police. He was responsible for all municipal and local
government, for all minor roads and minor irrigation

works, for sale or development of crown lands, for
welfare work, for law and order, and for a great deal of
paternal government unknown in European countries
for several hundred years. 3
It appears that this paternalistic attitude was expected from them
in their capacity as judges. C. H. Cameron who was responsible for
the reforms introduced to the judicial system of the Island in 1833,
said:
The morale and intellectual condition of the
natives is such that the European magistrate who
is to distribute justice among them, can only do so
effectively by the exercise of something like a paternal
authority.4
The members of the Ceylon Civil Service continued to fill all
judicial posts. except the offices of the Chief Justice and other Supreme
Court judges, until a separate Judicial Service was established in the
late 1930s. The Civil Servants were required to acquire a reasonable
proficiency in native languages as well as a general knowledge of
law.5 In 1907,Justice Middleton,a Supreme Court Judge of colonial
Sri Lanka in his judgment in the case of Surian Pulle et.al vs Silva
said: As a matter of fact,gentlemen of the Civil Service of this colony
are to be presumed to be acquainted with at least one of the two
principal vernacular languages.6 The Supreme Court exercised the
appellate jurisdiction over the Police Courts, Courts of Requests and
District Courts and the original jurisdiction to try cases for serious
crimes like murder, treason, rape etc. The Chief Justice and the other
Judges of the Supreme Court were always non-civil servant officials,
professionally qualified in law.
Although at the initial stages, the Civil Servants were recruited
to the Ceylon Civil Service directly by the Secretary of State in
Britain (and in the case of local recruits, upon the nomination by
5
the Governor of Ceylon) usually on the basis of patronage. The

recruitment policies were later changed to introduce competitive
entrance examinations for admission. The purpose of the introduction
of the competitive entrance examinations was to attract, educated
men of a higher quality to the service. The colonial government
was able to achieve this goal to a greater extent, as only the young
graduates of British universities in the age group of 20 - 24 years
were permitted to sit for the entrance examination in the latter part
of the 19th century. The entrance examination was conducted by the
Civil Service Commissioners of Britain, simultaneously in London
and Colombo in the 1870s although it was held only in London
during the period from 1880 to 1920. Since very few Sri Lankans
belonging to exceptionally wealthy families could afford the luxury
of receiving education at a British university, entry to the Ceylon
Civil Service was invariably limited to the men of the British uppermiddle-class, privileged to have a university education. Most of the
recruits had gained their university education from the prestigious
universities of Oxford and Cambridge after the completion of their
secondary education at British public schools.7 The high level of
integrity and efficiency, characteristic of the Ceylon Civil service
may perhaps be attributed to the sound educational background of its
members. It was into this colonial bureaucratic structure that Leonard
Woolf made his entry in 1904 when he was recruited as a member of
the Ceylon Civil Service.
Leonard Sidney Woolf, the third of nine children in a Jewish
family, was born on 25th November, 1880 in London. Even though
his father Sidney Woolf Q.C. was a successful barrister, his fathers
sudden death at the age of forty-seven placed the Woolf family in
a difficult financial position.8 Leonard Woolf, who was only eleven
years old when his father died, from those early days, realized that
his further education depended on his ability to win scholarships.9
The only exceptions were the District Judgeships of Colombo and Kandy,
held by the Senior members of the Bar.
On completion of his secondary education at St. Pauls School,

one of the leading public schools in Britain in 1899, Woolf won a
scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge where he read Classics
till his graduation in 190410. Of Cambridge, Woolf later wrote in his
autobiography:
My loyalty to Trinity and Cambridge is different
from all my other loyalties. It is more intimate,
profound, unalloyed. It is compounded of the spiritual,
intellectual and physical inextricably mixed - the
beauty of the college and backs, the atmosphere of
long years of history and great traditions and famous
names, a profoundly civilized life, friendship and the
society.11
The circle of friends in which Woolf moved during his formative
years at Cambridge included John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey,
E. M. Forster, Clive Bell, Rogers Fry, Thorby Stephen and his sisters
Vanessa and Virginia Stephen. It was this circle of men and women
who later formed the famous Bloomsbury Group12. In 1904, after
five years at Trinity College, Cambridge, Woolf sat for the Civil
Service examination. The examination was administered by the
Civil Service Commission of Britain for admission to the Home
Civil Service, Indian Civil Service and the Eastern Cadetships which
included the civil services of Ceylon, Hong Kong and Malaya.13 The
examination was conducted in 33 subjects which included Modern
Languages, Mathematics, Natural Science, History, Philosophy,
Law and Classics. Besides the compulsory papers, the candidates
could select a certain number of 13 subjects from the list to make up
the necessary aggregate of marks14. The candidates who scored the
highest marks could obtain places in the Home Civil Service of Britain
while the Indian Civil Service and the Eastern Cadetship remained
as the second and third choices respectively. 15The general order of
preference in the Eastern Cadetships was Ceylon, Hong Kong and
Malaya.16 In view of the aggregate of marks, he scored at the Civil
Service examination, Woolf decided to accept an Eastern Cadetship
7
and applied for an appointment in the Ceylon Civil Service. This he

obtained and he sailed for Colombo in October 1904.17 Woolf wrote
in Growing, the second volume of his autobiography:
The umbilical cord by which I had been attached
to my family, to St. Pauls, to Cambridge and Trinity
wascut, when leaning over the ships taffrail, I watched
through the dirty, dripping murk and fog of the river
my mother and sister waving good-bye and felt the ship
begin slowly to move down the Thames to the sea.18
Woolf, who arrived in Colombo in December 1904, was
immediately sent to the Jaffna Kachcheri to take up his duties. He
spent nearly three years in Jaffna, first as Cadet and later as Office
Assistant, under two Government Agents, J. P. Lewis and F. H. Price19.
In 1907, Woolf was appointed Office Assistant to the Kachcheri in
Kandy, where he worked for nearly one year.20 In August 1908, at the
age of twenty-seven, he was promoted to the more responsible post
of Assistant Government Agent of the Hambantota District situated
in the South-East dry zone of Sri Lanka.21 Being the Assistant
Government Agent at Hambantota, Woolf was the chief colonial
administrator or the virtual ruler of 100,000 people living in an area
of 1000 square miles. Of Hambantota, he wrote:
I was nearly three years in Hambantota as
Assistant Government Agent. I grew to be extremely
fond of the place and of its people. It was pure
Sinhalese, no planters, no Europeans at all except a
District Judge in Tangalla, two Irrigation Engineers,
and an Assistant Superintendent of Police. It was
entirely rural and agricultural in the west, and a
vast stretch of jungle with the game sanctuary in the
east. There were no real towns, no railway, hardly
any roads. I continually travelled about the district
and got to know well almost every yard of it, and to
some extent the way of life and the attitude to life of its
inhabitants.22
8
Woolf with Hambantota kachcheri staff Mudaliyars, Muhandiram and Engalbrecht
Despite frequent attacks of malaria and painful conditions, Woolf

worked sixteen hours a day to make his district the most efficiently
administered in the island.23 In addition to his administrative work
as Assistant Government Agent at Hambantota, he also functioned
as a Police Magistrate, Commissioner of Requests, and additional
District Judge in the district.
After three years of service at Hambantota, Woolf sailed for
England in May 1911, on one years leave of absence from the
Ceylon Civil Service. In October 1911, he began writing his first
novel The Village in the Jungle. The novel which was set in a
village surrounded by the jungles in Hambantota, was derived from
his personal experience as a Judge in the district. In May 1912,
Woolf resigned from the Ceylon Civil Service on personal grounds
as discussed in Chapter VIII of this book. In August 1912, he married
Virginia Stephen who was later to become a famous novelist in the
English literary world. After his resignation from the Ceylon Civil
Service, Woolf became a famous writer, a journalist, and a publisher
in Britain. Having actively involved himself with political work
which earned him the reputation as an expert on international affairs,
he served as Secretary of the Labour Partys Advisory Committee on
International Questions.24 Although he did not see Sri Lanka again
for nearly fifty years, the island and its people always remained close
to his heart and he continued to show his interest in the affairs of the
Island towards the end of his life. In 1918, in the aftermath of the
Sri Lankan communal riots which broke out in 1915, Woolf who
had become a fully convinced anti-imperialist, made representations,
on behalf of the leaders of the Sri Lankan nationalist movement,
to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office. He
demanded for a Royal Commission into the riots and their causes and
suppression, although it was not granted. 25It is interesting to note
that in 1938, Woolf, in a memorandum submitted to the Labour Party
on the Demands for Reform of the Ceylon Constitution advocated
a large measure of devolution or a federal system based on the
Swiss canton system for Sri Lanka as a safeguard for the interests of
10
Leonard and Virginia Woolf in 1912
11
the Tamil minority which chiefly inhabits the Northern and Eastern
Provinces of Sri Lanka:
Provision should be made for the protection of
minorities. This applies in particular to the Tamils
who oppose revision of the Constitution and the grant
of further measures of self-government on the ground
that the Sinhalese have used and will use their majority
against the interest of the Tamils. Consideration
should also be given to the possibility of ensuring a
large measure of devolution or even of introducing a
federal system on the Swiss model.......
The Swiss federal canton system has proved
extraordinarily successful under circumstances very
similar to those in Ceylon, i.e., the co-existence in
a single democratic state of communities of very
different size, sharply distinguished from one another
by race, language and religion. Thus the German
speaking Swiss with a population of 2,750,000 occupy
the numerical position of the Sinhalese, the French
speaking Swiss with 824 000, that of the Tamils and
the Italian speaking Swiss with 284,000 that of the
Moormen. The democratic canton and federal system
in Switzerland had safeguarded the legitimate interests
of the minorities.26 *
In 1960, after nearly fifty years, he visited Sri Lanka again for
three weeks. During these three weeks, Woolf who was almost treated
as a guest of honour by the Sri Lankan government, paid sentimental
visits to Jaffna, Kandy and Hambantota, the places where he spent
* Woolf was not the first person to propose a federal system on the Swiss model
for Sri Lanka. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (1956-1959),

in 1926, advocated a federal system of government on the Swiss model for Sri
Lanka. See Ceylon Morning Leader, 19 May to 30 June 1926.
12
his life as a young Civil Servant of the Ceylon Civil Service from
1904 to 1911.26 In 1969, nine years after this brief visit to the Island,
Woolf died in Sussex, England at the age of eighty nine.
Besides Woolfs five volume autobiography and his political
biography by Sir Duncan Wilson, several biographical works have
appeared on the literary partnership of Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
These include A Marriage of True Minds: an intimate portrait of
27
Leonard and Virginia Woolf by George Spater and Ian Parsons,
Leonard and Virginia Woolf by Peter F. Alexander,28 and Thrown
to the Woolves by John Lehman.29 More recently two important
books on Leonard Woolf appeared: Victoria Glendnings Leonard
Woolf : A Biography and Christopher Ondaatjes Woolf in Ceylon:
An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf 1904-1911.
Although the biographical publications and his Official Diaries of
Hambantota make occasional references to his judicial work in the
Hambantota District, there has been no detailed study of the various
aspects of Woolfs role as a Judge in the Hambantota District.
Woolfs references to judicial work in his autobiography and Official
Diaries of Hambantota as well as my own perusal of a collection of
case records belonging to Woolfs period of service at Hambantota,
stimulated the present study of various aspects of Woolfs role as a
Judge in the Hambantota District of colonial Sri Lanka (1908 - 1911).
Chapter 2 of the book highlights Woolfs self-analysis of his judicial
mind while Chapter 3 deals with his two contrasting personality
traits, namely his severity and sense of humour. The nature and the
extent of his responsibilities as a Judge in the Hambantota District
are discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of the book deals with Woolfs
conduct in the case of Engelbrecht, the Boer prisoner of war in the
light of the concept of judicial propriety. Chapter 6 presents a typical
court room scenario in a civil case reproduced from an original
record of a case heard by Woolf as the Commissioner of Requests of
Hambantota in 1910, while Chapter 7 consists of a brief discussion on
Woolfs critical remarks and observations on the methods of criminal
investigation and statistics of criminal prosecutions. Chapter 8 deals
13
with the scenes of Woolfs novel The Village in the Jungle derived
from his personal experiences as a Magistrate at Hambantota. In the
Chapter 9 discusses the views expressed in recent publications on
Woolf and his novel 'The Village in the Jungle', (appeared after the
first edition of this book in 1996), and the colonial judicial system
in the light of the social transformation that took place in Sri Lanka
during the British rule.
14
CHAPTER 2
NERVOUS TREMOR AND JUSTICE

Leonard Woolf perhaps had his first experience with the law at
the age of six, when he had the privilege of watching the proceedings
of an arbitration case in which his father, Sidney Woolf Q.C. appeared.
In Sowing, the first volume of his autobiography, Woolf says:
I can remember the first time that I felt close
to my father in a grown up way. I was only six years
old, and I know that was the case, because it was the
summer of the year of Queen Victorias Jubilee, and
as my father had a very long important case - I think
it must have been an arbitration case - during the
vacation, we had to take a house near London for our
summer holidays so that he could get up and down to
town easily. The house was at Kenley. When the rest
of the family went off to Kenley, he had to stay on two
nights in London, and for some reason I was chosen
to stay on with him in Lexham Gardens. I felt terribly
proud and important, particularly walking up Lexham
Gardens by myself to the mews at the far end near
Cornwall Gardens to tell Denis the coachman, what
time the brougham would be wanted. We drove to the
Temple and then walked across Lincolns Inn Fields
to a large room where the case was tried. It too must
have been an arbitration case for we all sat around
a long table and I sat on a chair next to my father.
Mr. Bigham, who afterwards became a judge and Lord
Mersey, was counsel on the opposite side, and there
were heated arguments between him and my father. I
15
thought him to be very rude and a most unpleasant

man, and I was amazed when we adjourned for lunch
and Mr. Bigham patted me on the head and we went
off and lunched with him at the Rainbow Tavern, and
my father and he were the best of friends. Later on in
the afternoon they were at each other again hammer
and tongs. 1
Many years later, Leonard Woolf would have seen lawyers in
heated arguments before him as a judge in the Hambantota District
of colonial Sri Lanka, perhaps in the same spirit his father and Mr.
Bigham argued their case in the above case. Leonard Woolf greatly
admired his father, and it was assumed that he too would follow
in his fathers footsteps to become a lawyer.2 Although he did not
become a lawyer, his entry to the Ceylon Civil Service provided
him with an opportunity to be associated with the law as a judge
in the Hambantota District of colonial Sri Lanka (1908 - 1911).
Woolf shared many of the same personality traits as his father like
intelligence, temperament, intellectual intolerance etc.3 Besides these
characteristics, he also inherited a nervous tremor from his father,
which caused some inconvenience, when he sat on the bench as a
Judge at Hambantota.4 In Sowing Woolf says:
In Ceylon it proved to be a slight nuisance in
a curious way. When one sat on the bench as Police
Magistrate or District Judge one had to make notes
of the evidence and write down ones verdict and the
reasons for it. Normally the tremor does not affect my
writing and I would go on quite happily recording
the evidence and the pleading of the lawyers if any
were engaged in the case. But if I found an accused
guilty, almost always a strange, disconcerting thing
happened. When all the evidence had been given
and the lawyers had had their say a silence fell on
the hot court, as I began to write my analysis of the
evidence and my reasons for the verdict. I wrote away
16
without difficulty, but again and again when I got to

the words: .and for these reasons I
find the accused guilty of ................. and sentence him
to........... my hand began to tremble so violently that
it was sometimes impossible for me to write legibly
and I adjourned for five minutes in order to retire and
calm myself sufficiently to complete the sentence (in
two senses of the word).
I used often to wonder what was the explanation
of this ironical situation in which the judge, the
head of the district, the white hamadoru* found
his hand, refuse to convict and sentence to a weeks
imprisonment the wretched Sinhalese villager, though
he knew that he was legally guilty of the offence and
that the sentence was a lenient one. Was it some
primeval, subterranean qualm and resistance due to
the unconscious consciousness that the Judge was
no less guilty than the bewildered man in the dock?
Or was it a still more subtle subconscious dislike of
the majesty of the law as embodied in the Judge? My
reason has never allowed me to nourish any sentimental
illusion or delusion about the law and those who break
the laws. I think that I was, by Ceylon standards, a
good Police Magistrate and District Judge, always
feeling that it was my main duty to temper justice and
severity by common-sense, the yardstick of his judicial
function for the Judge being, not his personal tastes
and distastes and ethical beliefs, but the maintenance
of law and the laws in the interests of order. In the
court at Hambantota they would not, I think, have
said that I was a lenient judge. But I have always
felt that the occupational disease of Judges is cruelty,
* hamadoru a respectful form of address used by the Sinhalese villagers for

those in high authority, similar to My Lord
17
sadistic self-righteousness, and the higher the Judge

the more criminal he tends to become. It is one more
example of the absolute corruption of absolute power.
One rarely sees in the faces of less exalted persons the
sullen savagery of so many High Court Judges faces.
Their judgments, obiter dicta, and sentences too often
show that the cruel arrogance of the face only reflects
the pitiless malevolence of the soul.
Such speculation is probably nonsensical and
the explanation is probably simple, namely that my
hand trembles because in the depth of my being I am
physically and mentally afraid. (I used to tell Virginia
that the difference between us was that she was
mentally, morally and physically a snob, while I was
mentally, morally and physically a coward - and she
was inclined to agree.).5
Woolf thoroughly enjoyed his judicial work at Hambantota, and
was extraordinarily fascinated by the cases he tried. In Downhill
All The Way, the fourth volume of his autobiography, Woolf says:
As Assistant Government Agent in the
Hambantota District of Ceylon for nearly three years
I had a fair amount of judicial experience, for as
Police Magistrate and District Judge, I had to try both
criminal and civil cases. To try any kind of case in a
judicial capacity I find extraordinarily fascinating.
The fascination to me consists largely in the curiously
complicated state of mind into which you, as a Judge,
have to get, if you are to be a good Judge. 6
However, Woolf in the beginning of his career, displayed less
enthusiasm for judicial work as a police magistrate in Jaffna in 1905.
In a letter to Lytton Strachey dated 04.06.1905,Woolf wrote:
They had made me additional police magistrate
18
now .I spend the evenings trying to learn something

about the law; in the day, the actual work was
something of horror and relief. At the first, it was a
mere whirl; sitting in sheer ignorance up there in the
hum of the court writing down the evidence, listening
to the proctors and witnesses, thinking of questions to
ask and try to make up your mind all at the same
time. I felt that at any moment I might raise your old
cry: I resign.7
Again in a letter to Robert Trevelyn on 28.05.1905,Woolf wrote:
it is in the police courts that their nature really come
out, every case is an intricate triangle of lies, for even
if a man has true case he always buys witnesses who
have never seen the thing takes place,and answers your
questions as he thinks that you want them answered8
In Downhill All The Way, the fourth volume of his
autobiography, Woolf goes further to describe three qualities a good
Judge should possess:
Your mind like Caesars Gaul, has to be
divided into three parts. First, your mind must work
intellectually with great quickness and concentration
upon the facts; for the first essential is that the judge
should understand and interpret the facts, which are
often connected with spheres of life and activities
of which the judge has no previous experience. I
thoroughly enjoy this kind of intellectual problem.
Secondly, no one can be a good judge unless he can
combine, with this quick intellectual understanding
of facts, an intuitive sensitiveness to human witnesses
and their evidence. Often it is only by hearing and,
as it were, feeling a witness that you can accurately
interpret and assess the value of his evidence. This is
19
Leonard Woolf in Jaffna 1906
20
well understood and theoretically admitted in British

Courts of Appeal, though not always honoured in
practice by Appeal Court Judges. In Ceylon I learned
by experience that, where there is a direct conflict of
evidence, often suddenly some small thing, almost
_ impossible to describe accurately, a gesture or
movement of the witness perhaps, would reveal to one
where the truth lay. Of course one may have deluded
oneself, though there were cases in which I would
have staked my life on the accuracy of my judgment.
The Appeal Court Judge did not always agree, I still
remember after 50 years a case in which a villager
suddenly appeared in the Kachcheri hauling along a
man and a cow, claiming loudly and passionately that
it was his cow and that the man had stolen it. There
was a complete conflict of evidence and suddenly one
of the witnesses said something in such a way that I
was absolutely convinced that the cow had been stolen.
I gave my verdict accordingly and it was set aside in
appeal) I am certain that thus the thief obtained the
cow, and after my death, if I find myself in heaven, the
first thing I shall do is to ask Saint Peter whether my
judgment was correct. I am sure that he will answer:
Yes. The third requisite of a good judge is, perhaps,
in some ways the most difficult - it is complete and
unfailing impartiality. Complacent prejudice is the
occupational disease of judges. It can make the judge
incapable of understanding and interpreting the factor
of judging the character of a witness and the value of
his evidence. On the bench one has to be perpetually on
ones guard against oneself, to prevent ones previous
beliefs and prejudices interfering with ones acceptance
or rejection of facts and arguments. But still more
necessary is it consciously to watch and thwart ones
own instinctive prejudices for and against persons. A
21
woman enters the box oozing feminine charm - how

difficult it is to regard her and her evidence exactly
as one does the next witness who fills with physical
repulsion. And it requires an even more ruthless act
of will against oneself to force oneself to judge with
complete impartiality the value of the evidence of a
man whose appearance you dislike. 9
From the above analysis, it appears that Woolf as a judge was
inclined to take into consideration the demeanour of witnesses in his
assessment of evidence. Even in a judgment delivered in a civil case
on 28th July 1910, Woolf in his analysis of evidence has remarked
that a witness named Latiff gave evidence in a most straight forward
manner.10 Under the principles of the law of evidence in England
and Sri Lanka, a court, in considering the credibility of a witness and
the weight to be attached to his evidence, may take into consideration
not only what is said but the manner in which it is expressed. This
includes as Peter Murphy says, the attitude of the witness to the court,
his general demeanour, his apparent frankness, evasiveness or other
reaction to questioning (particularly hostile in cross-examination)
and his apparent, power or lack of power of recollection. 9 One of the
reasons which usually compels the appellate courts to refrain from
interfering with the findings of facts by the trial judges is that it is
the trial Judge not the appellate court, who has the opportunity to
observe the demeanour of witnesses in the courts of first instance.
And the appellate courts usually review the matters of law. However,
it is not always safe for a trial judge to act solely on the demeanour
of witnesses as it may sometimes be misleading.
22
CHAPTER 3
HUMOUR AND SEVERITY

Woolfs sense of humour is well displayed in the letters he wrote
from Hambantota as well as in his autobiography. Humorous remarks
and anecdotes occasionally appear even in his official diaries of
Hambantota. Woolf admired the sense of humour in the Sinhalese
villagers, which, as he said in the autobiography, had endeared them
to him.1 A case which clearly illustrates this and which he described as
the nicest case he was ever asked to settle, is recorded in Growing,
the second volume of his autobiography which deals with the years
1904 to 1911 in the Ceylon Civil Service:
The nicest case which I was ever asked to
settle was in a large village of West Giruwa Pattu*
called Walasmulla. I was holding enquiries and
also conducting a sale of Crown land situated in a
neighbouring village, I was surrounded by a large
crowd of villagers. Suddenly in the middle of the
proceedings the crowd parted and an old man with
one side of his face shaved and the other unshaven
rushed into the ring and fell at my feet. He complained
that the barber in the bazaar (and he was apparently
the only barber in Walasmulla), after shaving one side
of his face, had refused to shave the other unless paid
50 cents. The correct price of a shave in Walasmulla
was 5 cents. I sent for the barber and he appeared
accompanied by some hundreds of spectators. After
enquiry, I told the barber that he must complete the
shave and he would be paid nothing, but if he cut the
* Pattus - Sub divisions within a district

