CASTE AND CLASS.
C O N T E N T S .
1. THE PEERAGE OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.
2. THE ARISTOCRACY, OF THE KINGDOM OP KANDY.
THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE MARITIME PROVINCES.
4, THE BURGHERS.
5. APPOINTMENT OF MUDALYABS, ETC.
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CASTE AND CLASS.
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FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CJELUM.
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We shall now consider whether there is or there is not a Singhalese
aristocracy in Ceylon. Our contention is that there had been an aristocracy
in the Kandyan Kingdom, but since the cession of that Kingdom to the
English, that aristocracy has lost its wealth-and its pTestigej and has degenerated
into the condition in which we heboid it now. Its degeneration, is not
to be attributed, as some might,suppose, to itself, but to the predominance of
an enlightened Government-which, until recently, has not practically recognized
the existence of any aristocracy. Its degeneration may also ~be ascribed
to its isolation from the chief Seat of the Government. We shall offer na
further- observations on the Kandyan aristocracy. We mnst now invite the
attention ^ o f our readers to, the pretended aristocracy of the Maritime
Provinces,
4
We are inclined to believe that a Native aristocracy in the Maritime
Provinces never existed. It must be conceded that it is always difficult,
and often impossible, to prove a negative, to prove that a certain thing did
not exist or did not occur. If such an aristocracy ever existed, history or
tradition should establish the fact» We defy proof of the past existence
of an aristocracy in the Maritime Provinces. It is to be regretted
that most of those who pretend to belong to the aristocracy have scarcely
any idea of what could be the signification of the word. Perhaps, they
suppose that a Mudalyar whose great-grand-father had been a Mudalyar is
an aristocrat; or, perhaps, they suppose that aristocracy iB a word which
admits of considerable latitude of signification t The pretensions of this
self-constituted aristocracy are rather startling and greatly amusing. It
pretends to have occupied for several centuries the highest position in the
Island, its'Buler alone excepted. We are not aware that any reliable proof
exists, or can be adduced, to establish itB pretensions. . We do not hesitate
to declare openly that the ancientness or antiquity of the aristocracy ( ? )
of the Maritime Provinces is problematical, if not utterly mythical. Our
own conception of an aristocracy is far different