23
old man, he would have to pay him 50 cents. The old

man was in deadly earnest, but the barber, who had
the face of a rogue and a humorist, appeared to be
greatly amused. We adjourned to a coconut tree in the
compound of the Rest House and there the operation
of shaving the old man was completed before me and
an enormous crowd of spectators.
The spectators were obviously delighted and
amused and this revealed a characteristic of the
Sinhalese which always endeared them to me. The
relations between Europeans and some Asiatic peoples
are made difficult because the Asiatic does not seem to
share the Europeans sense of humor. This is not the
case with the Sinhalese. They are humorous people
and they have the same kind of sense of humor as the
European. Even in a remote village I felt that I could
make a joke which would be appreciated. 2
Even though it appears that Woolf had heard and settled this
humorous case in an informal manner, it is also put on record in his
official diary for 17th February 1910. 3
A humorous story of a court drama where Woolf was the Judge
is narrated in a recent publication entitled Hambantota: A Profile of
a District in Rural Sri Lanka (1983) as follows:
Even today we hear about many interesting
incidents that took place in the courts during the British
period. Such an incident occurred when Leonard Woolf
(1908-11) was the A. G. A. Hambantota. An eminent
lawyer from Colombo appeared in a case heard in the
District Court, Tangalle, and Leonard Woolf was the
judge. The lawyer from Colombo was well known for
arguing in a very loud voice. Leonard Woolf did not
like the manner. The lawyer argued in his usual high
24
tone. The judge lost his temper and ordered the lawyer
not to bark like a dog. The witty lawyer had the court
laughing for a short time when he replied My Lord, I
cannot refrain from barking as there is a wolf (Woolf)
on the bench. 4
Tangalle is a town situated in the Hambantota District. Although
there was another District Judge sitting regularly at Tangalle,
Woolfs official diaries speak of occasions where Woolf sat in the
District Court at Tangalle, besides his regular sittings in the town of
Hambantota.5 In Growing, the second volume of his autobiography,
Woolf mentions an occasion where he was ordered to come and
try a case which, for some reason, the Tangalle Police Magistrate
and District Judge- who was Southern- could not take. 6 The above
incident however does not appear in Woolfs autobiography or in his
official diaries of Hambantota, and its source is not acknowledged
in the said publication. As Woolf has recorded many a humorous
anecdote both in his autobiography and diaries, it is not clear how
this particular court drama escaped his attention.
On the other hand although Woolf displayed a sense of humour,
he was well known for his severity or strictness. This could be seen
in his judicial work, as well as in other areas of his official work. He
saw to it by strict supervision that his clerks would answer all letters
on the day they were received. 7 On one occasion when he was a
Cadet attached to the Jaffna Kachcheri, he ordered a clerk who had
spat on the floor of the Kachcheri office to clean spittle off the floor,
although the man belonged to a high caste which would consider
such a task humiliating and degrading. 8 Woolf believed that his
strictness or what he called severity made him unpopular among
the natives. 9 While Woolf was the Assistant Government Agent
of Hambantota, the Halleys Comet appeared over the skies of Sri
Lanka. On one occasion when he was camping in a village in the
district, villagers whom he had encouraged to talk quite freely, told
him that the comet had brought them an evil age, and their village
25
headman presented him with a list of evils which they believed, had
befallen them in consequence. And among the evils so listed was a
strict Assistant Government Agent. 11 Woolf believed in the strict
enforcement of law for the welfare of the people. 12
When Woolf revisited Sri Lanka after nearly fifty years, in 1960,
a person who had worked under him in Hambantota reminded him
of an incident which illustrates to what extent he had displayed
his severity. This episode as recorded in the final volume of his
autobiography, demonstrates the way he looked back at it after fifty
years:
I have said that I had an almost universal
flattering welcome in Ceylon. I did have one extremely
hostile reception, which shows that some human
beings, like the elephant, never forget- never forget
and never forgive.
The day before my departure, I was sitting in the
Galle Face Hotel talking to Mr. Fernando* when I
was told that someone wished to see me. My visitor
turned out to be Mr. E. R. Wijesinghe, aged eightysix; he had been a Mudaliyar or Headman of East
Giruwa Pattu in the Hambantota District when I was
Assistant Government Agent there fifty years ago. I
had only a vague, misty remembrance of him. He now
stood in front of me and Mr. Fernando and recalled
to my memory an incident of which again I had a dim
misty recollection. It had happened during a terrible
outbreak of rinderpest which ravaged the district. The
Government has instructed me to see that all cattle
were kept in enclosure or tethered and all infected
* Shelton Fernando (1907-1971), was the Permanent Secretary to the

Minister of Home Affairs in Sri Lanka when Woolf re-visited the Island
in 1960.
26
beasts immediately destroyed, and I had handed

on these instructions to all my headmen, including
the Mudaliyar. One day I received information that
there was a buffalo, badly infected with rinderpest,
wandering about in a village which was within the
Mudaliyars area. I sent a message to him to meet
me there the next day in the morning with the village
headman. The village was some twenty miles from my
bungalow and I rode put there in the early morning.
The Mudaliyar and the village headman met me and
took me to the bund of the village tank which was
quite dry. Some distance away across the tank was a
buffalo which, they admitted, was badly infected with
rinderpest.
I had brought a rifle with me and I told the village
headman to go across the tank and drive the buffalo
down to me, so that I could shoot him. The headman
went off but soon came running back saying that the
buffalo savage, owing to the sores all over its head
(the result of the disease) and would charge him.
I gave my rifle to the Mudaliyar and told him that I
would go and drive the buffalo down to him so that he
could shoot it. This I did and the Mudaliyar shot the
unfortunate beast, which was in a terrible state owing
to the disease.
Under the bylaws made for dealing with the
outbreak, it was an offence, punishable with a fine or
imprisonment, to keep cattle untethered and also an
offence not to destroy an infected beast, and the owner
could be tried by the Police Magistrate. As Police
Magistrate, I told the Mudaliyar that I proposed to
charge and try the owner of this buffalo at once- Who
was he? To my amazement I was told that the owner
was the village headman standing hang doggedly
27
before me. I tried the owner of the buffalo for two

offences - not tethering his cattle and not destroying
an infected buffalo and I fined him ten rupees. As
Assistant Government Agent, I then tried the village
headman for not carrying out his duties, i.e. reporting
or prosecuting the offender (himself) for breaking the
law and I fined him ten rupees.
All this, which I had forgotten, the old Mudaliyar,
standing in front of Mr. Fernando and me in the Galle
Face Hotel fifty years afterwards recounted in great
detail and considerable bitterness, and, as he spoke,
looking back over the long procession of years, I
suddenly remembered and saw vividly again the scene
of us three standing in the sweltering heat in the parched
and waterless tank with the dead buffalo swarming
with flies, near the village with the magnificent name
of Angunakolapelessa. And when the Mudaliyar had
finished his story, he fixed on me a beady and a baleful
eye and said: Was it just, Sir? Was it just? The village
headman paid the ten rupees which you had fined him
as Police Magistrate, but he could not pay the ten
rupees which you had fined him for not carrying out
his duties as headman. I had to pay it for him - I had
to pay it for him. Was it just- was it just, I ask you,
Sir. Yes, I replied, it was just. He had committed
two entirely different offences, one as the owner of the
buffalo and one as village headman, and I punished
him for the one as Police Magistrate and for the other
as Assistant Government Agent. Yes, Mudaliyar, it was
just. Of course, it was just. I was quite certain that
it was just that day, February 28, 1960, in the Galle
Face Hotel with the indignant Mudaliyar facing me,
and yet I was not entirely comfortable about it, and I
am quite certain that fifty years before in 1910 when
28
I stood in the village tank, faced by the Mudaliyar

and the unhappy Vidane,* I had the same ambivalent
feeling. This ambivalence with regard to law and
order and justice in an imperialist society was one of
the principal reasons for my resigning from the Civil
Service. Where the ethics of government and public
service are concerned, I am a rigidly strict puritan
both for myself and for other people. One of the bases
of civilization is honesty and justice in government
and the officers of government; for a headman or any
other government servant to commit an offence himself
and conceal the fact that he had committed it, while
prosecuting and punishing other people for the same
offence, seems to be outrageous, and I thought and
still think that it would have been unjust if I had not
punished the headman for the two completely different
offences committed by him, one as a private person
and the other as a government servant. But there is a
clich - which normally irritates me because it is so
often mouthed by complacent judges - that a decision
must not only be just, it must also be seen to be just.
Even if the heavens had fallen upon our heads in the
Angunakolapelessa tank or in the Galle Face Hotel,
even if Jehovah or Gautama Buddha had appeared
and proclaimed that it was just for me to fine the
headman twenty rupees, neither the headman nor the
Mudaliyar E. R. Wijesinghe would have believed it. I
find and found this incredibly profoundly depressing.
Mr. Wijesinghe had as good a right to code of conduct
as I had, and there was no real answer to his question:
Was it just, Sir, was it just? I thought it was, but I was
not prepared to spend my life doing justice to people
* Vidane - Village Headman

29
who thought that my justice was injustice. I felt a

certain sympathy for the Vidane of Angunakolapelessa
and even for Mr. Wijesinghe who had to fork out his
ten rupees. At any rate I resigned from the Ceylon
Civil Service as long ago as 1911. 13
As discussed in Chapter VIII of this book, Woolf did not resign
from the Ceylon Civil Service because of his ambivalence with
regard to law and order and justice in an imperialist society, or an
anti-imperialist grounds. He resigned from the Ceylon Civil Service
on personal grounds. 14 It may however be noted that he meant well
by the people when he exercised his severity or strictness in his work.
His obsession with work at Hambantota, according to him, was
stimulated by his love for the country, the people and their way of
life as well as his concern for their welfare. As Woolf wrote in his
autobiography:
In the main my obsession with work was
stimulated by two things, both of which were immensely
developed and encouraged as soon as I found myself
in charge of the District of Hambantota. I fell in love
with the country, the people, and the way of life which
were entirely different from everything in London
and Cambridge to which I had been born and bred.
To understand the people and the way they lived in
the villages of West Giruwa Pattu and the jungles of
Magampattu became a passion with me. In the 2 3/4
years in Hambantota, it is almost true to say, I worked
all day from the moment I got up in the morning until
the moment I went to bed at night, for I rarely thought
of anything else except the District and the people, to
increase their prosperity, diminish their poverty and
disease, start irrigation works, open schools. There
was no sentimentality about this; I did not idealize
or romanticize the people or the country; I just liked
them aesthetically and humanly and socially. But I was
30
ruthless- too ruthless, as I shall show- both to them

and to myself. 15
Even in the case of rinderpest cited above, there is no doubt
that he dealt severely with the village headman concerned, because
he was determined to enforce the anti-rinderpest regulations. The
elimination of this disease was vital as it was causing a catastrophe to
the people of the district by destroying their most valuable economic
asset- cattle and buffalo. The importance of cattle and buffalo in an
agricultural district like Hambantota makes it very clear as to why
anti-rinderpest measures should strictly have been enforced, as
Woolf gives expression to it in Growing:
Cattle and buffalo were the peoples most
valuable property; the prosperity of the whole district
depended upon them. It was almost entirely an
agricultural district and rice, the most important crop,
was dependent for ploughing and threshing upon cattle
and buffaloes. Everywhere the only form of transport
was the bullock cart, and in Hambantota town, as
I have already said, there were a large number of
carters, many of them Muhammadans, who depended
for a living on the transport of salt, and so upon their
bulls who pulled them. As the disease spreads the
Government made regulations that all cattle should be
tethered or impounded and that all infected or stray
cattle could be destroyed.16
It may, however, have been possible that there were some
occasions where Woolfs severity was influenced by one of his
other characteristics, namely obstinacy. As Woolf himself modestly
admitted, from my very early years, I have had in me, I think, a
streak of considerable obstinacy.17 This was a characteristic which
appears to have continued throughout his lifetime, and an incident
which illustrates this is described in the book, A Marriage of True
Minds: An Intimate Portrait of Leonard & Virginia Woolf (1977):
31
At a New Statesman board meeting when he was in

his eighties Leonard made an extremely serious charge
against one of the New Statesman employees. The
employee was immediately able to refute the charge by
written documents, and demanded an apology. All the
other directors agreed that an apology was in order.
Leonard simply sat still, shaking, saying nothing, then
slowly explained that ever since he was a boy he had
never apologized regardless of circumstances, and that
he could not do so now. He was asked, alternatively, to
withdraw the charge he had made. After a long wait he
said he would withdraw it - reluctantly. 18
The question whether it was proper for Woolf as a judge to have
tried the case of rinderpest where he himself was both witness and
prosecutor, is discussed in Chapter V of this book.
32
CHAPTER 4
JUDICIAL WORK IN GENERAL:

MURDER, BRIBERY, COMMUNAL RIOTS &
OTHER CASES
During his period of service in the Hambantota District
(1908-1911), Woolf, in addition to his administrative work as the
Assistant Government Agent, functioned as a Police Magistrate,
Commissioner of Requests and District Judge. The Hambantota
District had two Police Courts (Police Court of Hambantota and
Police Court of Tangalle) and a District Court (District Court of
Tangalle). 1 The local jurisdiction of the Police Court and Court of
Requests of Hambantota, which had their regular sittings in the town
of Hambantota, was confined to the limits of Magam Pattu**.2 Giruwa
Pattu East and Giruwa Pattu West constituted the local jurisdiction
of the Police Court and Court of Requests of Tangalle.3 The District
Court of Tangalle whose local jurisdiction extended throughout
the entire District of Hambantota, held its regular sessions in the
town of Tangalle.4 In the Hambantota District, there was another
Judge named, W. T. Southorn stationed at Tangalle. Southorn who
was a full time judge, functioned as the Police Magistrate of the
Police Court of Tangalle, Commissioner of Requests of the Court
of Requests of Tangalle and District Judge of the District Court of
Tangalle.5 Woolf sat as the Police Magistrate of the Police Court of
Hambantota, Commissioner of the Court of Requests of Hambantota
and occasionally as an additional District Judge of the District Court
of Tangalle.
Pattu- a sub-division within a District

Wilfrid Thomas Southorn - later became Sir. W. T. Southorn, Governor of Gambia, and married Woolfs sister Bella Woolf.
33
34
As an additional District Judge of Tangalle, Woolf had original

jurisdiction in all civil, criminal, revenue, matrimonial, insolvency
and testamentary matters within the Hambantota District, save and
except such of the foresaid matters in respect of which the original
jurisdiction was exclusively assigned to the Supreme Court by law.6
The District Courts were empowered to hear and try criminal cases
for offences punishable with imprisonment for a term not exceeding
two years or a fine not exceeding one thousand rupees.7 Woolf, as
the Police Magistrate of Hambantota, was required to hear, try,
determine and dispose of in a summary way, all criminal prosecutions
for offences (committed wholly or in part within Magam Pattu, the
local jurisdiction of the Police Court of Hambantota), punishable
with imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine
not exceeding one thousand rupees.8 In addition to the terms of
imprisonment and fines, both the Police Courts and the District Courts
were empowered to impose whipping as a mode of punishment.9 As
the Commissioner of Requests of Hambantota, Woolf had original
jurisdiction and full power to hear and determine all civil actions
within Magam Pattu, the local jurisdiction of the Court of Requests
of Hambantota, involving debts, damages or demands not exceeding
the value of three hundred rupees, save and except actions for
seduction or matrimonial matters. 10
As the Police Magistrate of Hambantota, Woolf was required
to hold inquests in respect of suspicious deaths. This work included
visiting the scenes of such deaths to view the dead bodies, and
the recording of evidence etc. At the conclusion of the inquest
proceedings, the Police Magistrates were required to return verdicts
as to the causes of such deaths which had occurred within their
respective local jurisdictions.11 In cases of serious offences such as
homicide, rape etc., Police Magistrates were empowered to commence
preliminary inquiries known as non-summary proceedings to
determine whether there was a prima facie case against the accused.
If a Police Magistrate, at the conclusion of such inquiry, was satisfied
that a prima facie case existed, he was required to commit the case to
35
the Supreme Court for trial before a jury. 12 The Police Magistrates
were also entrusted with powers to make incidental orders to assist
the Police in criminal investigations. 13 The suspects whom the
Police would arrest for the purposes of criminal investigations, were
required to be produced before the Police Magistrate of the area,
within twenty four hours for an appropriate order for bail or remand
in fiscal custody. 14 Such were the general powers and jurisdictions of
the courts Woolf presided over as a judge during his period of service
in the Hambantota District.
The extent of Woolfs responsibilities as a judge in the
Hambantota District, are amply demonstrated in the following
extracts.
MURDER
In a letter dated 25th November 1908 to Lytton Strachey, a
contemporary at Cambridge, Woolf wrote:
As I suppose you know I am everything here:
policeman, magistrate, judge & publican. I was just
going to begin breakfast when a message came that
a murder had been committed at a place with the
wonderful name Tissamaharama. It is a wonderful
place which one gets to through 20 miles of uninhabited
jungle & after 20 miles of nothing but trees & jungle
you suddenly shoot out of it into a great plain of paddy
fields & coconuts & dagabas & irrigation channels
& tanks & then suddenly on the other side into the
jungle again. The orders of Government are that when
murder is reported you go straight to the spot & look
at the body & catch the murderer & take down the
interminable evidence. So I got into an absurd Irish
car which I possess & drove straight off there. A man
had kicked the woman with whom he lived, to death
because she had not got his dinner ready. They took me
36
into the room of the hut where she was lying dead, &
they stripped her naked for me to examine the wounds.
Most women naked when alive are extraordinarily
ugly, but dead they are repulsive & the most repulsive
thing is the way the toes seem to stick up so straight &
stark & dominate the room. But the most abominable
thing was the smell. One gets accustomed to the smell
of corruption of dead things here where the cattle
are always dying of thirst & starvation & lie on the
roadsides decaying: but I had no idea before that the
smell of a decomposing human being is so infinitely
fouler than anything else. 15
Woolfs official diary for 23rd, 25th and 26th November 1908
also speaks of this case as follows:
NOVEMBER 23rd 1908
At 8.30 a.m. received information of a murder
at Tissa. Started to drive there at 10 o clock. I dont
wonder at the carts refusing to take the salt from
Bundala. From the 2nd to the 7th mile it is merely
one long metal heap; I had to walk most of this. Got
to Wirawila 15 miles at 1 p.m. and stopped 1.5 hours
there. Reached Tissa at 3 and held inquiry till 8 p.m.
A quarrel between a man and the woman kept by him
because she did not pound the paddy. He thrashed
her one night and the next morning started again and
apparently killed her by kicking her on the spleen. His
statement amounts to a confession and the evidence is
conclusive. It is merely the legal question as to whether
it is murder. 15
37
NOVEMBER 25th 1908

Routine. Took evidence of two more witnesses
in the murder case. It is now complete except for the
doctors evidence. 17
NOVEMBER 26th 1908
Routine. Finished the murder case by taking the
doctors evidence which shows that the man will never
be convicted of murder. The woman was suffering from
so diseased a spleen that a very light blow would have
caused death. The doctor was of opinion that it was
a slight blow which ruptured the spleen and caused
death.18
Woolfs official diary for 07th, 08th and 12th January 1910
speaks of another case of suspected homicide where a cultivator had
been shot dead:
JANUARY 7th 1910
News of murder at Rankeliya. Rode out at once
about 5 miles in heavy rain and spent the whole
morning enquiring. I do not like the case at all as it is
apparently very simple and yet I cannot get at the truth.
The accuseds story is that he heard what he thought
was pig eating his Indian corn at night and fired at the
sound. This was midnight of the 5th: On 6th morning
at 11 a.m. information is given to the PO* by one
Babuna that he found the body of this cultivator lying
in the paddy field outside the accuseds house. There
are many small points which show that I have not got
the truth yet. 19 Continued enquiry in afternoon.
* PO- Police Officer, was also a title used for the Village Headman.
38
JANUARY 8th 1910

Rode out to scene of murder again in heavy rain.
Enquired all the morning and afternoon. Case still
doubtful. Rode to Wirawila in evening. 20
JANUARY 12th 1910
There is no doubt now I think that the Tissa Case
is not one of murder. The deceased does appear to
have entered accuseds garden to steal Indian corn
and to have been shot by accused in the dark. I suspect
that accused knew it was a man he fired at, but there is
no real evidence.21
An inquest into the death of a young girl, which later proved to
be a case of natural death is recorded in Woolfs official diary for
20th and 27th April 1910:
APRIL 20th 1910
At 9.45 a.m. received information of sudden death
of a young girl at Tissa. Saw VA *in Kachcheri who
seemed to think there were suspicious circumstances.
Started by bicycle at 10.15 and reached Tissa at
11.45, one of the hottest 20 mile rides I have ever had.
Held enquiry. It looks as if she died a natural death
from weakness owing to fever, measles and probably
pneumonia, but everything depends now on the
medical evidence. 22
* VA- Vidane Arachchi - Chief Headman of each of the sub-division with a

Pattu.
39
APRIL 27th 1910

I forgot to say that the suspicious death at Tissa
proved to be a case of death from natural causes. It was
however a most horrible case in many ways. The girl
got pneumonia about April 2nd. Her people thought
she had measles and it is a common belief that it is a
bad thing to be treated for measles. Consequently she
had no medical treatment and got worse and worse.
Eventually she was so weak that she could not stand
but crawled about the compound. She apparently
refused all food for days but continually craved to
bathe in cold water. Her people thought this bad for
her but she used to crawl out of the compound to bathe
in the channel. She crawled out to the channel on the
19th and died there. It is difficult to see how such cases
can be prevented and it seems as if something is wrong
when they occur. It is a pity that dispensers cannot
itinerate in these backward districts.23
Woolfs experiences as a Magistrate in cases of homicide are
well reflected in his novel, The village in the Jungle. 24
BRIBERY
Bribery has been an evil prevalent throughout all ages of history,
and the time during which Woolf was at Hambantota in colonial
Sri Lanka saw no exception. In the official diary for 09th and 10th
January 1911, he mentions a case where he found a man guilty of
bribery:
JANUARY 9th AND 10th 1911
Routine and a good deal of it in court. I found a
man guilty of giving a bribe to the Police Sergeant and
sentenced him to pay a fine of Rs. 100/-. I am not sure
that I ought not to have sent him to jail. This was a
40
case in connection with the gambling in Hambantota.

The sergeant reported to me that he had been given the
bribe of Rs. 33/-. 25
COMMUNAL RIOTS
The population of the Hambantota town consists of three ethnic
groups namely Malays, Moors and Sinhalese. Although Malays and
Moors profess Islam, they belong to two different ethnic groups.
The Sinhalese are mostly Buddhist. During Woolfs last few days
in Hambantota as the Assistant Government Agent, a religious riot
broke out between Mohamedans and the Buddhists in the town of
Hambantota. His official diary for 12th and 13th May 1911 gives an
account of this riot and describes the manner in which he dealt with
the persons responsible for disturbances in the Court proceedings:
MAY 12th 1911
Holiday
At 5 p.m. I was just going out when a messenger
arrived to say that there was a riot going on in the
town. The Buddhist procession had, he said, been
stopped by the Mohamedans when passing the mosque
and a large number of persons were now fighting with
sticks and stones. I went at once to the mosque but the
fight was over. Eight men were more or less injured
including Mr. Amerasinghe, Gansabhawa * Clerk,
who lives near and had tried to stop the row when it
began and been hit by a stone in the face. The story
at first told to me was that the Mohamedans attacked
the Buddhist procession and only one Sinhalese. I got
hold of 3 or 4 non-residents who had been present and
* Gansabhawa- Village Committee, the local government authority for villages.

41
began Police Court proceedings at once. They were

all Sinhalese and their evidence very soon showed
that the row had started by the Buddhist procession
tom-toming before they passed the mosque. Some
Mohamedans in the Bazaar hearing of this rushed
to the spot in large numbers tearing up the fences to
provide weapons. The Buddhists seeing they would be
overwhelmed sought sanctuary in the police officers
house where they were soon surrounded by a crowd of
angry Mohamedans. This was, of course not quite the
story as told by the Sinhalese, but as they had no time
to prepare evidence, they very clearly gave it away.
After recording sufficient evidence to make it clear. I
adjourned. 26
MAY 13th 1911
The leaders on both sides wished to settle the
matter of yesterday amicably. No one had been
seriously hurt. There has also never been any religious
feeling in the town and there is no doubt that, if cases
with proctors on each side had been engaged in, such
feeling would be engendered. I therefore said that if
the person responsible on each side would plead guilty
to charges which I would frame against them I would
allow the cases of hurt to be withdrawn. This was
done and I fined one side for disturbing a religious
procession and the other for tom-toming without a
license, the Mohamedans Rs. 35/- and the Buddhists
Rs. 60/-. The penalties were of course light, but as a
matter of expediency much will have been gained by
allowing the religious ill feeling to die out at once. 27
42
OTHER CASES
The following extracts of Woolfs official diary of Hambantota
speak of other types of cases he heard as a judge in the Hambantota
District, and they also enable us to have some glimpses of his judicial
work at Hambantota:
OCTOBER 12th 1908
Routine Kachcheri and Court. Many chena
cases* in latter. 28
JULY 19th 1909
A civil case arousing considerable local interest
with proctors from Tangalle and Galle kept me a
considerable time in court and had to be postponed at
6 p.m. tomorrow. 29
JULY 20th 1909
Routine and finished hearing evidence in the civil
case. 30
* Chena cases- The cultivation of chenas is one of the most primitive modes
of agriculture in Sri Lanka. The cultivator clears and burns patches of jungle in
the dry season. The patches of jungle so burnt and cleared are called chenas in
which he sows a crop of Kurakkan, a type of millet. The land is abandoned,
after few crops. As it destroyed valuable timber and impoverished the soil, the
Government attempted to curtail chena cultivation in Woolfs time by the issue
of permits to deserving cultivators, and those who cultivated chenas without
these permits were prosecuted in courts.
43
JULY 27th 1909

Kept very late in court by a cattle stealing case* - the first cattle
stealing case which has come before me here. 30
AUGUST 06th 1909
A most interesting cattle stealing case in which I
found the accused guilty but I am afraid he will get off
in appeal. He is undoubtedly guilty. 32
SEPTEMBER 17th 1909
A curious case in which a V. A. accuses the head
guard of Palatupana lewaya * and about 10 watchers
with beating him and tying him up for about 24 hours
and the head-guard accuses the V. A. with attempted
theft of salt. 33
* Cattle stealing- John D. Rogers, in his book entitled: Crime,

Justice & Society in Colonial Sri Lanka, says: Cattle stealing was
one of the more prominent crimes carried out in colonial Sri Lanka. It
was described as the national crime, the great curse of the country
and the bete noire of the island. In rural areas, it was often labelled
the most important crime. Perhaps, it may have been due to the
fact that cattle was one of the most valuable economic assets of an
agricultural society like colonial Sri Lanka. 34
* Lewaya - Saltern lagoon
44
OCTOBER 27th 1909

Rode Hambantota in morning. Convicted a
Hambantota townsman of possessing sambhur meat
which he could not satisfactorily account for in the
close season.* I have for a long time wanted to catch
one of these men and Malay town poachers and I gave
him an exemplary sentence.
NOVEMBER 3rd 1909
All day in court with a civil case. 35
JUNE 11th 1910
Rode Maha Lewaya to see the tail end of the salt
collection there. Heard a case of shooting an elephant
at Koggala. I convicted one accused and gave him 2
months and Rs. 100 fine and acquitted 2 others. The
headmen have behaved very badly in this case, I think,
but I shall hold an inquiry into their conduct later. 36
JUNE 13th 1910
All day in court trying cases which had been
fixed for the Itinerating Police Magistrate but he was
unable to come this month. 37
* In the extreme east of the Hambantota District, there was a Government Game
Sanctuary of about 130 square miles in which hunting was not permitted, and there
was a small area to the west of the sanctuary in which the hunting was allowed
during a particular season of the year.
45
JUNE 14th 1910

A considerable part of the day in Court again.
JUNE 15th 1910
Heard a cattle-stealing case and convicted one of
the accused. 39
JULY 5th 1910
A man has been seized at Ambalantota with 1.5
cwts, of ganja. I tried him in the afternoon and he
pleaded guilty. I gave him an exemplary sentence and
he is one of a few people who have obviously been
carrying on an illicit trade in Indian Hemp. They grow
it at Migahajandura and trade it away to Dickwella. I
heard of this about four weeks ago and thanks to the
prompt action of the police sergeant we have caught
one of the men redhanded. 40
JULY 28th 1910
Plenty of routine work. Tried a civil case. Also
convicted two men of killing game in the open season
and sentenced them to pay a fine of Rs. 50/-. They
did not pay and so went to jail. The amount of illicit
destruction of game is very great and I am sorry to
say that 2 elephants have been illicitly shot in the last
two months. In one case I gave one of the accused
two months but thanks to the headmen, in my opinion
conniving. 41
46
AUGUST 16th 1910

Rode Tangalla and tried a D.C. criminal case
perjury. I acquitted both accused. 42
AUGUST 19th 1910
Just sitting down at 7 a.m. to begin wiping off
accumulations which naturally await one after a
long circuit when I was disturbed by the wailing of
4 Mohamedan females outside my front door. I was
wanted to take a dying deposition in the hospital.
Rode up there and found the doctor sewing up a mans
head with a large admiring crowd watching on the
road. There had been a fracas between carters five
miles out of Hambantota and two had been injured,
one seriously. Until 9, I was occupied in recording
evidence. 43
AUGUST 20th 1910
Much routine and a considerable time in court over
the case of grievous hurt which is most unsatisfactory. 44
SEPTEMBER 24th 1910
Tried a case of assault on the Vidane Arachchi,
Western Walakada, when entering a house in which it
was alleged that illicit gaming was going on. Also the
gambling case. 13 accused, and proctors from Matara
and Tangalla which is a rarity here. I found them all
guilty and gave two of them 6 weeks and one a months
rigorous imprisonment. They appealed. 45
47
OCTOBER 1st 1910

Sat most of the day in the Police Court over a case
of criminal trespass, in which parties had got proctors
from Tangalla and the complainant had 13 witnesses.
A stupid case in which I acquitted the accused. 46
OCTOBER 3rd 1910
Routine.
I hear the complainant in the case tried by me on
Saturday is to move the Attorney General to appeal
against the acquittal of accused. 47
NOVEMBER 18th 1910
Went to hospital and took statement of a
man who had been shot through the eye, cheek and
shoulder last night. He said he had been out picking
mushrooms early in the morning and had been shot
by someone unknown, had no enemies, suspected no
one. In afternoon, I drove out to Walawe and inspected
the spot. Took his wifes statement: one or two curious
facts, i.e. she said she did not know what he had gone
out for and the handkerchief and mushrooms which
according to him were by his side when he was shot
were found by no one. When the surrounding jungle
was searched a fresh skin of sambhur was found not 15
yards from where the man was shot. Now this jungle is
not a place where anyone would go to shoot sambhur.
My belief is that the man shot a young sambhur last
night, and took the meat &c. home Early this morning
he went out to hide the skin in the jungle near his house.
48
In crawling out of the bushes some other sportsman

must have shot him in mistake for a pig.
It is a serious question whether all cases of
shooting people in mistake for pigs &c. should not be
committed for trial. In nine out of ten it is really a rash
and negligent act, a blind shot at a noise in jungle and
usually in darkness or semi-darkness. These cases are
far too frequent in this district. Personally I should
like to see it made an offence to carry a gun or fire
a gun between sunset and sunrise except under such
circumstances as driving elephants of cultivated land.
In this connection I am sorry to hear that the Chena
Muhandiram W. G. P.* is going to be charged with
causing the death of an old woman by shooting her
when shooting hare. 48
DECEMBER 15th 1910
When I came back on 12th, I was not expected in
the town until 13th. About 100 persons had come from
Galle, Matara, Tangalla and Tissa for the purpose
of gambling here. I was told that the Sergeant was
conniving and that he and the Mudaliyar had quarreled
over this. I made arrangements to receive immediate
information from another source if gambling began
again. Last night about midnight I received a message
that it had started again. I sent word to Mr. Doole
Mudaliyar* ** of East Giruwa Pattu whom I had
instructed to remain in Hambantota for the purpose, to
* Mudaliyar - Native Chief Headman of a Pattu.
** Chena Muhandiram W. G. P. - Native Chief Headman entrusted with certain

powers (e.g. issue of permits) in respect of chena cultivation matters within the
West Giruwa Pattu.
49
keep watch and inform me of a favourable opportunity

as watchers were said to be keeping cave/ At 1.30
a.m. Mr. Doole came to my bungalow and told me that
gambling was going on at two houses. At 2 a.m. we
got to the first and after sending men round to the back
door I went on to the verandah. Eight persons were
gambling and one was lying asleep on a couch. Among
them were the Police Sergeant himself, the Vidane
Arachchi of Tissa and the Mudaliyars clerk. It was
an extremely diverting sight to see their faces when
I put my head in at the door. I prosecuted them all
except the Sergeant in the Gansabhawa this morning
and they were fined. I am dealing with the Sergeant
departmentally. 49
JANUARY 13th 1911
Tried a case of mischief by cutting unripe maize
and convicted, moon was so bright that I could write
without a light. 50
After attending to routine administrative or revenue work as
Assistant Government Agent in the mornings, Woolf used to walk
over from the Kachcheri to the Court house to try cases in the
afternoons, when he was in the town of Hambantota. 51 His official
diary for 31st August 1909 has the following comments on the
volume of court work in Hambantota:
The Itinerating Police Magistrate being ill found
all the cases fixed for him on my hands. The result was
that I had 4 3/4 hours in court besides the Kachcheri
work. There is very little work comparatively in the
Hambantota court but there is just enough to make it a
positive burden. The Kachcheri is a heavy one but not
too heavy for one man if he has whole time. It is just 2
50
or 3 hours in court which throws the whole thing out:

and when after sitting as today the whole day in court
one comes back to find the whole of the Kachcheri
work still to do, one feels the drag. 52
Woolfs official diary for 16th May 1910 speaks of an
inspection of his Courts by Mr. Justice Wood Renton, a Senior Judge
of the Supreme Court.
Mr. Justice Wood Renton inspected the Courts
and took notes as to work &c. He found everything
satisfactory. 53
51
CHAPTER 5
ENGELBRECHT, THE BOER PRISONER OF WAR

During Woolfs time at Hambantota, there lived a Boer prisoner
of war named Henry Engelbrecht. Engelbrecht was one of 5000 Boer
prisoners of war brought to Sri Lanka by the British in 19000 and
1901. One month after the terms of peace were signed in Pretoria
in May 1902, the repatriation of these prisoners commenced, and
they were required to sign an oath of allegiance to King Edward, the
British sovereign, in order to qualify for repatriation.1 However, a
small group of prisoners refused to take this oath, and the number of
these irreconcilables came to five. Among them was Engelbrecht. In
September 1903, the British authorities in Colombo informed these
five Boer prisoners that they were permitted to go anywhere they
desired to go within the Island, but would not be repatriated as they
had not signed the oath of allegiance.2 The predicament of the five
prisoner after they were granted their freedom of movement within
the Island is well described in Dr. R. L. Brohiers Book entitled:
Seeing Ceylon:
Notwithstanding, there was snag in this ostensible
gesture of freedom. Two of them were told they would
only be paid their monthly allowance at the Kachcheri
in Jaffna, and were compelled to go north. One of
them in similar circumstances was forced to go eat, as
Batticaloa was made his paying centre. The remaining
two which included Engelbrecht, found themselves
assigned to Hambantota in south Ceylon. The anguish
and tribulation of exile proved too much for four of
these five Boer captives. Engelbrecht thus came to be
the last captive Boer prisoner of war in Ceylon, and
the only one who refused to make declaration or take
52
an oath. He continued to eke out a miserable existence

in Hambantota.3
In 1905, Engelbrecht was sued by the owner of the shanty in
which he was living for arrears of rent and ejectment. Mr. Schrader,
Woolfs immediate predecessor in Hambantota who heard this case
had held that the tenancy was engaged by the Assistant Government
Agent of Hambantota and not by Engelbrecht, the Boer prisoner
of war, although the notice to quit was justified. Mr. Schrader had
further remarked that as the allowance of Rs. 1.25 a day paid to
Engelbrecht by the Government was hardly sufficient for his living,
the only remedy would be representation to Government.4 This case
had stirred public opinion and questions had been asked in the House
of Commons in Britain as to why a Boer prisoner of war was sued
for house rent when it was the duty of the colonial Government
to provide him with shelter.5 After this case, certain events that
changed Engelbrechts predicament took place, and these included
his appointment by the colonial Government as Warden of the Game
Sanctuary at Yala in the Hambantota District.6 In Growing, Woolf
wrote:
One of my predecessors who was AGA
Hambantota in 1906 reported to the Government
that Engelbrecht was living in the greatest poverty
and squalor and something ought to be done about
him, and he recommended that the Boer should be
appointed Game Sanctuary Ranger on a small salary.
The Government agreed 7
Despite this appointment, Engelbrecht remained unchanged as to his
refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the British sovereign. Thus, in
1908, when Woolf came to Hambantota as the Assistant Government
Agent, Engelbrecht was the Warden of the Game Sanctuary of Yala.
In a letter dated 02 October 1908 to Lytton Strachey, one of his
contemporaries at Cambridge, Woolf wrote:
53
Henry Engelbrecht 1910
54
O there is also an ex Boer prisoner who refuses

to take an oath of allegiance to the King successors
though he is willing to take it to the King, for as he
very truly remarks, I know what sort of a king he is
but I don know what sort of successors they will be.
So the British Government refuses to allow him to
go back and he lives here on 3 Rs. a day as a Forest
Ranger in a Game Sanctuary under me. I think he
will die very soon of malaria and curry and rice. 8
Woolf learnt a great deal about the jungle from Engelbrecht,
which included skills such as shooting and tracking, when they went on
hunting expeditions together.9 Woolf described Engelbrecht as a
cold-blooded man completely without fear and nerves.10
According to Woolf, Engelbrecht was hated in Hambantota,
because he used to treat the natives of Hambantota in the same
manner the Boers treated the Negroes in South Africa. 11
On one occasion, as Police Magistrate of Hambantota, Woolf had
to hear a case filed by a Sinhalese woman against Engelbrecht for
maintenance of an illegitimate child. This incident is described in
Growing as follows:
Being Police Magistrate as well as A.G.A I used
to walk over from the Kachcheri to the Police Court to
try cases in the afternoon when I was in Hambantota
town. One afternoon when I got to the Court I found half
the male population of the town packed into the Court,
on the verandah and all around the building. There
was one woman, a good looking Sinhalese carrying a
baby. There was obviously going to be a cause celebre,
and I was rather surprised that neither anyone in the
Kachcheri nor the Court Interpreter had warned me
of it. We began with the usual string of nuisance and
similar cases in which the accused always pleaded
55
guilty and was fined a few rupees. Then the womans

case was called and the defendant was Engelbrecht.
It was a paternity case by the woman against him.
There was, however, very good evidence that he had
been living with the woman in the old prison, and she
unwrapped the naked baby and held it up to show me
that it was a white baby. It was extremely interesting to
watch the faces of the men packed in and around the
Court. There was none of the usual stir and movement,
no smiles, lifting of eyebrows, shakings of the head.
They stood quite still, expectant, their eyes fixed first
on the woman, then on Englebrecht, then on me. I knew
them well enough by now to know exactly what was
passing through their heads. He is a white man, this
swine. The A.G.A doesnt really know what he is like:
he goes out into the jungle and shoots with him. What
will the A.G.A. do? I found for the plaintiff and made
a maintenance order. There was no sound from the
crowd: their faces remained impassive rather grim:
but there was a distinct drop in tensions, a kind of
soundless sigh of relief as they filed out of the Court. 12
Section 90 of the Courts Ordinance No. 1 of 1889 which defined
the powers and jurisdictions of the courts in the Island, provided
that except with the consent of both parties thereto, no Judge shall
be competent , and in no case shall any Judge be compellable, to
exercise jurisdiction in, or to hear, try or determine any case, suit,
action or prosecution, or to hold any inquiry into, or to commit any
person for trial upon, any charge to or in which he was a party or
personally interested. 13 In terms of this Section, when any Judge so
a party or personally interested was a District Judge, Commissioner
of Request, or Police Magistrate, as the case may be, the District
Court, Court of Requests or Police Court of any adjoining district
or division was given the jurisdiction to hear, try and determine any
such case, suit, action or prosecution, or to inquire into the commit
56
for trial upon any such charge. Section 90 of the Courts Ordinance
No. 1 of 1889 further provided that the question whether a judge is
personally interested in a case shall be determined by the principles
of the law of England applicable to the same question in England. 14
It is said that a Judge, like Caesars wife, should be above
suspicion. 15The Principles of judicial propriety require that a judge
should have no pecuniary or personal interest or any other form of
bias in cases where he sits in judicial capacity. 16 Sir J. W. Bonser,
a Chief Justice of colonial Sri Lanka, in the case of Rode v. Bawa
(1896), said:
That justice should be believed by the public to
be unbiased is almost as important as that it should be
in fact unbiased. 17
In R . v. Sussex Justice, ex parte McCarthy (1924), Lord Hewart,
C.J. said:
It is not merely of some importance, but is of
fundamental importance that justice should not only
be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be
done. 18
In view of this principle which has been followed by the
judiciary in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka, it is improper for
a person sitting in judicial capacity to hear a case in which he has a
relationship with a party involved, as it may create the impression
to the public that there is a likelihood of bias on the part of him,
however impartial he is in actual terms. 19In Metropolitan Properties
Co. (FGC) Ltd. vs Lannon (1969), Lord Denning said:
Even if he was impartial as he could be,
nevertheless if right-minded persons would think that,
in the circumstances, there was a real likelihood of
bias on his part, then he should not sit. And if he does
sit, his decision cannot stand: nevertheless there must
57
appear to be a real likelihood of bias. 20

Applying this principle, it may be asked: Ought Woolf to have
sat in Engelbrechts case in view of his relationship with Engelbrecht
in that it was well known to the people that they went hunting
together?As there seems to have been sufficient evidence to prove the
paternity of the child, Woolf apparently had no difficulty in making
a correct order in favour of the plaintiff against Engelbrecht. Even
though there seems to have been very good evidence to establish
plaintiffs case, it may have been possible that Engelbrecht himself or
any other person might have thought that Woolf made the judgment
in favour of the plaintiff to impress the people of Hambantota that he
did not favour Engelbrecht, in spite of the fact that they were seen
going on hunting together. Similarly, if the evidence was not good
enough to establish the plaintiffs case, Woolf would have had to
discharge Engelbrecht from the proceedings. In such a situation, it
would have been possible for the people to think that Woolf would
have favoured Engelbrecht in view of their relationship, however
correctly and impartially he would have acted. Even in the case of
rinderpest discussed in Chapter III of this book, the accused was
prosecuted for not tethering his cattle and not destroying an infected
buffalo, upon Woolfs personal knowledge that those two offences
had been committed. Section 148 (1) (c) of the Criminal Procedure
Code Ordinance No.15 of 1898 which was then in force provided
for the institution of prosecutions in a Magistrate Court upon the
knowledge or suspicion of a Magistrate of such Court, provided
that the accused or, when there are several persons accused, any of
them shall be entitled to require that the case shall not be tried by
the Magistrate upon whose knowledge or suspicion the proceedings
were instituted, but shall either be tried by another Magistrate. 21In
the case of rinderpest, Woolf was not only the Judge but was both
witness and prosecutor. Even if the accused in the case of rinderpest
did not want his case tried by another Magistrate or both parties
in Engelbrechts case had consented to their case being heard by
Woolf (as provided for in Section 90 of the Courts Ordinance No.
58
2 of 1889), the concept of judicial propriety makes it very clear that

Woolf should not have heard both these cases. In both these cases,
he had not given serious thought to the principle that justice should
not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be done,
although he may have been just and impartial in actual terms.
Engelbrecht continued to live in Hambantota even after Woolf
left for England in 1911. During the First World War, a rumour had
spread that some of the crew on board the German cruiser, Emden
had landed at Kirinda in the Hambantota district and Engelbrecht
had surreptitiously supplied cattle to them.22 The British military
authorities, apparently acting on this rumour arrested Engelbrecht
and detained him in the military barracks in Kandy for three
months without a trial. 23After his release, the authorities reinstated
Engelbrecht as the Warden of the Game Sanctuary at Yala, and a few
years later, he died on 25th of March 1928, while being taken from his
camp at Yala to the Hambantota hospital- seriously ill. 24His mortal
remains lie buried in the cemetery by the sea in the Hambantota
town.* In the district of Hambantota, there are a few people who still
claim to be the descendants of Engelbrecht.25
* The epitaph on the tombstone reads: IN MEMORY OF H.E. ENGELBRECHT,

DIED 25th MARCH 1928 FOR 21 YEARS THE GUARDIN OF THE YALA
SANCTUARY..........
59
CHAPTER 6
AMONG THE CASE RECORDS OF HAMBANTOTA

There is a collection of old case records belonging to the British
Period in the Record Room of the District Court of Hambantota, and
they include a large number of records of civil cases Woolf heard as the
Commissioner of Requests in the Court of Requests of Hambantota. I
was able to peruse most of these case records at the Record Room at
the District Court of Hambantota in 1992. While reading these case
records, I observed that in many cases, the lawyers had not appeared,
and the litigants had apparently relied on the petition drawers for the
drafting of their pleadings in English.1 In an interview with Michael
Roberts in 1965,Woolf said:there were no proctors(solicitors) in
Hambantota. None at all. I dont think there were any in Tangalle.
They used come from Matara.2 Many of these civil cases of which
the records are available, had been disposed of without contest as
the defendants had failed to appear in court on summons. However,
I was able to trace one case record which contains the proceedings
of a contested civil case Woolf had heard as the Commissioner of
Requests in July 1910. It was a civil suit filed by one Usuf Lebbe
Ibrahim Saibo of Abalantota against two carters name Jainu Deen
or Palatupana and Alaldeen of Hambantota, for the recovery of Rs.
100.00 due on a sale of five cart bulls. The trial in this case had
commenced on 28th July 1910 and the judgment had been delivered
on the following day. Woolfs official diary for 28th July 1910 which
reads: Tried a civil case, probably makes a reference to this case. 2
A copy of the pleadings, the proceedings of the trial and of Woolfs
judgment is given here as taken from the record of Case No. 2668
of the Court of Requests of Hambantota. It portrays a typical court
room scenario where Woolf was presiding as a judge in Hambantota.
60
Written Pleadings:
(a) Plaint of the Plaintiff *
In the Court of Requests of Hambantota
Usuf Lebbe Ibrahim Saibo of
Ambalantota
Plaintiff
Vs
1. Jainu Deen of Palatupana

2. Alal Deen of Ambalantota
Defendants
This 18th day of June 1910
The Plaint of the above named Plaintiff appearing in person states
as follows:
1) The plaintiff and the defendants reside within the jurisdiction of
this Court.
2) That on the 05th day of December 1909 at Koggala within the
jurisdiction of this Court, the defendants agreed to buy from the
plaintiff 5 cart bulls for a sum of Rs. 100.00, and the plaintiff
delivered over to the said defendants the said 5 bulls on the said
day. The defendants accordingly removed the said five bulls to
Hambantota promising to pay the value of Rs. 100 in a weeks
time at Hambantota on having the vouchers.
3) The defendants have been seen the said 5th day of December
1909 using the said 5 bulls in their carts.
* See Section 39, 40, 43-46 of the Civil Procedure Code Ordinance No. 2 of 1889,
in Legislative Enactments of Ceylon (Revised Edition), Vol II Government Printer,
Colombo 1923, for the procedure as to the filing of the plaint in a civil case.
61
4) There is due and owing from the defendants to the plaintiff a sum
of Rs. 100/- as value of the five bulls purchased by them, and
Rs. 4.65 as legal interest on the said Rs. 100, from 12 Dec 09 to
June 1910 aggregating the sum of Rs. 104.65, which amount or
any part thereof the defendants have failed and neglected to pay
unto the plaintiff though often requested.
The Plaintiff therefore prays for judgment against the defendants for
the said sum of Rs. 104.65 with legal interest on Rs. 100/- from the
date of institution till payment and cost of suit and for such other
relief as to this Court may seem meet.
Sgd/U.L. Ibrahim Saibo
Plff
--------------------
(a) Plaint of the defendants *

In the Court of Requests of Hambantota
Usuf Lebbe Ibrahim Saibo

Plaintiff
No. 2668
Vs
Jainu Deen of Palatupana

Alal Deen of Ambalantota
Defendants
* See Section 72-78 of the Civil Procedure Code Ordinance No.2 of 1889, op. cit, for
the procedure as to the filing of the answer of the defendant/s in a civil case.
62
This 5th day of July 1910

The Answer of the defendants appearing in person states as follows:1) The defendants admit the paragraph one of the plaint and deny
the averments in the 2 & 3 paras thereof.
2) The defendants in answering to the plaint as a whole, state that
about 12 months ago the plaintiff entrusted to them at Koggala
two bulls to be trained for the cart, and about 4 months later he
gave over to the defendants at Koggala three other bulls also to
be trained for the cart. The defendants accordingly trained the
said bulls.
3) That after the said 5 bulls were trained, the plaintiff requested
the defendants to give him a loan of Rs. 80 promising to repay
the same by sale of the said 5 bulls or that he would give the bulls
to the defendants if they wanted them. The defendants handed
over to the plaintiff a letter addressed to one Latiff, Contractor,
requesting him to give over to the plaintiff a loan of Rs. 50 on
defendants account, but as the plaintiff failed to take the said
letter to the said Contractor, the said loan was not given to him.
3) That out of the said 5 bulls, 3 died of Rinderpest about 4
months ago, and the defendants informed of it to the plaintiff
and requested him to remove the remaining two bulls, which the
plaintiff has not done upto this day.
4) The defendants are prepared to give over to the plaintiff the two
bulls that are at present in their charge, and they deny their
liability to pay the amount claimed by the plaintiff.
The defendants therefore pray that the plaintiffs claim may be
dismissed with costs and for such other relief as to the Court may
seem meet.
Sgd/illegibly
63
Proceeding of Trial *
Parties Present.
Issues:
1) Did plaintiff sell 5 cart bulls to defendants at Koggala on
05th December 1909?
2) If so what price was to be paid to him?
3) What sum is due to him on account of the bulls?
4) Were the 5 bulls given to defendants by plaintiff to train?
5) If so, did he offer them to defendants in return for a loan of
Rs. 80?
6) Were the terms accepted?
7) Did three of the bulls die of rinderpest?
Usuf Lebbe Ibrahim Saibo, affirmed: I am plaintiff
in this case. On 5th December last at Koggala, I sold
5 bulls to the 2 defendants for Rs. 100. The Koggala
P.O., Bodiyagamagamage Don Telenis and Jayaratna
Bodiyagamagamage Tepanis were present. It was in
my boutique. I received no money or receipt. They
said that on receipt of cattle voucher from me at
Hambantota, they would pay the money in a weeks
time. In a weeks time I came to Hambantota. I found
that 01st defendant had gone to Palatupana with the
bulls. 2nd defendant took me to the Contractor Latiff,
to get the money. He asked Latiff to pay for the bulls.
Latiff said the defendants were already indebted to him
and so he would not pay the full amount. He said he
would pay Rs. 30. I refused to accept less that Rs. 100,
the full amount. Latiff said if I came about middle of
January, he would settle it. I went middle of January.
* See Section 146-177 of the Civil Procedure Code Ordinance No. 2 of 1889, op. cit.
for the procedure as to the proceedings of the trial in a civil case.
64
2nd Defendant told me that Latiff had been written to

and I was to get the money from him. I could not find
him. I told 2nd defendant to return my bulls or give me
the money. He said he would send his son. I have not
got my money yet.
xxd* I brought a case against Naido which was
dismissed. A case was brought by me for house
breaking and was dismissed. I was dismissed as P. O.
**
in consequence. All the 5 bulls were taken together.
(To Court): I am not calling the Gravets Arachchi.
I had had transactions with defendants before. They
had borrowed paddy from me, 3 trained bulls, 2
untrained.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf
C. R.
28.7.10
S. A. Bai Appu, affirmed: I am P. O. Koggala.
I was present when the 2 defendants bought 5 bulls
from plaintiff at Koggala about December 5th last. No
money passed. The two defendants said they would pay
Rs. 100 when vouchers were drawn at Hambantota.
This was in plaintiffs boutique. I come to buy betel.
Tepanis and Don Telenis and Lando were there. 2nd
defendants mother-in-law keeps a coffee boutique at
Koggala. They come there.
xxd: No receipt was given. I saw the 5 bulls taken.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf
C. R.
28.7.10
* xxd- Probably an abbreviation for cross examination

** P. O. - Police Officer, a title used for the village Headman
65
Bodiyagamagamage Don Telenis affirmed: The

plaintiff sold 5 bulls to the 2 defendants in my presence
in December last in his boutique.
I brought one of the bulls to be given to the
defendants. I had seized it. The defendants said they
had no money with them but would pay Rs. 100 when
vouchers were executed at Hambantota.
xxd: I was P. O. Bodiyagama. Plaintiff is keeping
a boutique at Koggala. Plaintiff once charged me with
theft. All five bulls were there on that date.
Sgd/L. S. oolf
C. R.
28.7.10
The Plaintiff closes his case.
Jainu Deen, affirmed: I am 1st defendant. I did

not buy bulls from plaintiff. About a year ago took
two of the plaintiffs bulls to train for him. I took them
to Palatupana. About 4 months later I heard from
my father that there were three more bulls to train. I
took them to Palatupana. They belonged to plaintiff.
Rinderpest broke out. About January or February I
offered to give him back the bulls. He said he would
take them. We were not allowed to remove them. Three
bulls died. I am prepared to give the two remaining to
defendant.
xxd: I had not trained anyone elses bulls. I have
no witnesses that I offered to return the bulls.
66
(To Court): There are no witnesses to prove that

the bulls died. It take 15 days to train a bull. I had two
bulls at Palatupana six months. I used them to remove
salt.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf C. R.
28.7.10
S. Abdul Latiff, affirmed: I am Contractor for
removing salt from Palatupana. The defendants carts
worked under me. 1st defendant asked me to give Rs.
80 to plaintiff, not to lend it: it was purchase money
for 4 bulls which the defendants had trained. I offered
Rs. 50 to plaintiff. He refused to accept anything less
than the whole sum Rs. 80. First 2 bulls were brought
and then 3 bulls according to defendants. I only know
of 4 bulls.
xxd: the defendants had two carts. First they had
8 bulls and later brought 3 bulls for transporting. I
understood that they had been brought to be trained.
The defendants told me that. After training them both
parties came to me. The defendants wanted to buy the
bulls. They asked me to pay the Rs. 80. I understood
that the bulls had been sold to them then but the money
had not been paid.
(To Court) : In December, the bulls were brought
to Palatupana. In February, the defendants asked me
to pay the money. The defendants first approached me.
They asked me for money. I advance them money as
they work for me. Afterwards both parties came. 2nd
defendant asked me whether I could pay Rs. 80 for 4
bulls. Plaintiff appeared to accept that statement. I
said I would give the whole amount at the end of the
month.
67
At the end of the month, the plaintiff came. I

offered him Rs. 50 but he refused to take anything less
than the full amount.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf
C. R.
28.7.10
Ismaila Marikar, affirmed: 1st defendant brought
5 bulls to train at Palatupana. They were plaintiffs. I
am a carter.
xxd: The 5 bulls were used for transporting salt.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf
C. R.
28.7.10
Judgment tomorrow.
Judgment *
The plaintiffs case is that he sold 5 cart bulls for
Rs. 100 to the defendants in December last and has not
been paid the purchase money. The defendants allege
that they received five bulls from the plaintiff but that
there was no sale, they took the bulls to train. They
have made no real attempt to prove the statement in
their answer with regard to the loan.
The evidence of the plaintiffs witnesses together
with that of Latiff who gave evidence in a most
straightforward manner clearly proves that the
* See Section 184, 186-188 of the Civil Procedure Code Ordinance No. 2 of 1889.
op. cit. for the procedure as to the delivery of judgment in a civil case.
68
transaction was a sale. The goods had passed and the

only question was one of payment.
The only difficulty is that before Latiff whose
evidence I believe, the only question appears to have
been one of the payment of Rs. 80 for four bulls. The
defendants admit receiving five bulls and plaintiff and
his witnesses both speak to the sale of five bulls for Rs.
100.
The fact that the defendants admit the receipt of
the five bulls and the evidence of plaintiffs witnesses
justify me, I think, in holding that 5 bulls were sold
to the defendants for Rs. 100. The defendants admit
that nothing had been paid. I answer 1st issue in the
affirmative. I find as follows on the other three issues.
2nd issue - Rs. 100
3rd issue - Rs. 100
4th issue - No
It is not necessary to find on the other issues. I give judgment for
plaintiff as prayed for with costs.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf
C. R.
28.7.10
Delivered in open court in presence of defendants
this 29th day of July 1910.
Sgd/L. S. Woolf
C. R.
28.7.10
------------------------------------69
This case is a typical case that represents many facets of

Woolfs period of service in Hambantota. It illustrates the value
of cart bulls as an economic asset in an agricultural district like
Hambantota where the only mode of transport was the bullock cart.
The Hambantota district has three salterns situated in Hambantota,
Bundala and Palatupana. The government obtained the services
of Contractors to remove salt from the salterns.3 The Contractors
employed the carters for the transport of salt. Everywhere the only
form of transport, wrote Woolf in Growing, was bullock cart,
and in Hambantota town, as I have already said, there were a large
number of carters, many of them Muhammadans, who depended for
a living upon the transport of salt, and so upon their bulls who pulled
the carts. 4 Even in this case, the evidence shows that defendants
had worked under a Contractor named Latiff as carters for removing
salt from the saltern at Palatupana. As the names of the defendants
suggest they were also Muhammadans. The plaintiff admitted in his
evidence that a case of house breaking brought by him as a Police
Officer had been dismissed and in consequence he was dismissed
as a Police Officer. His dismissal as a police officer suggests that
there was a misconduct on his part in that he probably presented a
fabricated case of house breaking or he may have committed any
other act of corruption. It may also be possible that he was dismissed
for inefficiency. An occasion where a village headman vested with
police powers presented a fabricated case of theft by house breaking
is portrayed in Woolfs novel The Village in the Jungle, which was
set in a remote village in the Hambantota district in his time. 5 The
corruption and inefficiency were prevalent in the system of policing
in colonial Sri Lanka, as pointed out in Chapter VII of this book.
The evidence of the civil case we discuss in this Chapter further
speaks of the outbreak of rinderpest in the Hambantota district. The
defendants state that three out of the five bulls in question died of the
disease. The outbreak of rinderpest was causing a catastrophe to the
people of Hambantota during Woolfs time as it was destroying their
most valuable economic asset-cattle and buffalo. 6 Woolf strictly
enforced anti-rinderpest regulations promulgated by the government
70
to eliminate the disease. 7 Finally, it may also be said that this case
represents an era where the judges were recording the proceedings
of cases in their own handwriting, as Woolfs time in Hambantota in
Colonial Sri Lanka was also not an age of typewriters for courtroom.*
Whilst reading the proceedings of this case, we can also have a
unique picture of Leonard Woolf ,a young Cambridge scholar born
and bred in London sitting in a court room in the rural district of
Hambantota in colonial Sri Lanka in 1910 recording the evidence of
witnesses and delivering his judgment in a case involving a dispute
between three ordinary villagers over a sale of five cart bulls. The
British Empire in those days, as Woolf himself said, was a strange
phenomenon. 8
* See Appendix for a reproduction of the proceedings of the trial in Case No. 2668
of the Court of Requests of Hambantota in Woolfs handwriting.
71
CHAPTER 7
POLICE, VILLAGE HEADMAN AND CRIME

Woolf was highly critical of improper methods of investigation
used by the police and village headmen during his time in Sri Lanka.
His disillusionment with the law enforcement authorities, is portrayed
in the following paragraph in Growing:
It was extremely difficult to prevent effectively
the primitive and illegal methods of the police and
the headmen in dealing with crime. I am all and
always upon the side of law and order, and my time
in Ceylon, where I was on the Government side of
the fence, strengthened me in this attitude, simply
because without law and order, strictly enforced, life
for everyone must become poor, nasty, brutish and
short. And the nearer one gets to the criminal, the
more closely one has to deal with him, as one does
when he is on the Government side of the fence in the
administration or on the Bench or in the police, the
less sentimental sympathy one gets for him, for he is
usually a very nasty and brutish man. But in my case,
actual experience from the inside of the administration
of law and of what is called justice produced in me
an ineradicable and melancholy disillusionment with
those whose duty it is to do justice and protect law
and order. Too often one watches the line between
the criminal and the policeman or the judge growing
thinner and thinner. 1
Commenting on a case of a boy taken into police custody on a charge
of misappropriation of a gold watch, in the entries for 09th & 10th
January 1911 in the official diary of Hambantota, Woolf remarked:
72
The only evidence against him was his

contradictory statements. After he had been detained
for about 24 hours, it was brought to my knowledge
by the usual weeping woman. The methods of police
investigation were a very good example of what is so
frequently condemned in the report of the Indian Police
Commission: Investigation - nil, method - obtain a
confession, result - acquittal. 2
Under the law of Evidence introduced to Sri Lanka by the British,
confessions made to police officers by the accused cannot be used
against them as evidence in courts in criminal cases. 3 The police thus,
have to gather evidence other than confessions through investigations
to prove criminal prosecutions beyond reasonable doubt. The low
percentage of success in criminal prosecutions in the Hambantota
District for the years 1907 to 1910 is shown by the statistics given
in Woolfs official diary entry for the 1st of February 1911, which
reads:
I have now got the crime figures for 1910 and
I annex a statement which shows the state of crime
for the last 4 years. It is satisfactory to find a slight
decrease of 7 to 8 % in the number of true cases of
serious crime. The other figures are by no means
altogether encouraging, those for the Tangalla and
Beliyatta police stations are more disappointing. For
the Tangalla Police Station there were convictions in
only 23% and for Beliyatta in only 2% of true cases.
70% of the Tangalla and 53% of the Beliyatta true
cases were lettered Fd or Fe by the Police Magistrate,
i.e. the case was a true case but the evidence was
insufficient to convict anyone or the offender was
unknown. Even for Walasmulla, where the conviction
figures are much better, 45% of the cases were lettered
Fd or Fe.
73
74
1910
In his official diary entry for 12th April 1911, Woolf says I find
that the crime figures for 1910 furnished to me by the Police and
commented on in a previous diary were incorrect. The correct figures
are:5
75
In order to understand Woolfs critical remarks and observations

on the methods of criminal investigation and statistics of criminal
prosecutions, it may be necessary to look at the historical background
of the system of policing in Sri Lanka during the British rule.
In the early years of the British rule in Sri Lanka, the authorities
had paid less attention to the establishment of an organized system of
policing than to the establishment of a judicial system. 5 This bias,
John D. Rogers says, was no doubt at least partially a reflection of
policing in Britain itself at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 6
Although several efforts were made in the late nineteenth century to
improve the system of policing by building and expanding a modern
regular police force, the village headmen were largely relied upon
in the rural areas while the regular police force was largely confined
to the urban localities, until the regular police force was gradually
introduced to the countryside during the first half of the twentieth
century. 7 These village headmen were merely unpaid village notables
who assisted the government mainly in administrative matters.
They were not recruited or trained as policemen but used this as an
additional source of authority. 8 It is, therefore, not surprising that
they were generally inefficient or inactive in dealing with crime.
Furthermore, village headmen being natives of their respective
villages, may sometimes have permitted their vested interests and
personal relationships to prevent themselves from performing their
police duties with impartiality or integrity. An occasion in which a
village headman presented a fabricated case is portrayed in Woolfs
novel The Village in the Jungle, which was set in a remote village in
the Hambantota district of colonial Sri Lanka in his time. It illustrates
how the village headman used false evidence to manipulate the legal
machinery to secure a conviction of one of his personal enemies in
the village as a mode of taking revenge.
It seems that the situation in the regular police was also
unsatisfactory and Sir Henry Blake, Governor of Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
writing to the Secretary for the Colonies in 1904, had remarked: The
police system is unsatisfactory and the regular police inefficient, if not
76
corrupt while for the police purposes the unpaid headmen are equally
untrustworthy.10 The reforms introduced in 1906 to reorganize the
police system were not intended to supersede the police role of
headmen, but to complement and support it. 11 Even after many
police stations were opened in rural areas of Western, Southern, and
North-Western Provinces pursuant to the reforms of 1906, crime was
to be, in the first instance, reported to the village headmen who would
in turn inform the police of serious offences. 12 It was only during the
last four decades of the British rule in the first half of the twentieth
century, that the regular police gained sophistication with its gradual
expansion into the rural areas in the Island and with the introduction
of modern technological inventions for crime detection including
fingerprinting, photography, automobile and telephone, etc. 13
77
CHAPTER 8
THE VILLAGE IN THE JUNGLE

Woolf sailed for England in May 1911 on one years leave of
absence from the Ceylon Civil Service. In October of that year he
began writing his first novel The Village in the Jungle whilst residing
on the top floor of a large house in Brunswick Square, London.
Virginia Stephen who was later to become a famous writer of the
English literary world in the first half of this century, and her brother
Adrian lived on another floor of this house. In his autobiography,
Woolf wrote:
In the autumn Virginia and Adrian took a large
house in Brunswick Square. They let the ground floor
to Maynard Keynes and they offered to let the top floor
to me. I agreed and in December went into residence
there. I had been feeling for some little time that I must
make a decision about Ceylon. In October I began
writing The Village in the Jungle and I realized that I
was falling in love with Virginia. By the end of 1911 I
had come to the following conclusions: (1) If Virginia
would marry me, I would resign from Ceylon and try
to earn my living by writing; (2) If Virginia would
not marry me, I did not want to return to Ceylon and
become a successful civil servant in Colombo and end
eventually with a governorship and K.C.M.G. But if
I could go back and immerse myself in a District like
Hambantota for the remainder of my life, as Dyke and
old Sir William Twynam had immersed themselves
in Jaffna, I might welcome it as a final withdrawal,
a final solitude, in which, married to a Sinhalese, I
would make my District or Province the most efficient,
78
the most prosperous place in Asia. At the back of my

mind I think I knew that this last solution was fantasy.
The days of paternalism under a Dyke or Twynam
were over:
I had been born in an age of imperialism and I
disapproved of imperialism and felt sure that its days
were already numbered. 1
In January 1912, six months after his arrival in England, Woolf
proposed to Virginia Stephen.2 In February 1912, he applied for a
four month extension of his leave of absence from the Ceylon Civil
Service for private reasons, as he was still not sure whether Virginia
would decide to marry him. The Colonial Office wished to know the
nature of those private reasons but Woolf refused to state them either
in a letter or an interview, despite an assurance of strict confidentiality
from the Colonial Office. He thus had no alternative but to resign
from the Ceylon Civil Service, and the Colonial Office accepted
his resignation on 7th May 1912.3 Meanwhile Virginia decided to
marry Woolf, they became engaged at the end of May 1912 and were
married in August of that year.4 Peter F. Alexander, a modern literary
critic of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, contends that Woolfs desire
to impress Virginia was a powerful factor that stimulated hum into
working hard at his novel The Village in the Jungle, as he realized
that she cared about nothing so much as writing.5
The scene of Woolfs novel is set in a village surrounded
by the jungle in the Hambantota district and he later wrote in his
autobiography:
The jungle and the people who lived in the
Sinhalese jungle villages fascinated, almost obsessed
me in Ceylon. They continued to obsess me in London,
in Putney or Bloomsbury, and in Cambridge. The
Village in the Jungle was a novel in which I tried
somehow or other vicariously to live their lives. It
was also, in some curious way, the symbol of the anti79
imperialism which had been growing upon me more

and more in my last years in Ceylon. 6
However, as Sir Duncan Wilson, his political biographer, points
out, though Woolf had come to dislike many aspects of imperialism
before he left Ceylon and was reluctant to take part any longer in
the great British Empire show, he did not resign from the Colonial
Service on anti-imperialist grounds, and was not in 1912 an antiimperialist of the type which he later came to represent. 7 Peter F.
Alexander in his recent publication Leonard and Virginia Woolf: A
Literary Partnership (1992) says:
In later years Leonard tried to represent The
Village in the Jungle as having been in some curious
way, the symbol of the anti-imperialism which had been
growing upon me and more in my last years in Ceylon.
The truth is that anti- imperialism plays a negligible
part in the novel, for the reason that Leonard was not
at that time an anti-imperialist; if Virginia had firmly
rebuffed him he would have returned to his post in
Ceylon. However he was, as we have seen, convinced
that British rule was largely futile and misunderstood,
and the novel does convey, in the trial scene, a sense
of the Sinhalese villagers incomprehension of British
notions of justice.8
The Village in the Jungle was first published in February 1913
and was reprinted in the same year, again in 1925 and at several times
later. The novel, widely acclaimed on publication, is still regarded
in Sri Lanka as one of the finest pieces of creative writing which
gives an outstandingly sympathetic account of rural life in colonial
Sri Lanka.9 It undoubtedly proves Woolfs ability to penetrate
into the minds of the Sinhalese villagers as well his sympathetic
understanding of their problems. A.P.Gunaratnes Sinhala translation
of the novel under the title Beddegama which was first published in
1947, became very popular among Sinhala readers in Sri Lanka and it
80
was for a time, a prescribed text book in Sri Lankan schools. Based
on Woolfs novel , a Sinhala film titled: Beddegama Adaraneeya
Kathavak (The Village in the Jungle, a Romantic Story)" directed
by Sri Lankas internationally recognized film director, Lester James
Peiris, was released in 1980.
Alec Waugh, in a letter to Woolf, wrote in 1965:
A year ago when I was reading about The
Village in the Jungle in your autobiography, I said
to myself Thats a book Ive got to read, and a few
weeks later in Singapore, I was saying to a young
Malay student no Western novelist- not even Forsterhas really got inside the Asian mind. Kipling and
Maugham described the effect of the Far East on the
Westerner. The Malay said There is one novel that
has The Village in the Jungle. I have now kept my
promise to myself and read your novel and I must send
you a note to thank you for the pleasure you have given
me. I was held and moved right the way through; the
pace and force of the narrative are terrific. You have
done what I did not think was possible for a Westerner
to do- got inside the mind and heart of the Far East. It
is a unique achievement.10
The novel, as Sir Duncan Wilson points out, is an important
document in Woolfs intellectual and political development. 11
Although he was not the type of anti-imperialist which he later
came to represent at the time he was writing his novel in 1912, his
awareness of problems of the colonial rule is well depicted in it.
The novel also gives an intimate portrait of Woolf as a Magistrate
in the colonial court system as his own experiences as a judge in
the district of Hambantota are very well reflected in it. In 1936,
Herbert Freeman, the member for the constituency of Anuradhapura
in the State Council (as the Sri Lankan Legislature was then known),
introduced a motion proposing that the title: Police Court then
81
used for the Magistrates courts should be discontinued and the title:
Magistrates Court be substituted. In the course of the debate on the
motion, Herbert Freeman remarked:
The atmosphere of an outstation court is exactly
captured and expressed in the book called The Village
in the Jungle by Mr. L. S. Woolf.........12
The story of the novel is that of a hunter called Silindu and his
twin daughters Punchi Menika and Hinnihamy. They live in a village
called Beddagama which is surrounded by the jungle. The scenes of
the jungle are depicted throughout the story, and are undoubtedly
derived from Woolfs personal knowledge and experience of the
jungle gained during the years he spent at Hambantota. Two days after
the birth of his twin daughters, Silindus wife dies and he brings his
sister to his hut to bring up his children. The twin daughters, Punchi
Menika and Hinnihamy are brought up in a way uncomfortable to
that of the normal villagers and for that reason the villagers treat
them as virtual rejects. Babun, the cousin of the village headmans
wife falls in love with Punchi Menika. The village headman who is
displeased with this love match threatens to deprive Silindu of his
chena cultivation rights or to make a complaint against him for not
having a license for his gun. Despite the disapproval of the village
headman and his wife, Babun marries Punchi Menika. Silindu is
tricked into giving his other twin daughter, Hinnihamy, in marriage
to a local practitioner of native medicine, charms and spells. Then
comes a year of severe drought and diseases, and the children of both
Punchi Menika and Hinnihamy and Hinnihamy herself die at the end
of the year. Fernando, a crafty money lender comes from the town
and lends money to the villagers on unreasonable terms. He settles in
the village to recover the debts from the villagers chena cultivation
crops during the harvest season. Fernando unsuccessfully attempts
to seduce Punchi Menika and persuades her to leave her husband,
Babun to live with him. Fernando also induces the village headman
to persuade Babun to permit Punchi Menika to leave him. However,
Babun and Punchi Menika reject these overtures. When their plans
82
Women fetching water from the tank of a village in

Hambantota in Woolf's time
83
fail, the village headman together with Fernando fabricate a case of

theft by house breaking against Babun and Silindu. At the trial in the
Magistrates Court, Babun is convicted and sentenced to a six month
imprisonment while Silindu gets acquitted. The court scene derived
from Wools own experience as the Magistrate of Hambantota is
portrayed in the novel as follows:
The next morning the Korala* took him with
the complainant, the accused, and the witnesses, of
whom Fernando turned out to be one, and started for
Kamburupitiya. Punchi Menika went with them. They
travelled slowly, and reached Kamburupitiya on the
fourth morning. Silindu had relapsed into his usual
state of sullen silence; Babuns spirit appeared to be
completely broken. He scarcely understood what the
charge against him was; he knew nothing of why or on
what evidence it had been made. He waited bewildered
to see what new misfortune fate and his enemies would
bring upon him.
The parties and witnesses in the case were taken
at once to the court-house. They waited about all the
morning on the verandah. The court was a very large
oblong room with a roof of flat red tiles. At one end
was the bench, a raised dais, with a wooden balustrade
round it. There were a table and chair upon the dais.
In the centre of the room was a large table with
chairs round it for the bar and the more respectable
witnesses. At the further end of the room was the dock,
a sort of narrow oblong cage made of a wooden fence
with a gate in it. Silindu and Babun were locked up
in this cage, and a court peon stood by the gate in
charge of them. There was no other furniture in the
* Korala - Chief headman of a sub-division within a Pattu

84
room except the witness-box, a small square wooden

platform surrounded by a wooden balustrade on three
of its sides.
Nothing happened all the morning: Babun and
Silindu squatted down behind the bars of their cage.
They were silent: they had never been in so vast or so
high a room. The red tiles of the roof seemed a very
long way above their heads. Outside they could hear
the murmur of the sea, and the rush of the wind, and
the whispered conversation of the witnesses on the
verandah; but inside the empty room the silence awed
them. About one o clock there was a stir through the
court; the headman hurried in, a proctor or two came
and sat down at the table. The peon nudged Babun
and Silindu, and told them to stand up. Then they saw
a white Hamadoru, an Englishman, appear on the
dais and sit down* The court interpreter, a Sinhalese
Mahatmaya ** in coat and trousers, stood upon a small
wooden step near the bench. The judge spoke to him in
an angry voice. The interpreter replied in a smoothing
deferential tone. The conversation being in English
was unintelligible to Babun and Silindu. Then the door
of their cage was unlocked, and they were led out and
made to stand up against the wall on the left of the
bench.
The court-house stood on a bare hill which rose
above the town, a small headland which ran out into
the sea to form one side of the little bay. The judge,
as he sat upon the bench, looked out through the
great open doors opposite to him, down upon the blue
Woolfs autobiography and Official Diaries show that he usually sat in Court
in the afternoons after attending to administrative work at the Hambantota
Kachcheri in mornings.
** Mahatmaya- a Sinhalese expression meaning Gentleman

85
waters of the bay, the red roofs of the houses, and then
the interminable jungle, the grey jungle stretching out
to the horizon and the faint line of the hills. ** And
throughout the case this vast view, framed like a picture
in the heavy wooden doorway, was continually before
the eyes of the accused. Their eyes wandered from the
bare room to the boats and the canoes, hobbling up
and down in the bay, to the group of little figures on the
shore hauling in the great nets under the blazing sun,
to the dust storms weeping over the jungle, miles away
where they live. The air of the court was hot, heavy,
oppressive; the voice of those who spoke seemed * both
to themselves and to the others unreal in the stillness.
The murmur of the little waves in the bay, the confused
shouts of the fishermen on the shore, the sound of the
wind in the trees floated up to them as if from another
world. It was like a dream. They did not understand
what exactly was happening. This was a case and
they were the accused, that was all they knew. The
judge looked at them and frowned; this increased their
fear and confusion. The judge said something to the
interpreter, who asked them their names in an angry
threatening voice. Silindu had forgotten what his ge**
name was; the interpreter became still more angry at
this, and Silindu still more sullen and confused. From
time to time the judge said a few sharp words in English
to the interpreter: Silindu and Babun were never quite
certain whether he was or was not speaking to them,
or whether, when the interpreter spoke to them in
Sinhalese, the words were really his own, or whether
he was interpreting what the judge had said. At last the
* This is an identical description of the location of the Court house in the town of
Hambantota.
** Ge is Sinhalese for house. A ge name answers in some respect to a surname

86
Hambantota bay and harbour in woolf's time
87
question of the names was settled. Babehami was told

to go into the witness box. As he did so a proctor stood
up at the table and said:
I appear for the complainant, your honour. Any
one for the defence? aid the judge.
Have you a proctor? the interpreter asked
Silindu.
No, said Babun. We are very poor.
No, your worship, said the interpreter.
Babehami knew exactly what to do; it was not the
first time that he had given evidence. He was quite at
his ease when he made the affirmation that he would
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. He gave his name and his occupation.* Then his
proctor stood up and said to him:
Now Arachchi, tell us exactly what has happened.
Babihami cleared his throat and then told the
following story in a rather sing-song voice:
About four days ago when I woke up in the
morning my wife had gone out into the compound. I
heard her cry out. Aiyo, someone has made a hole in
the wall of the house. I ran out and saw a hole on the
western side of the house. The hole was big enough
for a man to crawl through. There are two rooms in
the house, one on the eastern side, and one on the
* In terms of Section 149(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No.15

of 1898, when an accused was brought before a Magistrate without the process of
summons, the Magistrate was required to examine on oath the person present in
Court. After such examination, if the Magistrate was of the opinion, that there was
no sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused, Section 151(1) required the
Magistrate to discharge the accused forthwith.

88
western side. We, my wife and I, were sleeping that

night in the room on the eastern side; in the other room
was a wooden box in which were clothes and two new
sarong cloths and jewellery belonging to my wife. The
box was locked. When I saw the hole I ran back into
the house to see if the box was safe. I found it had
disappeared. At that I cried out: Aiyo, my box had
been stole. The Mudalali, who had been staying in
the hut next to mine, hearing the cries came up and
asked what was the matter. I told him: he said,Last
night about four peyas* before dawn I went out into
the compound for a call of nature. I heard a noise in
your compound. Thinking it was a wild pig I stepped
back into the doorway and looked. Then I saw your
brother-in-law came running from your compound
carrying something in his hands. He ran into the
jungle behind his own house. I went straight off to
the village of the Korala Mahatmaya; it lies many
miles away to the north. Then when the sun was about
there (pointing about three quarters way up the wall of
court) I met the Korale Mahatmaya on the road. The
Korala Mahatmaya said, What are you coming this
way for, to trouble me? I am going to Kamburupitiya.
I told him what had happened and turned with him to
go back. We came to the village in the afternoon. The
Korala Mahatmaya went to the accuseds house and
searched. In the roof between the thatch he found the
two sarong cloths and my wifes jewellery, and the box
with the lock broken was found in the jungle behind
the house.
When Babehami began his story, Babun and
Silindu had not really listened to what he was saying.
* A peya is a Sinhalese hour, and is equal to about twenty minutes.

89
They were still dazed and confused, they did not quite
understand what was going on. But as he proceeded,
they gradually grasped what he was doing, and when
he told the story about the Mudalali, they saw the
whole plot. Their brains worked slowly; they felt they
were trapped; there was no way out of it. Babehamis
proctor stood up to examine him, but the judge
interrupted him:
The first accused, I understand, is the brotherin-law of the complainant. Is that correct? I propose
to charge the accused now. But is there any evidence
against the second accused-Silindu, isnt his name? Mr. Perera?
The proctor called Babehami to him and had a whispered
conversation with him.
There is no evidence, Sir , he said to the Judge,
to connect him directly with the theft. But he was in
the house in which the first accused lives, on the night
in question. He must have been an accessory. He is
the owner of the house, I understand, and might be
charged with receiving.

No, certainly not- is thats your only evidence
to connect him with the theft. I should not be prepared
to convict in any case, Mr. Perera. I shall discharge
him at once - especially as the man does not look as if
he is quite in the head.
Very well Sir.
Charge the first accused only, said the Judge
to the interpreter. There is no evidence against the
second accused. He can go.
90
This conversation has been in English and

therefore was again unintelligible to the two accused.
Their bewilderment was increased therefore when
the interpreter said to Silindu, You there, go away.
Silindu, not knowing where he had to go, remained
where he was. Cant you hear, Yakko?* shouted the
interpreter, Clear out. The peon came up and pushed
Silindu out on to the verandah. A small group of idle
spectators laughed at him as he came out.
Theyll hang you in the evening, father, said a
small boy.
I thought the Judge Hamadoru said ten years
rigorous imprisonment, said a young man. Silindu
turned to an old man who looked like a villager, and
said:
What does it mean, friend? Every one laughed.
You are acquitted, said the old man: go back to
your buffaloes.
Babun also did not understand the acquittal of
Silindu. Things appeared to be happening around him
as if he were in a dream. The interpreter came and
stood in front of him and said the following sentence
very fast in Sinhalese:
You are charged under section 1010 of the Penal
Code with housebreaking and theft of a box, clothing
and jewellery, in the house of the complainant, on the
night of the 10th instant, and you are called on to show
cause why you shot be convicted. **
* Yakko - means Devil in Sinhala
** See section 187-199 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898,
op. cit. for the procedure as to the trials of cases in the Police Courts.
91
I dont understand, Hamadoru.

You heard what the complainant said?
Yes Hamadoru.
He charges you with the theft. Have you anything
to say?
I know nothing about this.
He says he knows nothing about this, said the
interpreter to the Judge.
Any witnesses? said the Judge. Have you any
witnessed? said the
interpreter to Babun.
How can I have witnesses? No one will give
evidence against the headman.
Any reason for a false charge? asked the Judge.
Hamadoru, the headman is on very bad terms
with me; he is angry with me because of my wife. He
is angry with my wifes father. He wanted me to marry
from another village. Then he wanted me to give my
wife to the Mudalali and because I refused he is angry.
Anything else?
Babun was silent. There was nothing more to say.
He looked out through the great doors at the jungle.
He tried to think where Beddegama was; but, looking
down upon it from that distance, it was impossible to
detect any landmark in the unbroken stretch of trees.
Very well, Mr. Perera, said the Judge.
92
Mr. Perera got up again and began to examine

Babehami.
How long have you been a headman? Fifteen
years.
Have you ever had a private case before?
No.
Are you on bad terms with your brother-in-law?
No, but he is on bad terms with me. How is
that?
There is a Government Order that chenas are
only to be given to fit persons. The accused is not a
fit person; he could not work, but he is lazy. Therefore
chenas were refused to him. He thought that I had
done this. It was a Kachcheri order from the agent,
Hamadoru. Last week he was very angry and
threatened me because of it. The Mudalali heard him.
Is the Mudalali a friend of yours?
How could he be, Aiya? He is a Mahatmaya of
Kamburupitiya. I am only a village man. How could
he be a friend of mine? He comes to the village merely
to collect debts due to him.
And when he comes, you let him stay in the
unoccupied house next to yours. Otherwise you do not
know him?
Yes, that is true, Aiya.
Is the Korala related to you? No.
A friend of yours?
93
No; he was on bad terms with me. He said I

troubled him and was a bad headman.
Mr. Perera sat down
Any question? asked the Judge.
Any question? asked the interpreter of Babun.
I dont understand, said Babun.
Yakko, said the interpreter angrily, do you want
to ask complainant any question?
What questions are there to ask? It is lies what
he said.
There was a pause while the judge waited for
Babun to think of a question. The silence confused
him, all and the eyes looking at him. He fixed his own
eye on the jungle. At last Babun thought of a question.
Did you not ask me to give the woman to the
Mudalali?
No, said Babehami.
Did not the Mudalali call her to go to his house?
I know nothing of that.
Werent you angry when I married the woman?
No.
Babun turned desperately to the Judge.
Hamadoru, he said, it is all lies he is saying.
The Judge was looking straight at him, but Babun
could read nothing in the impassive face; the light eyes,
94
the cats eyes, of the white Hamadoru frightened him.

Is that all? said the Judge. Babun was silent.
Who is the Mudalali? said the Judge sharply to
Babehami.
Fernando Mudalali, Hamadoru. He comes from
Kamburupitya; he is a trader, he lends money in the
village.
What is he doing in the village now?
He has come to collect debts. When did he
come?
About a week ago. When is he going?
I dont think so. I dont know.
Why do you give him a house to live in?
Hamadoru, the little hut was empty. He came to
me. He came to me and said: Arachchi, he said, I
must stay here a few days. I want a house. There is that
hut of yours- can I live in it? So I said, Why not?
Whose is the hut? Mine.
Why did you build it?
It was built, Hamadoru, for this brother-in-law
of mine.
When?
I dont know.
What do you mean? Hamadoru, last year, I
think.
95
But your brother-in-law lives with his father-inlaw?

Yes.
Then why did you build him a house? There was
talk of his leaving the other people.
Has the Mudalali ever stayed in the village
before?
No.
Do you owe anything to him? No.
Next witness.
Babehami stood down and the Korala entered
the witness box. He was examined by Mr. Perera.
He told his story very simply and quietly. He had
met Babehami, who had told him that his house had
been broken into and that a box had been stolen; he
described the box and its contents; he suspected his
brother-in-law, who had been seen going away from
his house in the night, by the Mudalali. The Korala
then described how he went into and searched the
house, and how he found the clothes and jewellery
which answered to Babehamis previous description.
He then produced them. The proctor examined him.
Are you on good terms with the complainant?
I am not on good terms or bad terms with him. I
only know him as a headman.
Do you complain of his troubling you?
I complained that he was a bad headman. He has
troubled me with silly questions. He is an ignorant man.
96
Mr. Perera sat down.

Any question? asked the Judge.
Any question? asked the interpreter of Babun.
Babun shook his head.
What questions are there? he said.
Do you know this Mudalali? said the Judge to
the Korala.
I have seen him before in Kamburupitiya. Have
you seen him before in Beddagama? No.
Do you know of any ill-feeling between
complainant and accused?
No, I did not know the accused at all. I live many
miles from Beddagama.
Next witness.
Fernando was the next witness. He wrote for the
occasion a black European coat, a pink starched shirt,
and a white cloth. He was cool and unabashed. He
told how he had gone out in the night for a call of
nature, how he had heard a noise in the compound
of the headman and had then seen Babun come out
carrying something and go with it into the jungle
behind his own house.
Could you see what it was? asked the proctor.
Not distinctly. He walked as if it were heavy.
It was rather large.
How did you recognize him? Can you swear it
was he?
97
I can swear that it was the accused. I recognized

him first by his walk. But I also saw his face in the
moonlight.
Are you on bad terms with accused? Does he owe
you money?
I am not on bad terms with him. I scarcely
know him. He owes me for kurakkan let to him. I had
arranged to make him my gambaraya.*All the villagers
there owe me money.
How long have you been in village?
About ten days. I am making arrangements for
the recovery of my loans. Last crop failed and therefore
much is owed to me.
The proctor sat down.
Any question? said the Judge.
Any question? said the interpreter to Babun.
Babun shook his head. It is lies they are telling,
he murmured.
Are you married? the Judge asked Fernando.
No.
You live with a woman in Kamburupitiya? Yes.
How did you come to settle in the hut in
Beddagama?
I was getting into difficulties with my loans
because the crop failed last year. I thought I must go
* Gambaraya- Person entrusted with the collection of crops from the villagers for
the recovery of debts.

98
to the village during the chena season and arrange for

the repayment. I saw the hut empty there, and went to
the headman and asked whether I might live there. He
said Yes.
Do you know the accuseds wife?
I have seen her. Their compound adjoins that of
the hut. Otherwise I do not know her.
Next witness.
The man who had found the box gave evidence of
how and where he had found it. Various villagers were
then called, who identified the things found in Silindus
hut and the box as having belonged to Babehami.
They all denied any knowledge of ill-feeling between
Babun and the headman or of any intimacy between
the headman and Fernando. This closed the case for
the prosecution.
The judge then addressed Babun in a speech
which was interpreted to him. Babun should now call
any witness whom he might have. It was for him to
decide whether he would himself go into the witnessbox and give evidence. If he gave evidence he would be
liable to cross-examination by Babehamis proctor; if
he did not, he (the Judge) might draw any conclusion
from his refusal.
Babun did not really understand what this meant.
He did not reply.
Well? said the interpreter.
I dont understand.
Are you going to give evidence yourself? As the
99
Judge Hamadoru likes.

Explain it to him properly, said the Judge.
Now, look here.There is the evidence of the
Korala, that he found the things in your house. There
is no evidence of his being a prejudiced witness. There
is the evidence of Fernando that he saw you leaving
the complainants hut at night. You say that Fernando
wants your wife, and that the headman is in league
with him against you. At present there is no evidence of
that at all. According to your story the things must have
been deliberately put into your house by complainant,
o Fernando - or both. Listen to what I am saying. Have
you any witnesses or evidence of all this?
Hamadoru, how could I get witnesses of this? No
one will give evidence against the headman.
I will adjourn the case if you want to call
witnesses from the village.
What is the good? No one will speak the truth.
Well, then you had better, in any case, give
evidence yourself.
Get up here, said the interpreter.
Babun got into the witness box. He told his story.
The Judge asked him many questions. Then the proctor
began cross examining.
Are you on bad terms wit the Korala? Do you
know him well?
I am not on bad terms. I scarcely know him. Do
you know that Fernando came to the
100
village to recover money, that he has arranged

to get the chena crop from many of the villagers in
repayment of his loans?
Yes.
Did he ask you to act as overseer of those chenas
and promise you a share of the crop if you did?
Yes.
Because he thought you the best worker in the
village?
Yes. I think so.
When did this happen? About a week ago.
The proctor sat down. Babun called no witnesses.
There was a curious look of pain and distress in his
face. The judge watched him in silence for some
minutes, then he told the interpreter to call Silindu.
Silindu was pushed into the box, the interpreter recites
the words of the affirmation to him. He said, I do not
understand Hamadoru. It took some time to make
him understand that he had only to repeat the words
after the interpreter. He sighed and looked quickly
from side to side like a hunted animal. The eyes of the
judge frightened him. He was uncertain whether he
was being charged again with the theft. He had not
listened to what was going on after he had been sent
out of the court. It occurred vaguely to him that the best
thing would be to pretend to be completely ignorant
of everything. He still thought of the wounded buffalo
listening to the hunter crawling after him through the
scrub: He doesnt move, he muttered to himself, until
he is sure: he stands quite stupid and still, listening
101
always; but when he sees clear, then out he rushes

charging.
Stop that muttering, said the Judge, and listen
carefully to what I ask you. Youve got to speak the truth.
Theres no charge against you; youve got nothing to
fear if you speak the truth. Do you understand?
Is there any reason why the headman should
bring a false case against you and the accused?
I dont know. Hamadoru.
You are not on bad terms with him personally?
I have nothing against him. He does not like him,
they say.
Why doesnt he like you? Hamadoru, how
should I know that?
You have never had any quarrel with him? No,
Hamadoru.
Are you related to him?
I married a cousin of his wife.
The accused lives in your house? He is married
to your daughter?
Yes, Hamadoru.
Do you know of any quarrel between him and the
headman?
How should I know that?
There was no quarrel at the time of the marriage?
102
They say this and that, but how should I know,

Hamadoru?
You know nothing about it yourself, then? No.
Hamadoru.
Do you know the Mudalali Fernando? No,
Hamadoru.
You dont know him? Doesnt he stay in the hut
adjoining your compound?
I have seen him there. I have never spoken with
him.
Did you hear of anything between him and your
daughter?
They talk, Hamadoru. What did they say?
They said he wanted my daughter. Who said?
When?
This man. (pointing to Babun) When?
Three or four days ago.
You know nothing more, yourself, about this?
No, Hamadoru.
Neither Babun nor Bebehamis proctor asked
Silindu any questions; he was told to go away, and
was pushed out of court by the peon. The case was
over, only the judgment had to be delivered now. The
Judge leant back in his chair, gazing over the jungle
at the distant hills. There was not a sound in the court.
Outside, down on the shore, the net had been hauled in,
and the fish sold. Not a living thing could be seen now,
103
except an old fisherman sitting by a broken canoe, and

looking out over the waters of the bay. The wind had
died away, and sea and jungle lay still and silent under
the afternoon sun. The court seemed very small now,
suspended over this vast and soundless world of water
and trees. Babun became very afraid in the silence.
The Judge began to write; no one else moved, and the
only sound in the world seemed to be the scratching
of the pen upon the paper. At last the Judge stopped
writing. He looked at Babun, and began to read out his
judgment in a casual, indifferent voice, as if in some
way it had nothing to do with him. The interpreter
translated it sentence by sentence to Babun.
There is almost certainly something behind this
case which has not come out. There is, I feel, some
ill-feeling between complainant and accused. The
complainant impressed me most unfavourably.. But
the facts have no doubt that complainants things were
found hidden in the house in which accused lives, and
that the box was found in the jungle behind the house.
The evidence of the Korala is obviously trustworthy
on these points. There is clear evidence, too, that a
hole had been made in complainants house wall.
Then there is the evidence of the Mudalali. As matters
stand, it was for the accused to show that the evidence
was untrustworthy. He has not really attempted to do
this. His father-in-laws evidence, if anything, goes to
show that there is nothing in complainants story that
Fernando wanted to get hold of his wife. Accuseds
defence implies that there was a deliberate conspiracy
against him. I cannot accept his mere statement that
such a conspiracy existed without any corroborating
evidence of motive for it. He has no such evidence.
Even if there were ill-feeling over the refusal of a
104
chena or something else, it would cut both ways; that

is, it might have been accuseds motive for the theft.
I convict accused, and sentence him to six months
rigorous imprisonment.
Babun had not understood a word of the broken
sentences of the judgment until the interpreter came
to the last words, six months rigorous imprisonment.
Even then, it was only when the peon took hold of him
by the arm; to put him back again into the cage. that he
realized what it meant- that he was to be sent to prison.
Hamadoru. He burst out. I have not done this.
I cannot go to prison. Hamadoru! It is all lies, it is
lies that he has said. He is angry with me. I have not
done this. I swear on the Beragama temple, I have not
done this. I cannot go to prison. There is the woman,
Hamadoru, what will become of her? Oh! I have not
done this. I have not.
The proctors and idlers smiled; the peon and the
interpreter told Babun to hold his tongue. The judge
got up and turned to leave the court.
I am sorry, he said, but the decision has been
given. I treated you very leniently as a first offender.
Every one stood up in silence as the judge left
the court. As soon as he had left, everything became
confusion. Proctors, witnesses, court officials, and
spectators all began talking at once.
Babun crouched down moaning in the cage.
Punchi Menika began to shriek on the verandah, until
the peon came out and drove her away. Only Silindu
maintained his sullenness and calmness. He followed
Babun when he was taken away by the peon to the
105
lock-up. At one point, when he saw that the peon was

not looking, he laid his hand on Babuns arm and
whispered:
It is all right, son, it is all right. Dont be afraid.
The old buffalo is cunning still. Very soon he will
charge. He smiled and nodded at Babun, and then left
him to find Punchi Menika.
It took some time for Silindu to find Punchi Menika.
She had wandered aimlessly away from the court
through the bazaar. Silindu was now extraordinarily
excited, he seemed to be almost happy. He ran up
to her, took her by the hand, and began leading her
quickly away out of the town.
We must go away at once, he said. There is much
to think of and much to do. It is late, but we at least do
not fear the jungle. The jungle is better than the town.
We can sleep by the big trees at the second hill.
But, Appochchi, my man. What will become of
him? What will they do to him? Will they kill him?
Babun is all right. I have told him. The
Government do not kill. There is no killing there. But
in the jungle, always killing the leopard and jackal,
and the hunter. Yes, and the hunter, always killing,
the blood of deer and pig and buffalo. And at last
the hunting of the hunter, very slow, very quiet, very
cunning; and at the end, after a long time, the blood
of the hunter.
But Appochchi, stop, do. What does it mean?
They are taking him to prison. What will they do with
him? Shall we never see him again?
106
The hunter? Yes, yes we shall see him again. Very

soon, but he will not see us.
What is this about the hunter? It is my man I am
talking about.
Oh, Babun. He is all right. The white Hamadoru
said, Six months rigorous imprisonment. I heard
that quite clear at the end. Six months rigorous
imprisonment. It was all that I heard clearly. He is
all right. There is no need for you to cry. They will take
him away over there- (Silindu pointed to the east) there is a great house - I remember I saw it a long time
ago when I went on a pilgrimage with my mother. They
will put him in the great house, and give him rice to
eat, so I hear. Then he will come back to the village-but
it will be after the hunting.
O Appochchi, are you sure?
Yes, child all will be well after the hunting. But
now I must think.
Punchi Menika saw that it would be impossible
to get anything more out of Silindu in his present
state. They walked on in silence. As they walked
his excitement began to die down. He seemed to be
thinking deeply. From time to time he muttered to
himself.13
Silindu, after returning to the village from the court house,
goes to Fernando and the village headman with his muzzle loading
gun, and kills them. He then surrenders to the authorities and is
produced before the magistrate. The magistrate holds the inquiry
into the deaths of Fernando and the village headman, and commits
the suspect, Silindu for trial in the Supreme Court before a jury. At
the trial in the Supreme Court, Silindu receives a death sentence
107
which is later commuted to twenty years imprisonment. The scene

of the magisterial inquiry is also undoubtedly based on Woolfs own
experiences as the Magistrate of Hambantota unfolds in the novel as
follows:
He was taken along a broad dark verandah,
and suddenly found himself in a large well-lit room.
Had it not been for the stupor of his fatigue he would
have been very frightened, for he had never seen
anything like this room before. It seemed to him to be
full of furniture, and all the furniture to be covered
with strange objects. In reality there was only a little
travel-battered furniture in the barn-like white-washed
room. There was matting on the floor, and rugs on
the matting. An immense writing-table littered with
letters and appears stood in front of the window. There
were three or four tables on which were some ugly
ornaments, mostly chipped or broken, and a great
many spotted and faded photographs. A gun, a rifle
and several sentimental pictures broke the monotony
of the white walls. The rest of the furniture consisted of
a great many chairs, two or three lamps, and a bookcase with thirty or forty books in it.
When Silindu entered the room with the
Ratemahatmaya, the magistrate was lying in a long
chair reading a book. He got up and went over to sit
down at the writing table. He was the white Hamadoru,
whom Silindu had seen before in the court. He was
dressed now in black in evening-dress. He sat back n
his chair and stared at Silindu in silence for a minute
or two with his cats eyes; he looked cross and tired.
Silindu had instinctively squatted down again.
108
The Ratemahatmaya* angrily told him to stand up. The

magistrate seemed to be lost in thought: he continued
to stare at Silindu, and as he did so the look of irritating
faded from his face. He noted the hopelessness and
suffering in Silindus face, the slow weariness of effort
which he moved his limbs.
He need not stand, he said to the Ratemahatmaya.
He looks damned tired, poor devil. Your can take a
chair yourself, Ratemahatmaya. God! This is a nice
time to bring me work, and you seem tove brought
me a miserable-looking wretch. You say its a murder
case?
Yes, Sir. Or rather it appears so. I do not know
much about it. In fact, Sir, only what this man has told
me. He appeared at my place just now-not half an hour
ago- and says that he has killed the Arachchi of his
village and another man. I brought him straight to
you, Sir.
Oh, damn it! That means Ill have to go out there
tomorrow. How far is it? Beddagama? I dont know
the place.
Its up the northtrack, in the jungle, Sir. It must be
between fifty or sixty miles away, Sir.
Oh damn! And there are any number of cases
fixed for tomorrow. Well- poor devil- he looks pretty
done himself? By love! I believe he is the man who was
before me as an accused in that theft case the other
day. I would not charge him, I remember - no evidence
against him. It might have been better for him, too.
* Ratemahatmaya is also a title used for a Chief headman of a sub-division of a
Pattu.
109
He turned to Silindu, and said in Sinhalese, You were

accused of theft before me a few days ago, werent
you?
Yes, Hamadoru.
Ah, I thought so. Well, Ratemahatmaya, I suppose
I had better record your statement first in form. Come
on, now.
The Ratemahatmaya made a short statement of
how Silindu had come to him, and what he had said.
The magistrate wrote it down, and then turned to
Silindu, and explained to him that the offence with
which he was charged was murder, and that he was
prepared to take down anything he wished to say, and
that anything which he did say would be read out at
his trial.*
Silindu did not quite understand, but he felt
vaguely encouraged by the white Hamadoru. He had
spoken Sinhalese to him; he had not spoken in an
angry voice, and he was the same Hamadoru who had
told him to clear out of the court when he was charged
before.
It is as the Dissamahatmaya** said. I have killed
the Arachchi and the Mudalali. If the Hamadoru sends
to the village, he will find that what I say is true. The
Hamadoru remembers the previous case; he knew
* In terms of Section 155(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of
1898, when an accused appeared or was brought before a Magistrate in connection
with murder or any other serious offence triable by a higher court, the Magistrate
was required to explain to the accused the nature of the offence of which he was
accused with a warning that anything the accused would say would be recorded
and read at his trial.
** Dissamahatmaya- another term used to refer to the Ratemahatmaya.

110
that they brought a false case against me. He told me

to clear out. But the whole case was false- against
Babun, too. Am I to tell everything? I am very tired,
Hamadoru. For three days now I have been tired,
walking and no food but the jungle fruit and leaves. If I
might rest now a little, and sleep until tomorrow...........
What can I do? I have told all. I am almost an old man,
very poor. What can I do?
I think I had better take down what you have to
say now. But you need not stand. You had better begin
from the case. What happened after that?
Aiyo, Hamadoru, aiyo! I am very tired. After
the case - it was a false case. The Arachchi for long
had been trying to do me harm. How long I cannot
remember, but for many years it seems to me. At that
time it was because of my daughter; he wanted to take
her from Babun and give her to the Mudalali. Well,
after the case I set out for the village with the daughter.
And all the way I was thinking - thinking how to end this
devil. For I knew well that when they came back to the
village it would begin again, all over again. They had
put Babun in jail - it was a false case, but how should
the Hamadoru know it? - with all the lies they told .
And they would get Punchi Menika for the Mudalali.
Then, as I went, I thought of the old buffalo who is
wounded and charges upon - Silindu caught sight of
the gun and rifle, and stopped. Ah! the Hamadoru is
a hunter, too? He knows the jungle? he asked eagerly.
Yes, I know the jungle.
Good; then the Hamadoru will understand. The
evil and the killing there- Yes, it is time, I thought,
to end the evil. I must kill them both. I was a quiet
111
man in the village, all know that. I harmed no one; I

wanted to live quietly. I went back to my compound, and
sat down and waited. In the evening came the Punchi
Arachchi to his house; I saw him go in. Then I took
my gun, and went to him, and said: Ralahami, you
may give me back my chena. The Arachchi thought
to himself: Here is a fool. But he said: Very well, I
will give the chena back to you. Then we started for
the chena, and as we went on the track I shot him from
behind. He is lying dead there now-on the track, which
leads from the village to the chena. If the Hamadoru
sends someone, he can find the body.
Yes, and then?
Then, Hamadoru, I loaded the gun again, and
went back to the village. There was still the Mudalali.
I saw him in the Arachchis garden. He called to me.
Where is the Arachchi? I went close up to him - he
was standing by the site, and through it I saw his big
belly. I shot him too. He must be dead now.
Yes, and then?
Then? I went to my house, for the women ran out
screaming. I put gun in my house, and went out into
the jungle. I was tired. I am a poor man, and I have
harmed no one in the village. I am getting old: I wanted
to live quietly in my hut. I wanted to rest, Hamadoru.
What good, I thought, to fly into the jungle? Only more
evil. So I came straight to the Dissamahatmaya. I told
him what I had done. This is all.
The magistrate wrote down what Silindu said, and
when he had finished, sat thinking, the pen in his hand,
and looking at Silindu. It was very quiet in the room;
outside was heard only the drowsy murmur of the sea.
112
Suddenly the quiet was broken by the heavy breathing

and snoring of Silindu, who had fallen sleep where he
squatted.
Leave him alone for a bit, the magistrate said
to the Ratemahatmaya. Theres nothing more to be
got from him tonight. We shall have to push on to
Beddagama early tomorrow. I suppose its true what
he says.
I think so, Sir.
Damned curious. I thought he wasnt right in the
head when I saw him in court before. Well, Im glad I
shant have to hang him.
You think he will be hanged, Sir?
Hell be sentenced at any rate. Premeditation, on
his own showing - clearly. And a good enough motive
for murder. a very simple case- so theyll think it. You
think so, too?
It seems to be a simple case, Sir.
I see you would make a very good judge,
Ratemahatmaya. I dont mind telling you - unofficially
of course - that Im very bad one. It does not seem at
all a simple case to me. I shouldnt like to hang Silindu
of Beddagama for killing your rascally headman.
Now then, Ratemahatmaya, here you are; a Sinhalese
gentleman; lived your whole life here, among those
people. Lets have your opinion of that chap there. Hes
a human being, isnt he? What sort of a man is he? And
how did he come suddenly to murder two people?
Its difficult, Sir, for me to understand them;
about as difficult as for you, Sir. They are very different
113
from us. They are very ignorant. They become angry

suddenly, and then, they kill like - like - animals, like
the leopard, Sir.
Savages, you mean. Well, I dont know. I rather
doubt it. You dont help the psychologist much,
Ratemahatmaya. This man, now: I expect hes a quiet
sort of man. All he wanted was to be left alone, poor
devil. You dont shoot, I believe, Ratemahatmaya, so
you dont know the jungle properly. But its really the
same with the other jungle animals, even your leopard,
you know. They just want to be left alone, to sleep
quietly in the day, and to get their food quietly at night.
They wont touch you if you leave them alone. But if
you worry em enough; follow em up and pen em up
in a corner or a cave, and shoot. 450 bullets at them
out of an express rifle; well, if a bullet doesnt find the
lungs or heart or brain, they get angry as you call it,
and go out to kill. I dont blame them either. Isnt that
true?
I believe it is, Sir.
And its the same with these jungle people. They
want to be left alone, to reap their miserable chenas
and eat their miserable kurakkan, to live quietly, as
he said, in their miserable huts. I dont think that you
know, any more than I do, Ratemahatmaya, what
goes on up there in the jungle. He was a quiet man
in the village, I believe that. He only wanted to be left
alone. It must take a lot of cornering and torturing
and shooting to rouse a man like that. I expect, as he
said, they went on at him for years. This not letting
one another alone, its at the bottom of nine-tenths of
the crime and trouble; and in nine-tenths of that ninetenths theres one of your headmen concerned- whom
114
you are supposed to look after.

Its very difficult, Sir. They live far away in these
little villages. Many of them are good men and help the
villagers. But they are ignorant, too.
Oh, Im not blaming you, Ratemahatmaya, Im
not blaming any one. And its late if we are to start
early tomorrow. Your had better take your friend away
with you and put him in the lock-up. Tell him to give
him some food if he wants it. Good night.
The Ratemahatmaya shook Silindu until he woke
up. It was some little while before he realized where
he was, and then that he had to set out again with the
Ratemahatmaya. He turned to the magistrate.
Where are they taking me to, Hamadoru? You
will be taken to the prison. You will have to stay there
until you are tired.
But I have told the truth to the Hamadoru. Let
him give his decision. It is to end it all that I came
here.
I cant try you. You will have to be tried by the
great judge.
Aiyo, it is you I wish to judge me. You are a
hunter, and know the jungle. If they take me away now,
how do I know what will happen? What will they do to
me? Let it end now, Hamadoru.
I am sorry, but I cant do anything. You will be
charged with murder. I cant try you for that. The great
judge tries those cases. But no harm will come to you.
You will be able to rest in the jail until the trial..
115
And what will they do to me? Will they hang me?

Im afraid I cant tell you even that. You must go
with the Dissamahatmaya now.
Silindu,
passive
again,
followed
the
Ratemahatmaya out of the room. The latter, grumbling
at the late hour and the foolish talk of the magistrate,
got into his hackery, and the procession trailed off
again into the darkness towards the lock-up. Here a
long delay occurred. A sleepy sergeant of police had to
be woken up, and the whole story had to be explained
to him. Eventually Silindu was led away by him
and locked up in a narrow bare cell, which, with its
immense door made of massive iron bars, was exactly
like a cage for some wild animal. In it at last he found
himself allowed to lie down and sleep undisturbed.
The rest, which the magistrate had promised
him, seemed however to be still far off; for early next
morning he was taken out of his cell and made to
start off with the police sergeant for Beddagama. The
magistrate, riding on a horse, and the Ratemahatmaya,
in his hackery,* passed them when they were two or
three miles from the town. A little while afterwards a
messenger from Beddagama met the party, bringing
the news of the murder to the Ratemahatmaya.
Silindu was being taken to Beddagama to be
present at the magistrates inquiry, but he did not
understand this. He was weak and tired after the
excitement of the trial and the murder, the long days
upon the road, and the little food. He began to think
that he had been a fool to give himself up; as he walked
behind the police sergeant through the jungle, of which
* A Hackery is a single bullock-cart.

116
he knew every tree and track, a great desire for it and

for freedom came upon him again. He thought of the
great bars of the cell door through which he had seen
the daylight for the first time that morning. Babun was
even now lying behind such bars, and would lie there
for six months. And he himself? He might never see the
daylight except through such bars now for the rest of his
life - unless they hanged him. He thought of the great
river that cut through the jungle many miles away: it
was pleasant there, to bathe in the cool clear water,
and to lie on the bank under the great wild fig tree in
the heat of the day. If he had not given himself up, he
might have been there by now, watching the elephant
sluicing water over its grey sides or the heard of deer
coming down the opposite bank to drink. The thought
came to him even now to slip into the jungle and
disappear; the fool of a police sergeant would never
catch him, would go on for a mile or two probably
without knowing that his prisoner had escaped. But
he still followed the police sergeant and had not the
will or the energy for so decisive a step, for breaking
away from the circumstances to which he had always
yielded, for taking his life in his hands and moulding
it for himself. He had tried once to fight against life
when he killed the Arachchi and the Mudalali; he was
now caught again in the stream; evil might come, but
he could struggle no more.
He had forgotten Punchi Menika until he was a
mile or two from the village, and he saw her waiting for
him by the side of the track. The rumour had reached
the village that Silindu was being brought back by the
police in chains. Some said that he was going to be
hanged there and then in the village. Punchi Menika
had started off to meet him. Her first terror when she
117
had been told of what her father had done had given
place to bewilderment, but when she saw him in charge
of the police sergeant she ran to him with a cry:
Is it true Appochchi; is it true, what they say?
What do they say? That I killed those two? It is
true I killed them. Then I went to Kamburupitiya and
told it all to the Dissamahatmaya and the magistrate
Hamadoru.
Aiyo, and will they hang you now?
What? Do they say that?
They say that in the village. It isnt true, is it,
Appochchi?
I dont know, perhaps it is true, perhaps it isnt.
But the magistrate Hamadoru said I would be tried by
the great judge.
Aiyo! you were mad, Appochchi. It would have
been better to have given me to the Mudalali.
Hold your tongue, hold your tongue! burst out
Silindu angrily, but his anger died down as rapidly as
it had sprung up. Dont say that, child, dont say that.
No, that is not true, is it, daughter? It is not true. It was
for you I did it; and now - after all that - surely in a
little all will be well for you.
Well? What is to become of me? What am I to
do? They will take you away again and hang you, or
keep you in the great house over there. And my man,
aiyo, is there too. I shall be alone here. What am I to
do, Appochchi?
118
Hush! All will be well with you, I tell you. There

is no one here to trouble you now. There will be quiet
for you again - and for me, perhaps, why not? The
killing was for that. Surely, surely, it must be, child.
And Babun? Why, in a little while Babun will come
back - in a month or two; you will wait in the village,
you will sit in the house, in the compound, under the
little mustard tree - so quietly, and the quiet of the
great trees, child, round about - nothing to trouble you
now. And in a month or two he will come back; he is a
good man, Babun, and there will be no evil then- now
that the Arachchi is dead and the Mudalali. There will
be quiet for you then, and rest.
How can I live here alone? There is no food in
the house even now.
Are not there others in the village? They will help
you for a month or two, and they know Babun. He will
work hard in the chena and repay them.
And you? What will they do to you? Aiyo, aiyo!
What does it matter? What have I ever done for
you? It was true when they said that I was a useless
man in the village. To creep through the leaves like
a jackal; yes, I can do that; but what else? Isnt the
bad crop in the chena rightly called Silindus crop.
There was never food in my house. The horoscope was
true - nothing but trouble and evil and wandering in
the jungle. It is a good thing for you that I leave the
compound; when I do, good fortune may come.
Do not say that, Appochchi; do not say that! To
whom did we run in the compound, Hinnihami and I?
What father was like you in the village? Must I forget
all that now and sit alone in anothers compound
119
begging a little kunji and a handful of kurakkan? No,

no! I cannot stay here. Wont they take me away with
you to the jail? I cannot live here alone- without you!
The sergeant looked back and angrily told Punchi
Menika to stop making such a noise. They were nearing
the village.
Hush, child, said Silindu. You must stay here.
They will not take you, and what could you do in the
big town there? You must wait here for Babun.
The inquiry began as soon as they reached
the village.*Silindu went with the magistrate, the
Ratemahatmaya, the Korala (who had been sent for),
and most of the men of the village to the place where
the Arachchi had been shot. The body lay there where
it had fallen; a rough canopy of boughs and leaves had
been raised over it to shade it from the sun. A watcher
sat near to keep off the pigs and jackals. When the
canopy was removed for the magistrate to inspect the
body, a swarm of flies rose and hung buzzing in the air
above the corpse. The body had not been moved; it lay
on its face, the legs half down up under the stomach.
The blood had dried in great black clots over the
wounds on the back. The magistrate looked at it, and
then the Korale turned it over. A glaze of grey film was
over the eyes. The hot air in the jungle track was heavy
with the smell of putrefaction.
The crowd of villagers, interested but unmoved,
stood watching in the background, while the magistrate,
* In terms of Section 153 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of
1898, in cases of homicide, the Magistrates were required to hold the inquiry on
the spot where such crime appeared to have been committed.
120
sitting on the stump of a tree, began to write, noting

down the position and condition in which he had found
the body. Then the doctor arrived and began to cut up
the body, where it lay, for post-mortem examination.
The magistrate walked back slowly to the village,
followed by Silindu and the headman and such of the
spectators as were more interested in the inquiry than
in the post-mortem. The same procedure of inspection
was gone through with Fernandos body, which lay
under another little canopy, where he had died by the
site of the Arachchis compound. After the inspection
came the inquiry: a table and chair had been placed
under a large tamarind-tree for the magistrate to write
at. The witnesses were brought up, examined, and their
statements written down. After each had made his
statement, Silindu was told that he could ask them any
questions which he wanted them to answer.* He had
none. The afternoon dragged on; there was no wind,
but the heat seemed to come in waves cross the village,
bringing with it the faint smell of decaying human
flesh. The dreary procession of witnesses, listless and
perspiring, continued to pass before the tired irritable
magistrate. One told how he had seen Silindu and the
Arachchi leave the village, Silindu walking behind
and carrying a gun; another had heard a shot from
the direction of the chena; another had seen Silindu
return by himself to the village carrying a gun. The
Arachchis wife told of Silindus early visit to the hut,
of how he left with the Arachchi, of how later hearing
the report of a gun followed by screams, she ran out of
the house to see Silindu standing with a smoking gun
in his hand and Fernando writhing on the ground near
the stile.
* Section 156(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898 required
the Magistrate to permit the accused to cross-examine the witnesses.
121
Late in the afternoon the inquiry was over. As the

Ratemahatmaya ha said, it was a simple case. Silindu
was remanded, and would certainly be tried for murder
before a Supreme Court judge. * 14
The scene of the trial in the fabricated case of theft and of
Magistrates inquiry into the murders as portrayed, in the novel are
undoubtedly derived from Woolfs own experiences as a Police
Magistrate in the Hambantota District. These scenes in the novel
reflect Woolfs profound understanding of the litigants, witnesses
and native officials, which he had gained through his interaction with
them within the colonial judicial and administrative system. It can
also be said that his technical knowledge of criminal procedure is
well displayed as various stages of the trial and Magisterial inquiry
are presented in the novel in a manner strikingly consistent with the
procedure laid down by the provisions of the Criminal Procedure
Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898, then in force. It may reasonably be
inferred that the voice of the magistrate in the novel represents the
voice of Woolf himself. At the end of the trial in the fabricated case
of theft, where Babun was sentenced to six months imprisonment,
the magistrate remarks:
There is almost certainly something behind this
case which has not come out. There is, I fell, some illfeeling between the complainant and the accused. The
complainant impressed me most unfavourably. But the
facts have to be considered..... 15
Although the magistrate convicts Babun on the evidence presented at
the trial, he seems to have been puzzled by what he calls in uncertain
* Section 157(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898 reads:
When the inquiry has been concluded the Magistrate shall (a) if he finds that there
are not sufficient grounds for committing the accused for trial discharge him, or
(b) if he finds that there are sufficient grounds for committing the accused for trial
forward the record to the Attorney-General, remanding the accused to custody or
admitting him to jail as he thinks proper.
122
terms something behind this case which has not come out. At the
inquiry into the murder, the British magistrate displays a better
understanding of Silindu the prisoner, than Ratemahatmaya, the
native official, as it is evident from the conversation that takes place
when Silindu is produced before the magistrate at his bungalow.
Silindu too expresses his confidence in the British magistrate who,
he thinks, has a sympathetic understanding of him, as the magistrate,
like Silindu, knows hunting and the jungle. Thus, he pleads with the
magistrate to try him for murder though it is not permitted under the
law:
Aiyo it is you I wish to judge me. You are a hunter
and know the jungle. 16
The magistrate then attempts to explain to Silindu in simple
words why he cannot try him for murder:
I am sorry, but I cant do anything. You will be
charged with murder. I cant try you for that. The great
judge tries those cases. 17
Vijaya Samaraweera, in a paper titled British Justice and
Oriental Peasantry: The working of the Colonial Legal System in the
Nineteenth Century in Sri Lanka cites the above scenes of Woolfs
novel to support his contention that the average litigant in colonial
Sri Lanka was ignorant of the court procedure as the colonial judicial
system which worked in English was alien to them. On the contrary,
John D. Rogers, in his book Crime, Justice and Society in Colonial
Sri Lanka, observes:
Woolfs novel was set in an improverished,dying
and atypical village in the dry zone. In fact, the
complainant in the case Samaraweera cites was
knowledgeable about court procedure. It was the
defendant, an unusually ignorant peasant, who was in
awe of the courtroom. J. Vijayatungas novel Grass for
My Feet set in a Low Country village fifteen kilometers
123
from Galle, portrays more typical villagers who were

familiar with the proceedings and personalities of the
Galle courts. 18
During the British colonial period and the first two decades of
independence in Sri Lanka, the records of the courts were maintained
entirely in English. When a witness who was conversant only with
Sinhala or Tamil was testifying, an official of the court designated as
the Interpreter Mudaliyar translated the questions put to the witness
in English by the judge or lawyers, into the language of the witness.
The Interpreter Mudaliyar also translated the answers of the witness
into English. Thus, an equal proficiency in the languages of the native
(Sinhala or Tamil) and the language of the courts (English) was
essential for the satisfactory performance of the task of interpretation.
The Interpreter Mudaliyars who had a limited education, did not
possess any special legal training and their interpretation generally
tended to be very literal. Although there were some shortcomings, the
overall performance of the work of the Interpreter Mudaliyar appears
to have been reasonably adequate for the proper functioning of the
courts. 19 A common weakness prevalent among these Interpreter
Mudaliyars was that they generally tended to treat the ordinary native
litigants and witnesses in a contemptuous manner in that they used
to speak to them in angry or hostile tones that did not represent the
tones of the judge. This is well portrayed in the scene of the trial of
Babun and Silindu for theft in Woolfs novel:
It was like a dream. They did not understand
what exactly was happening. This was a case and
they were the accused, that was all they knew. The
judge looked at them and frowned; this increased their
fear and confusion. The judge said something to the
interpreter, who asked them their names in an angry
threatening voice. Silindu had forgotten what his ge
name was; the interpreter became still more angry at
this, and Silindu still more sullen and confused. From
time to time the judge said a few sharp words in English
124
to the interpreter: Silindu and Babun were never quite

certain whether he was or was not speaking to them,
or whether, when the interpreter spoke to them in
Sinhalese, the words were really his own, or whether
he was interpreting what the judge had said. 20
The interpreters voice becomes much more hostile and rude, when
Silindu remains in the dock not knowing where he had to go, even
after the Judge discharges him in the case of theft and the interpreter
tells him to go away:
Cant you hear, Yakko? shouted the interpreter.
Clear out. The peon came up and pushed Silindu out
on to the verandah. A small group of idle spectators
laughed at him as he came out. 21
This attitude of the Interpreter Mudaliyar was, however, not
exceptional, as the other officials like village headman or native
notables too tended to treat the ordinary villagers in a similar manner.
This was characteristic of the feudal mentality, which was ingrained
into Sri Lankan culture. The British magistrate as portrayed in
Woolfs novel, displays a sympathetic attitude towards the villagers,
while these local officials like the Interpreter Mudaliyar and the
headmen remain unsympathetic, arrogant and hostile towards them.
Commenting on what takes place in the Magistrates official residence
when Silindu is produced before the Magistrate as a suspect on the
charge of murder, Professor E. F. C. Ludowyk, in his introduction to
the Oxford University Press edition of The Village in the Jungle,
observes:
It should be noted that the only sympathy shown in
his (Silindus) plight has come from white Hamadoru
(British magistrate). 22
Although, the litigants may have a greater understanding of
what happens in the courts when the proceedings are conducted
in their language, it will not necessarily make intelligible to them
the technicalities of law and procedure. 23 In the trial of Silindu and
125
Babun for theft, they may have understood the evidence of the native
witnesses (as they were giving evidence in Sinhala) and the fact that
the complaint falsely accuses them of theft, although what transpires
between the Magistrate and the Interpreter or the lawyer in English
is unintelligible to them. But what seems to be most unintelligible
to these unusually ignorant two villagers are the technicalities of the
court procedure. Even if the proceedings were conducted entirely in
Sinhala, it would have made little difference for them in their situation.
In the trial for theft, if Babun had a lawyer with professional skills for
cross-examination, the fabricated evidence may perhaps have been
shaken. Yet as Babun tells the Magistrate, he being a very poor man
has no means to retain a lawyer. The fact that the technicalities of the
court procedure were unintelligible to an
unusually ignorant villager like Silindu is further supported by the
fact that he requests the Magistrate to try him for murder even though
this is an offence triable by a Supreme Court Judge before a jury. On
the other hand, the complainant, as John D. Roger correctly points
out, in the case of theft, is more knowledgeable about court procedure
although he is not conversant in English. 24
John D. Rogers contends that the colonial judicial system, in
spite of its shortcomings, remained popular and acceptable to the
people in Sri Lanka.25 It may also be argued that the British colonial
judicial system provided much more advanced safeguards for the
rights of the people of Sri Lanka, than the arbitrary methods of
justice prevalent in pre-British colonial era26, although the people
were sometimes prevented from asserting their rights in a proper
manner by the feudal or corrupt attitudes of the native officials who
functioned as the intermediaries between the colonial administrators
and the people within the framework of colonial judicial and
administrative system. Woolfs novel The Village in the Jungle
illustrates how these obsolescent native intermediaries (eg. village
headman, Interpreter Mudaliyar) could interfere with the smooth
functioning of the colonial judicial and administrative system.
126
Chapter 9
CONCLUSION
Sir Christopher Ondaatje in his book Woolf In Ceylon : An
Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf (1904-1911)
published in 2006, whilst commenting on the first edition of this
book says :
"Considering the above scenes( in Woolfs novel)
with officialdom, a case could be easily made for
The Village in the Jungle as an effective critique of
imperialism. But Prabath de Silva chooses to interpret
them differently. For him as a lawyer in Sri Lanka,
the legal scenes rather reveal the weaknesses of the
colonized, especially the way in which 'obsolescent
native intermediaries' could interfere with the smooth
functioning of the colonial judicial and administrative
system.1
Applying the theories of J.A. Hobson2, Vladimir Lenin3 and
Leonard Woolf 4 on imperialism (as an extension of capitalism to
the colonies), and Johan Galtungs theory of structural violence
5
( a form of violence perpetrated by social structures or social
institutions harming people by depriving them of their basic needs),
Dominic Davies, an Oxford scholar, in his article titled:Critiquing
Global Capital and Colonial (In)justice: Structural violence in
Leonard Woolfs The Village in the Jungle(1913) and Economic
Imperialism (1920), argues:
written from a victim-oriented perspective, the
novel(The Village in the Jungle),excavates the varying
layers of structural violence as they are spread both
socially and also geographically to show how the colonial
127
administration and its legal system are complicit with, if

not actively facilitating ,the exploitation of Ceylon by the
structures of global capitalism, as well as highlighting the
ramifications of the unevenly developing capitalist economy
that slowly sutures the island into these cross-national
networks.
Davies further adds Rather he (Woolf) was affected by the
direct,often unjust,colonial violence inflicted by the judicial system
of which he himself was a part, and which The Village in the Jungle
was part to explore.6
In order to illustrate his argument, Davies quotes the following
paragraph from a letter Woolf wrote to his friend ,Lytton Strachey on
29 September 1907:
I saw a most appalling spectacle the other day. I had
to go (as Fiscal) to see four men hanged one morning. They
were hanged two by two. I have a strong stomach but at
best it is a horrible performance. They are led up on to
the scaffold & the ropes are placed round their necks . I
have (in Kandy) to stand on a sort of verandah where I can
actually see the man hanged . The signal has to be given
by me. The first two were hanged all right but they gave
one of the second too big drop or something went wrong.
The mans head was practically torn from his body and
there was a great jet of blood which went up about 3 or 4
feet high, covering the gallows and the priest who stands
praying on the steps..7
Referring to this incident, Davies says: the violence of the
spectacle in all its pronounced and vivid brutality, renders the
original crime irrevalent.8
The British colonial rule in Ceylon introduced capital punishment
by hanging for the accused convicted of murder and treason. For
serious offences such as murder and rape ,the accused were tried
128
by a jury before a supreme court judge. In terms of the principles of

English criminal law introduced ,the burden was on the prosecution
to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. And there was a
rebuttable presumption in law that the accused in criminal cases were
innocent until it was proved that the case against him was proved
beyond a reasonable doubt. The accused or their lawyers were
given the right to defend themselves in that they were entitled to
cross examine witnesses for the prosecution and to lead evidence
of witnesses for their defense. The law provided that after a careful
analysis of evidence ,if a reasonable doubt had arisen as to whether
the accused had committed the crime, the benefit of that doubt
should be given to the accused and he should be acquitted. In cases
of murder and other serious crimes such as rape, a magistrate had
to hold a preliminary inquiry to satisfy himself as to whether there
was a prima facie case to commit the case to the Supreme Court for
a trial by a jury before a supreme court judge. Even in Woolfs novel
The Village in the Jungle,Silindu at the preliminary inquiry into
murder,tells the magistrate who hold the preliminary inquiry Aiyo,
it is you I wish to judge me. Then the magistrate tells Silindu, ''I am
sorry,but I cant do anything. You will be charged with murder . I cant
try you for that. The great judge ( supreme court judge) tries those
cases.9 Even after a conviction by a jury before a supreme court
judge, the accused had a right of appeal. The Judicial Committee of
Privy Council in England was the final court of appeal. This shows
that there was a considerable number of safeguards provided for by
the law to ensure a fair trial.
The above hangings mentioned in Woolfs letter to Lytton
Strachey took place in Kandy when Woolf was a young civil servant
in Kandy (1906-1907). He was representing the Government Agent
of the Province as Fiscal since it was a requirement that the Fiscal or
his representative should supervise the execution. There was also a
requirement that a doctor should also be present to certify the death.
This mode of execution by hanging for the accused convicted of
murder was prevalent in many civilized countries. The last execution
129
by hanging for murder took place in England in 1964. During the

British colonial rule in Ceylon, and in post independent era till
1976,the accused convicted of murder were executed in two prisons
situated in Kandy and Colombo. During Woolfs time in Ceylon
(1904-1911),no person was executed for treason ,and the hangings
referred to in his letter to Lytton Strachey were undoubtedly arising
from convictions of murder after trials by jury before a supreme
court judge. During the British colonial rule in Ceylon, execution for
treason occurred only on three occasions namely, the Uva Rebellion
of 1818, the Rebellion of 1848, and the Sinhalese - Muslim Riots of
1915. The British colonial rule in Ceylon took harsh and repressive
measures to suppress the Rebellions of 1818 and 1848 ,and the
communal riots of 1915, imposing martial law. The measures taken
by the British (deviating from the normal law) and military excesses
on these three occasions, came under heavy criticism and protest.
Other than these three isolated instances, there was relative peace
and normalcy in Ceylon during the British rule .
In Sri Lanka, the last execution by hanging took place in 1976 in
Bogambara Prison in Kandy where Woolf witnessed the hanging of
four people in 1907. The same procedure that was followed in Woolfs
time was continued till 1976 (almost 28 year after the independence).
In Sri Lanka ,even today, the judges sentence the accused convicted
of murder or serious drug offences to death by hanging on a date
and time to be fixed by the President of Sri Lanka. However ,since
1976, the successive Presidents of Sri Lanka have refrained from
fixing the date and time for hanging and the death penalty has been
commuted to life imprisonment. Therefore, in my view, it is not
reasonable to describe the hangings referred to in Woolfs letter to
Lytton Strachey as acts of direct, apparently unjustifiable, colonial
violence, as Davies does. On the other hand, we need to look at the
methods of justice and punishment prevalent during the pre-British
colonial era under the Sri Lankan kings. Justice was administered
by kings officials who were feudal notables while the overall
absolute authority was vested in the kings. The methods of justice
130
and punishment were arbitrary. The punishments were severe and

brutal mutilating a part of the criminals body, inflicting torture
to cause unbearable pain and the penalty of death by beheading,
hanging or by getting the convicted accused killed by elephants or
placing him on a spike or by tying him to a tree in the jungle where
hungry wild animal devoured him for food. Beheading was done on
an execution block (dangediya) by executioners. Impaling was added
to inflict torture and suffering before death.10
Elleke Boehmer, another Oxford scholar,in her introductory
article titled: 'Intentional dissonance: Leonard Woolfs 'The Village
in the Jungle' (1913) appeared in the special issue of the Journal of
Commonwealth Literature (2015), remarks: "The Village in the Jungle
offers an unprecedented portrait, by a European of the destructive
impact of empire on a native community'11 Ruvani Ranasinha ,in her
articleThe Shifting Reception of The Village in The Jungle in
Sri Lanka, maintains that while the older generation of Sri Lankan
critics describe the text as anti-imperialist, a younger generation of
Sri Lankan critics argues that "the text manifests a wholly imperialist
attitude and ideology ..the discursive project of imperialism.12
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya,in her paper entitled: The Political
Agenda behind Leonard Woolfs The Village in the Jungle ,says:
Woolf had a complex task in portraying both the
plight of the oppressed and the power of the colonial
rulers. In the early twentieth century ,Britain was not
contemplating to abandon the empire. Woolf could not
advocate decolonization in 1911. Though masked as a
piece of literary genius ,The Village in the Jungle may
be read as a code of decolonization. The subject matter
of the novel is colonial but it focuses on marginalized
jungle dwellers and it is difficult to pin down Woolfs
sentiments. Woolfs
vivid ethnographic observation
observations and awareness of the ecological balance in
the jungle are apparent in the novel. The depiction of local
power structures ,which operate independently of British
131
rule, mark the novel as unique and give depth to a cryptic

anti-colonial code. The depth of hostility to imperialism
is perhaps surprising as one might doubt whether anyone
operating within the colonial framework could have such
sentiments. Not surprisingly ,the novel does not easily fit
into an anti-colonial or colonial mode.13
The scholars who interpret the court scenes of Woolfs novel
as providing evidence for a critique of British colonial rule and its
judicial system, have overlooked the overall social transformation
that took place in Sri Lanka during the nineteenth century under the
British rule. They seem to have failed to compare early twentiethcentury conditions and judicial processes with those that existed in
Sri Lankas feudal society before the British rule.
The Ceylon Civil Service was established in 1802 during
Governor Thomas Maitland time. A minute issued by Maitland in
1802 , was regarded as the magna carta of colonial administration.
This famous minute which recognized the provincial administration
,laid down the requirement to maintain diaries by the British civil
servants. In this minute, Governor Maitland said:
The first great object for every Collector (later
became known as Government Agents) is to make himself
acquainted with the various districts in his provinces and
various headmen belonging to such districts by making
frequent circuits through the whole of the provinceEach
collector must make one complete circuit of the whole of
his district:during which circuit he is to keep a most minute
diary of its proceedings and which diary is at the close of
the circuit to transmitted to the government.
Maitland further added: the sole object of government ,is always
ought to be considered to ensure the prosperity of the Island solely
through the medium of generally increasing prosperity and happiness
of the natives.14 Commenting on the nature and role of the Ceylon
132
Civil Service manned by the British civil servants,Fredrick Spotts

says: By far the oldest in the empire,was incorruptible,able
and dedicated to beneficent government under the rule of law.15
S.D.Saparamadu, a former Sri Lankan civil servant , in his
introduction to the publication of Woolfs Diaries in Ceylon ,says:
The benefits of being ruled by such a class of administrators
were considerable. They afforded good government
and built up a good administration based on the rule of
law. The good government so afforded introduced the
benefits of western science and civilization,medicine and
health services,education,roads,irrigation and most other
innovations that have gone to make Ceylon a modern
nation.
Saparamadu adds that this form of good government was
however, no substitute for self-government.16
Although it may be argued that economic exploitation was one
of the objectives of the British Empire, one cannot deny that the
British colonial rule in Ceylon at the same time was influenced and
shaped by British ideals of social welfare (particularly utilitarianism)
and evolution of British liberal political thought.
The British colonial period was a period which gradually
transformed the country in many aspects. It was a social, economic,
political and constitutional transformation. The British introduced an
economy largely based on coffee and later tea, rubber and coconut
plantations. They developed a wider network of roads, railways and
communication. They developed a system of education and health
based on advanced modern concepts. A system of public examinations
was introduced. The British rule gradually established three separate
organs of modern government, namely Executive, Legislature and
Judiciary. Through the educational and economic opportunities
opened up during the British rule, an educated Ceylonese middle
class too emerged. Some affluent Ceylonese were privileged to enter
133
the British universities. The British laid the foundation for tertiary
education. The Ceylon Medical College was established in 1870
for medical education. In 1874, Ceylon Law College was started
to provide legal education. Medical and legal professions based on
British principles and traditions were established. Later a university
college affiliated to the University of London was established in
1925. The University College was later converted to an autonomous
university in 1942 during the British rule. The English educated native
elites gradually became stakeholders of the colonial system and they
agitated for constitutional reforms towards self-rule.17 It may be
argued that the British rule facilitated the transition from feudalism
to capitalism in Sri Lanka. In this sense, the British colonial period
was a progressive phase of Sri Lankas history.
The British gradually increased the number of native
representatives in the Legislative Council. In 1931, pursuant to the
recommendations of the Donoughmore Commission , the universal
adult franchise was introduced to Sri Lanka enabling Sri Lankans
to elect the majority of representatives in the legislature. The main
objective of the universal adult franchise was to enable the rural
peasants to agitate for better facilities in education and health. In
1945,three years before the independence,Free Education Ordinance
providing for free education from the Kindergarten to University was
enacted. In 1948 ,Sri Lanka became independent with a Westminster
model of government as a dominion retaining the constitutional link
with the British Monarch as the ceremonial Head of State. And it was
a smooth transfer of power by mutual cooperation. K.M. de Silva,a
Sri Lankan historian, says:
"In the context of the British colonial experience in
Asia and Africa ,the transfer of power in Sri Lanka was
unusual for a number of reasons. For one thing ,it was a
peaceful process,in contrast to what happened in the Indian
subcontinent and Burma. Second,it provides a rare example
of power being transferred through the electoral process.,
completely democratically and constitutionally ,from the
134
original legatee of the British to a successor."18

In the light of these vast strides, social, economic and
constitutional changes during the British period, the principles
of English Law and justice too were introduced and it exerted a
profound influence over the development of the judicial and legal
system of Sri Lanka. A large number of social welfare ordinances
were passed incorporating English law and English legal principles.
The principles of English law influenced the decisions of the courts.
At the same time the laws were enacted by the legislature to govern
the local situations and needs. By the Royal Charter of Justice of
1801, the British established the Supreme Court of Ceylon with a
Chief Justice. The Royal Commission of Eastern Inquiry (which later
became known as Colebrooke-Cameron Commission) appointed
in 1827 made far-reaching recommendations for administrative
and judicial reforms for the Island. Whilst Colebrooke prepared
the section of the report on administrative reforms, Charles Hay
Cameron, a jurist prepared the other part of the report on judicial
reforms. It may be noted that Cameron who later made a significant
contribution to legal and educational reforms in India was a disciple
of Jeremy Bentham, famous British philosopher ,jurist and social
reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. The
recommendations of this commission were far reaching and the entire
Island was brought under a unitary constitution. The ColebrookeCameron Commission proposed very important reforms in the areas
of administration, education and judiciary. With the implementation
of the recommendations of Cameron, a new system of courts was
established by the Royal Charter of 1833. Even though some may
argue that the British intended to use the colonial judicial system as
an instrument of oppression, Cameron in his report said:
The condition of the native inhabitants of the Island
imposes upon a government which has their improvement
at heart, the necessity not only of providing cheap and
accessible judicatures for the relief of those who have
135
suffered injury, and the punishment of those who have

inflicted it, but also of guarding with peculiar anxiety
against the danger that judicatures themselves should be
employed as means of perpetrating that injustice which is
the object of their institution to prevent19
Several judicial reforms were introduced during the British rule
and a hierarchical system of courts based on the British principles
and traditions of justice was established.20 Before the colonial rule in
Sri Lanka, the administration of justice was largely in the hands of
feudal notables or chiefs in the villages or provinces. The absolute
power over the system was vested in the King. There were arbitrary
methods of justice21. Compared to these feudal arbitrary methods
of justice, it may be argued that the colonial judicial system based
on advanced principles of justice, provided much more advanced
safeguards for the interests of the people.
During British colonial rule in Ceylon, the principle of judicial
independence became an integral element of the judicial system.
This could be seen in the landmark judgment delivered by the
Supreme Court in the case of Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle in
1937. Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle (10 September 1912
22 June 1999) was a British born Australian Marxist. In 1936 ,he
came to Ceylon to train as a planter in a tea estate. The plantations
of tea and rubber were owned by the British planters. Bracegirdle
became sympathetic with the cause of Tamil plantation labourers .
He was dismissed from his job for taking the side of Tamil labourers,
In 1936,Bracegirdle joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party,a Marxist
political party formed mostly by a group of middle class Ceylonese
young men educated in Britain. The British planters were annoyed
that their prestige was being damaged by Bracegirdle. They prevailed
upon the British colonial Governor , Sir Reginald Stubbs to issue an
order requiring Bracegirdle to leave the Island within four days. On
21st April 1937,Governor Stubbs issued an order for the deportation
of Bracegirdle. This order of the Governor was challenged in the
136
Supreme Court by the supporters of Bracegirdle by an application

for a writ of Habeas Corpus. The Bench of the Supreme Court
presided over by Sir Sydney Abraham, Chief Justice of Ceylon held
that the order of the Governor to deport Bracegirdle was illegal. And
Bracegirdle was released.22
It appears that the Sri Lankans had considerable confidence
in the colonial judicial system in spite of its shortcomings. John
D. Rogers contention that the colonial court system was popular
among the people can further be supported by the fact that they
frequently resorted to litigation. This prompted Justice Middleton, a
Supreme Court Judge of colonial Sri Lanka to describe Sri Lankans
as a 'law-loving' people with an 'inherent predisposition to litigation'
in one of his judgements.23 The major snag that interfered with
the smooth functioning of colonial judicial machinery in lower
courts, as illustrated by Woolfs novel were the corrupt conduct and
feudal attitudes of some indigenous officials who functioned as the
intermediaries between the colonial administrators and the people
within the colonial judicial and administrative system.
As John D. Rogers correctly points out in his book Crime,
Justice and Society in Colonial Sri Lanka, Woolfs novel was set in
an impoverished, dying and atypical village in the dry zone. In fact,
the complainant in the case Samaraweera cites was knowledgeable
about court procedure. It was the defendant, an unusually ignorant
peasant, who was in awe of the courtroom. J. Vijayatungas novel
Grass for My Feet set in a Low Country village fifteen kilometers
from Galle, portrays more typical villagers who were familiar with
the proceedings and personalities of the Galle courts..24 The arid
dry zones of Sri Lanka such as Hambantota were generally much
less developed and transformed than the other parts of the Island.
Hambantota has vast areas of jungles. Woolfs novel is set in a
marginalised village of jungle dwellers. Woolf in an interview with
Michael Roberts in 1965 said:
137
"In the Hambantota District,they were all villagers.

There were no proctors (lawyers) in Hambantota. None at
allThey used to come from Matara. There were no middle
class except ones chief headman".25
This scenario of Hambantota at the time was a complete contrast
to the more developed towns and areas where there was a well
established middle class with an educated native elite consisting of
members of professions such as legal and medical professions and
etc. Unequal distribution of resources ,wealth and development is a
problem even in modern Sri Lanka and it is a common problem with
which any society based on capitalist and market economy would
continue to grapple .
The attempt of some scholars to present a critique of the
British colonial rule in Ceylon and its judicial system ,using Woolfs
novel The Village in Jungle set in a marginalized , impoverished,
atypical village of jungle dwellers is unconvincing. To the average
Sri Lankan reader, Woolfs novel 'The Village in the Jungle' conveys
a graphic account of life among the dwellers of a marginalized and
atypical village in the jungle in the dry zone. The villagers in Woolfs
novel are not typical of rural residents in colonial Sri Lanka. Most
Sri Lankan readers value the text for its literary genius but do not
consider it as anti-imperialist. The novel highlights the corruption,
cruelty and harsh attitudes of the native headmen, interpreters and
money lenders etc. In contrast, the only European colonial character
in the novel, the magistrate, displays a very sympathetic attitude
towards the victimized villager. There is nothing to suggest that the
British magistrate was harsh or corrupt. Woolfs novel does not
convey any anti-imperialist sentiments.
Jinadasa.Vijayatunga (1902-1989), a Sinhalese wrote a classic
in English published under the title 'The Grass for my Feet,' set in a
village called Urala in the Galle District. This work which was first
published by E. Arnold & Company, London in 1935, vividly portrays
the life in a more typical village of colonial Ceylon in the first half
138
of the 20th century , as seen through the eyes of Vijayatungas youth

and adolescence. Sri Lankas eminent writer of fiction in Sinhala,
Martin Wickemasinghe (1890-1976), also wrote several novels
and short stories in Sinhala, which are set in the typical ordinary
villages of the Galle District. Significantly, Jinadasa Vijayatungas
Grass for my Feet as well as the novels and short stories of Martin
Wickremasinghe do not convey anti-imperialist sentiments. The
literary scholars who interpret Woolfs novel as anti-imperialist seem
to have failed to compare it with Vijayatungas Grass for My Feet
and Martin Wickremasinghes novels and short stories.
After the independence of Sri Lanka in 1948, the constitutional
ties with the British monarch as the ceremonial Head of State
continued till 1972 when Sri Lanka became a Republic within the
Commonwealth of Nations. The judicial system inherited from the
British with the principles of English Law continues to remain with
a few changes. The Judicial Committee of Privy Council in England
continued as the final court of appeal till 1971. The language of
the record of the courts of the first instance has been changed from
English to Sinhala and Tamil since 1974. The concepts , objects and
principles of the judicial system are advanced. But the problems
or snags lie in the working of the system (as it was in the case of
colonial judicial system during the British period). It involves several
stakeholders, namely, judges, litigants, lawyers, prosecutors, police
and court officials etc. The attitudes and conduct of these stakeholders
play a major role in the working of the system. The problems such as
laws delays and high cost of litigation adversely affect the smooth
functioning of the judicial system.
Woolf, the anti-imperialist and Fabian socialist, gave his own
verdict on the colonial judicial system of Ceylon in an interview
with Michael Roberts in 1965,four years before his death in 1969.
Michael Roberts asked Woolf: And did you feel that British rule
brought law rather than justice? , Woolf replied: "I think there was a
good deal of justice. Really I mean I think it- British law is based on
a certain amount of fairness It is administered fairly. Every now
139
and again something disgraceful is done in an unfair way."; Finally,

Michael Roberts asked him: But wasnt it rather too formalized?
For the people,for the peasantry. Woolf replied: I dont think it
was. I can only speak for the Hambantota District where it was so
informal.26
- End -
140
APPENDIX
PROCEEDINGS OF TRIAL IN CASE NO. 2668 COURT OF
REQUEST OF HAMBANTOTA
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
NOTES:
Chapter 1
1)
For the historical background of the Ceylon Civil Service see

TOUSSAINT, J. R., Annals of the Ceylon Civil Service,
The
Colombo
Apothecaries
Co.
Ltd.,
Colombo
1935.
WARNAPALA, W. A. Wiswa, Kachcheri System of District
Administration in Ceylon, Indian Journal of Public Administration
Vol XVI No. 4 Oct. - Dec. 1970 pp. 541-556. MILLS, Lennox,
Ceylon
Under
British
Rule
(1795-1932),
London,
1933.
KANNANGARA, P. D. The History of the Ceylon Civil Service (1802 1833), Tisara Prakashakayo, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, 1966 & WARNAPALA,
W. A. Wiswa, Civil service Administration in Ceylon, Ministry of Cultural
Affairs, Colombo 1973.
2)
SAMARAWEERA, Vijaya, British Justice and the Oriental Peasantry: The

Working of the Colonial Legal System in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka , in
CRANE, Robert I, British Imperial Policy in India and Sri Lanka (1858 1912): A Reassessment, New Delhi 1981 p.p. 107-141.
3)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904 to 1911,

The Hogarth Press, London, 1961 p. 55.
4)
Report upon the judicial Establishments and Procedure in Ceylon, 31 January

1832 in MENDIS, G.C. (ed), The Colebrooke - Cameron Papers: Documents
on British Policy in Ceylon, 1796-1833, Oxford University Press 1956, p.
172.
5)
FERNANDO, P. T. M., The Legal Profession of Ceylon in Early Twentieth

Century: Official Attitudes to Ceylonese Aspirations, Ceylon Historical
Journal, Vol XIX 1969-70 pp 1-15.
6)
WARNAPALA,Wisha A.,Triumph of Competition in the Ceylon Civil

Service, The Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies New Series Vol.
l, No. 1, (January-June 1971) pp 63-77. See also FERNANDO, P.T.M., The
Ceylon Civil Service: A Study of Recruitment Policies 1880 - 1920, Modern
Ceylon Studies Vol I 1970 pp 64-83.
7)
WOOLF, Leonard, Sowing: An Autobiography of the years 1880 - 1904, The

Hogarth Press, London, 1974 pp 1-94.
8)
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid and WILSON, Sir Duncan, Leonard Woolf: A

Political Biography, The Hogarth Press, London 1978 p. 12.
151
9)
WOOLF, Leonard, sowing, ibid p 95-202
10) Woolf, Leonard, ibid p 196

11) WOOLF, Leonard, ibid and see also, WOOLF, Leonard: Beginning Again:
An Autobiography of the Years 1911 to 1918, The Hogarth Press, 1972, pp
21-26.
12) WARNAPALA, W. A. Wiswa, Triumph of Competition in the Ceylon Civil
Service, op. cit
13) WARNAPALA, W. A. Wiswa, ibid.
14) WARNAPALA, W.A. Wiswa, ibid.
15) WARNAPALA, W. A. Wiswa, ibid.
16) WOOLF, Leonard, Sowing, op. cit. p. 194
17) WOOLF, Leonard, Growing, op. cit. p. 11
18) WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p.p. 21-131
19) WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p.p. 132-171
20) Woolf, Leonard, ibid p 172
21) WOOLF, Leonard, Preface in Diaries in Ceylon (1908-1911) Records of a
Colonial Administrator; The Ceylon Historical Journal vol. IX - July 1959
to April 1960 - Nos. 1 - 4, Tisara Prakasakayo, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, 1983 p.
IXXVII.
22) WOOLF, Leonard, Growing, op. cit. p. 181.
23) WOOLF, Leonard, Downhill all the Way: An Autobiography of the Years
1919 to 1939, The Hogarth Press, London pp 239 - 246 and also WILSON,
Sir Duncan, op. cit.
24) WOOLF, Leonard, Beginning Again op. cit. pp 229-231 and also WILSON,
Sir Duncan, op. cit. pp 110-112.
25) SPOTTS, Frederic, Letters of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.,
London, 1992 pp.
26) WOOLF, Leonard, Journey Not The Arrival Matters: An Autobiography of
the years 1939-1969, The Hogarth Press, London, 1969 pp.
27) SPATER, George & Ian Parsons, A Marriage of True Minds: An intimate
portrait of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Cape & The Hogarth Press.
152
28) ALEXANDER, Peter F., Leonard and Virginia Woolf: A Literary

Partnership , Harvester Wheatsheat, London, 1992.
29) LEHMANN, John, Thrown to the Woolves: Leonard and Virginia and the
Hogarth Press, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1978.
Chapter 2
1)
WOOLF, Leonard, Sowing: An Autobiography of the Years 1880 to 1904,

The Hogarth Press, London 1974 p25
2) WOOLF, Leonard, ibid See also SPATER, George and Ian Parsons, A
Marriage of True Minds: An intimate portrait of Leonard and Virginia Woolf,
The Hogarth Press, London 1977 p2
3)
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid pp 25-26
4)
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p 98
5)
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid pp 98 - 100
6)
WOOLF, Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography of the Years 1919 to

1939, The Hogarth Press, London 1975 p210
7)
SPOTTS, Frederic, Letters of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.,

London, 1992
8)
SPOTTS, Frederic, ibid
9)
WOOLF, Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography of the Years 1919 to

1939, The Hogarth Press, London 1975 p210
10) Case Record No. 2668 of the Court of Requests of Hambantota. The judgment
in this case is reproduced in Chapter VI of this book.
11) MURPHY, Peter, A Practical Approach to Eyidence, Blackstone Press Ltd.,
London, 1992 (fourth edition) p550.
Chapter 3
1.

Hogarth Press, London, 1961 p 242.
2.
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid pp. 241-242
153
3.
WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon (1908-1991): Records of a Colonial

Administrator, The Ceylon Historical Journal Vol. IX - July 1959 to April
1960- Nos. 1-4, Tisara Prakasakayo, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka 1983 p. 134.
4.
SAMARANAYAKE, Ranjith, Hambantota: A Profile of a District in Rural

Sri Lanka, Ministry of Plan Implementation Colombo 1983 p 259.
5.

Administrator, op. cit. p179. Diary Entry for 16.08.1910: Rode. Tangalle,
and tried a D. C criminal case perjury. I acquitted both accused.
6.

Hogarth Press, London, 1961 p 71
7.
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid pp. 107-111
8.
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid pp. 111-112 See also

ALEXANDER, Peter F. Leonard and Virginia Woolf: A Literary Partnership,
Harvester Wheatsheat, London 1992 p. 54.
9.
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p. 232
10. WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p. 233

11. WOLF, Leonard, Sowing: An Autobiography of Years 1880 to 1904, Hogarth
Press, London, 1974, pp. 91-92
12. WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of Years 1904 to 1991,
Hogarth Press, London, 1961, p. 79
13. WOOLF, Leonard, The journey not the Arrival Matters: An Autobiography of
Years 1939 to 1969, Hogarth Press, London 1969 pp. 205-208
14. WILSON, Sir Duncan, Leonard Woolf: A Political Biography, The Hogarth
Press, London, 1978, p. 45
15. WOOLF, Leonard, Growing , op. cit. p. 180
16. WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p. 188
17. WOOLF, Leonard, Sowing, op. cit. p. 89
18. SPATER, George & Ian Parsons, A Marriage of True Minds: An Intimate
Portrait of Leonard & Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Cope & The Hogarth Press,
London, 1977 p. 22
154
Chapter 4
1)
See Schedule II of Courts Ordinance No.1 of 1889, Legislative Enactments of

Ceylon, (Revised Edition), Government Printer, Colombo 1923 pp. 392, 398
2)
ibid p. 398
3)
ibid p. 398
4)
ibid p. 392
5)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of Years 1904 to 1911,

Hogarth Press, London 1961, p.71
6) Section 64 of the Courts Ordinance No.1 of 1889, Legislative Enactments of

Ceylon, (Revised Edition) Vol. Government Printer, Colombo 1923, p. 378
7)
Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No.15 of 1898,

Legislative Enactments of Ceylon, (Revised Edition) Vol. Government Printer,
Colombo 1923 p. 175
8)
Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898, and

Section 83 of the Courts Ordinance No. 1 of 1889, ibid p. 175 and p. 383
9)
Sections 14, 15 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898 ibid
p. 175
10) Section 77 of the Courts Ordinance No.1 of 1889, ibid p. 382.

11) Section 9 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898, ibid p.
174
12) Chapter XIVI of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898, ibid
pp. 211-214
13) Chapter III-VI of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898, ibid
14) Section 37 of the Criminal Procedure Code Ordinance No. 15 of 1898, ibid
15) SPOTTS, Frederic, Letters of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.,
London, 1992 p. 141-142
16) WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon (1908-1911): Records of a Colonial
Administrator, The Ceylon Historical Journal, Vol. IX - July 1959 to April
1960 - Nos 1-4, Tissara Prakasakayo, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka 1983 pp. 30
17) ibid p. 30
155
18) ibid pp. 30-31

19) ibid p. 125
20) ibid p. 125
21) ibid p. 126
22) ibid p. 150
23) ibid pp. 150-151
24) WOOLF, Leonard, The Village in the Jungle, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1981 pp. 142-150.
25) WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon,op cit p. 213
26) ibid pp. 241-242
27) ibid p. 242
28) ibid p. 17
29) ibid p. 83
30) ibid p. 83
31) ibid p. 87
32) ibid p. 91
33) ibid p. 101
34) ibid p. 112
35) ibid p. 113
36) ibid p. 160
37) ibid p. 160
38) ibid p. 160
39) ibid p. 160
40) ibid p. 165
41) ibid p. 171
156
42) ibid p. 179

43) ibid p. 181
44) ibid p. 181
45) ibid p. 189
46) ibid p. 192
47) ibid p. 192
48) ibid pp. 202-203
49) ibid p. 211
50) ibid p. 215
51) WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904-1911,
Hogarth Press, London, 1961 p. 202.
52) WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon, op. cit p. 97
53) ibid p. 155
Chapter v
1)
BROHIER, R.L., The Boer Prisoner-of-War in Ceylon, Journal of the Dutch

Burgher Union, Vol. XXXVI, Colombo, 1946, p. 110. See also BROHIER,
R.L., Seeing Ceylon, Lake House Investments Ltd., Colombo 1965, p. 220
2)
BROHIER, R.L., The Boer Prisoner-of-War in Ceylon, ibid & BROHIER.

R.L., Seeing Ceylon, p. 221
3)
BROHIER. R.L., Seeing Ceylon, p. 221, See also POULIER, G.L., The
Boer Prisoner of War in Ceylon: An Addendum, Journal of the Dutch Burgher
Union, Vol XXXVII July 1947
4)
BROHIER, R.L., The Boer Prisoner-of-War in Ceylon, ibid & BROHIER,

R.L., Seeing Ceylon, p. 221. See also POULIER, G.L. ibid
5)

R.L., Seeing Ceylon, p. 221. See also POULIER, G.L. ibid
6)

R.L., Seeing Ceylon, p. 221.
157
The epitaph on the tombstone reads: IN MEMORY OF H.E. ENGELBRECHT,

DIED 25th MARCH 1928 FOR 21 YEARS THE GUARDIN OF THE YALA
SANCTUARY...................................
7) WOOLF, Leonard, Growing, An Autobiography of the years 1904-1991,

The Hogarth Press, London 1961 p.202.
8)
SPOTTS, Frederick, Letters of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.,

London, 1992 p. 138
9)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904-1911, The

Hogarth Press, London, 1961 p. 202
10) WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p. 202

11) WOOLF, Leonard, ibid pp. 202-203
13) Legislative Enactments of Ceylon, (Revised Edition), Government Printer,
Colombo, 1923 p. 386
14) ibid p. 386
15) Lesson v General Council of Medical Education (1889) 43 Ch.D 366 at p.385
16) R. v. Sunderland Justice (1901) 2 K. V. 375
17) Rode v. Bawa (1896) 1 NLR 374
18) R. v. Sussex Justice, ex parte McCarthy (1924) 1 KB 256
19) SOZA, J. F. A., When Should a Judge Disqualify Himself from Hearing a
Case? , Judges Journal, Sri Lanka Judges Institute, Colombo, December, 1991
p. 59. See also Kumarasena vs. Data Management Systems Ltd (1987) 2 Sri LR
190, 201 & Metropolitan Properties Co. (FGC) Ltd v. Lannon (1969) 1 Q.B.
577
20) Metropolitan Properties Co. (FGC) Ltd v. Lannon (1969) 1 Q.B. 577
21) Legislative Enactments of Ceylon (Revised Edition), Government Printer,
Colombo. 1923 p. 208
22) BROHIER, R.L., The Boer Prisoner-of-War in Ceylon, op. cit BROHIER,
R.L., Seeing Ceylon, op. cit p. 222. See also POULIER, G.L. op. cit
158
23) BROHIER, R.L., The Boer Prisoner-of-War in Ceylon, op. cit &
BROHIER, R.L., Seeing Ceylon, op. cit p. 222. See also POULIER, G.L.
op. cit
24) BROHIER, R.L., The Boer Prisoner-of-War in Ceylon, op. cit BROHIER,
R.L., Seeing Ceylon, op. cit p. 222. See also POULIER, G.L. op. cit
25) Divaina (Sunday Edition), a Sinhalese newspaper published in Sri Lanka, see
also ONDAATJE Christopher,Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Journey in the
Shadow of Leonard Woolf, & BROHIER, Deloraine and WOODRUFF,Robin
A.,Prisoners of the Boer War in Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies,Neptune
Publications (Pvt) Ltd,Battaramulla,Sri Lanka,2015
Chapter 6
1)
The role played by the petition drawer in the colonial administration is

discussed in ROGERS, John D, Crime, Justice & Society in Colonial Sri
Lanka , Centre for South Asian Studies, SOAS, University of London, Curzon
Press, London 1987 p. 58.
2). See Michael Robertss interview with Leonard Woolf in 1965,Oral History
Project,University of Adelaide (https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/
handle/2440/83263)
2)

Administrator , The Ceylon Historical Journal Vol. IX - July 1959 to April
1960- Nos 1-4, Tisara Prakasakayo Ltd., Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, 1983, p. 171.
3)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of Years 1904-1911 , The

Hogarth Press, London 1961 pp. 182 -187
4)
WOOLF, Leonard, ibid p. 188
5)
WOOLF, Leonard, The Village in the Jungle , Oxford University Press,

Oxford, 1981, pp. 110-125
6)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing, op. cit. p. 188
7)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing, op. cit. pp. 187-200. See also WOOLF,
Leonard, The Journey not the Arrival Matters: An Autobiography of years
1939 to 1969, The Hogarth Press, London pp. 205-208
8)
WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon (1908-1911), op. cit., See Preface at p.

XXVII
159
Chapter 7
1)
WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of Years 1904 to 1911, The

Hogarth Press, London, 1961 p. 79
2)
WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon (1908 - 1911): Records of a Colonial

Administrator, The Ceylon Historical Journal Vol. XI - July 1959 to April
1960 - Nos 1-4, Tisara Prakasakayo, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, 1983 pp. 213-124
3)
Section 25(1) of the Evidence Ordinance No. 14 of 1895 reads: No confession

made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any
offence. However, under the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act
of 1979, a confession made to a police officer above the rank of an Assistant
Police Superintendent, may be proved against a person accused of offences
relating to terrorism.
4)
WOOLF, Leonard, Diaries in Ceylon, op. cit. pp. 222-224, Diary Entry
for 12th April 1911 at p. 236 reads: I find that the crime figures for 1910
furnished to me by the Police and commented on in a previous diary were
incorrect. The correct figures are: The figures are more satisfactory than those
preciously given to me although they certainly leave something to be desired.
5)
ROGERS, John D. Crime, Justice & Society in Colonial Sri Lanka Centre
for South Asian Studies, SOAS, University of London, Curzon Press, London,
1987 p. 48
6)
ROGERS, John D. ibid p. 48
7)
ROGERS, John D. ibid p. 48. See also PIPPET, G.K., A History of the
Ceylon Police 1795-1870. Vol I, Colombo 1941 & DEP, A.c., A History of
the Ceylon Police 1866- 1915, Vol II, Colombo 1967
8)
ROGERS, John D. op. cit. p. 48
9)
WOOLF, Leonard, The Village in the Jungle, Oxford University Press,

Oxford 1981 pp. 110-125
10)
ROGERS, John D. op. cit. pp. 53-54
11)
ROGERS, John D. op. cit. p. 54
12) ROGERS, John D. op. cit. p. 54

13) ROGERS, John D. op. cit. p. 54
160
Chapter 8
1) WOOLF, Leonard, Growing: An Autobiography of Years 1904 to 1991, The
Hogarth Press, London 1970 p. 247
2) WOOLF, Leonard, Beginning Again: An Autobiography of Years 1911-1918,
The Hogarth Press, London 1972 p. 53
3) WOOLF, Leonard Growing op. cit. pp. 248-252
4) WOOLF, Leonard, Beginning Again , op. cit p. 69-70
5) ALEXANDER, Peter F. Leonard and Virginia Woolf: A Literary Partnership,
Harvester Wheatsheat, London 1992 pp. 72-73
6) WOOLF, Leonard, Beginning Again , op. cit. p. 47
7) WILSON, Sir Duncan, Leonard Woolf: A Political Biography; the Hogarth
Press London, 1978 p. 45
8) ALEXANDER, Peter F., op. cit p. 73
9) WILSON, Sir Duncan, op. cit. p. 42
10) SPATER, George & Ian Parsons, A Marriage of True Minds: An intimate
portrait of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Cape & The Hogarth Press,
London 1977
11) WILSON, Sir Duncan, op. cit. p. 43
12) Hansard of the State Council of Ceylon, vide proceedings of November 18,
1936 p. 2970
13) WOOLF, Leonard, The Village in the Jungle, Oxford University Press,
Oxford 1981 pp. 111-125
18) SAMARAWEERA, Vijaya, British Justice and the Oriental Peasantry: The
Working of the Colonial Legal System in the Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka, in
CRANE, Robert & N. G. Barrier (des), British Imperial Policy in India and Sri
Lanka (1858-1912) : A Reassessment, New Delhi 1981 pp. 107-141
161
19) ROGERS, John D. Crime, Justice & Society in Colonial Sri Lanka. Centre
for South Asia Studies, SOAS, University of London, Curzon Press, London,
1987 pp. 68-69
20) COORAY, L. J. M. The Administration of Justice in Swabasha in Sri Lanka,
Sri Lanka Journal of te Social Science Vol 1, 1978 pp. 95-117 at p. 96
21) WOOLF, Leonard, The Village in the Jungle, op. cit. pp. 111-112 .WOOLF,
Leonard, ibid p. 114
22) LUDOWYK, E. F. C. Introduction in WOOLF, Leonard ibid p. XIV
23) COORAY, L. J. M., op. cit. pp. 110-111
24) ROGERS, John D., op. cit.p 111,
25) ROGERS,John D ,op.cit p. 69
26) KNOX, Robert, An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East
Indies, (first published by Richard Chiswell, London 1681), Facsimile Reprint
in Paperback by Navrang, New Delhi, 1984 pp. 39-54. See also HAYLEY,
Frederic A., A Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Sinhalese, H. W.
Cave & Co., Colombo 1923 pp. 80-133;
27) DOYLY,John,A Sketch of the Constitution of the Kandyan Kingdom,
Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,Vol
3,No 2(1883) pp 191-252,Cambridge University Press, http//www.jstor.org/
stable/25581749
Chapter 9
1) ONDAATJE,Sir Christopher,Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Jouney in the
Shadow of Leonaard Woolf (1904-1911),Harper and Collins 2006. pp
247 - 250
2) HOBSON,J.A.,Imperialism:
(1902/1988)
Study,
Unwin
Hyman,London
3) LENIN,V.I., Imperialism:The Highest Srtage of Capitalism ,Martin

Lawrence ,London (1917/1934)
4) WOOLF,Leonard,Economic
Press,London,1920
Imperialism,The
Swarthmore
5) GALTUNG,J.,Violence,Peace and peace research,Journal of Peace

Research 6(3):167-191
162
6) DAVIES,Dominic.Critiquing global capital and colonial (in)

justice:Structural violence in Leonard Woolfs The Village in the Jungle
(1913) and Economic Imperialism (1920), The Journal of Commonwealth
Literature 2015,Vol.50(1) 45-58
7) SPOTTS, Frederic, Letters of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury
Publishing Ltd., London 1992.
8) DAVIES,Dominic,op.cit
9) WOOLF, Leonard, The Village in the Jungle,Oxford University
Press,1981 ,p164
10) KNOX, Robert, An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East
Indies, (first published by Richard Chiswell, London 1681), Facsimile
Reprint in Paperback by Navrang, New Delhi, 1984 pp. 39-54. See
also HAYLEY, Frederic A., A Treatise on the Laws and Customs
of the Sinhalese, H. W. Cave & Co., Colombo 1923 pp. 80-133,
DOYLY,John,A Sketch of the Constitution of the Kandyan Kingdom,
Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,Vol
3,No 2(1883) pp 191-252,Cambridge University Press, http//www.jstor.
org/stable/25581749,PEIRIS,Kamalika,Crime and Punishments in
ancient and medieval Sri Lanka,The Island 10.01.2009
11)
BOEHMER, Elleke, Intentional dissonance: Leonard Woolfs

The Village in the Jungle(1913,The Journal of Commonwealth
Literature,2015,Vol 50(1) 3-9
12) RANASINHA, Ruvani ,The Shifting Reception of The Village in The

Jungle in Sri Lanka, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature,2015,Vol
50(1) 33-43
13) DE SILVA JAYASURIYA,Shihan,: The Political Agenda behind Leonard
Woolfs The Village in the Jungle ,The Island, Colombo 26.01.2016
14) REPORT UPON THE JUDICIAL ESTABLISHMENTS AND
PROCEDURE IN CEYLON, 31st January 1832, in G. C. Mendis (ed),
The Colebrooke Cameron Papers: Documents on British Policy in
Ceylon 1796-1833, Oxford University Press, 1956.
15) SPOTTS,Frederic,op.cit
16) WOOLF ,Leonard,Diaries in Ceylon
Prakasakayo,Dehiwala,1962/1983 pp xx xxi
(1908-1911)
Tisara
17) DE SILVA,K.M.,A History of Ceylon,Vijitha Yapa Publications,Colombo
163
2005 pp275-599, MILLS,L.A.,Ceylon under the British Rule

1795-1932,London 1933, DE SILVA,K.M. A History of Sri Lanka (
Oxford University Press,Delhi 1981) & ROBERTS,Michael,Caste Conflict
and Elite Formation: Rise of a Karava Elite (1500-1931),Cambridge
University Press,1981, See also JAYAWARDENA,Kumari, 'Nobodies to
Somebodies- The Rise of the Colonial Bourgeoisie ... Social Scientists'
Association and Sanjiva Books ,Colombo 2000, PEEBLES, Patrick,
'Social Change in the Nineteeth Century Ceylon', New Delhi: Narang in
collaboration with Lake House Bookshop, 1995
18) DE SILVA,K.M., ibid,p554
19) REPORT UPON THE JUDICIAL ESTABLISHMENTS AND
PROCEDURE IN CEYLON, 31st January 1832, in G. C. Mendis (ed),
Colebrooke Cameron Papers: Documents on British Policy in Ceylon
1796-1833, Oxford University Press, 1956. P 121
20) NADARAJA,T, The Legal System of Ceylon in its Historical Setting (
E.J. Brill,Leiden 1972),
21) KNOX,Robert,op.cit,Hayley,Frederic, op.cit,Peiris,Kamalika,op.cit
22) AMERASINGHE,A.R.B.,H.V.Perera
(1890-1969
in
Legal
Personalities - Sri Lanka Volume 1,Law and & Society Trust,Colombo
2005, see also for the judgement, Re.Mark Anthny Bracegirdle and Others
,New Law Reports(Vol 39) p 193
23) Mohamed Cassim vs Sinne Lebbe Maricar et.al (1910) 12 NLR 184 at
p 186
24) ROGERS, John D. Crime, Justice & Society in Colonial Sri Lanka.
Centre for South Asia Studies, SOAS, University of London, Curzon
Press, London, 1987 pp. 68-69
25) Michael Robertss interview with Leonard Woolf in 1965,Oral History
Project,University of Adelaide (https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/
dspace/handle/2440/83263)
26) Michael Robertss interview with Leonard Woolf in 1965,Oral History
Project,University of Adelaide (https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/
dspace/handle/2440/83263)
164
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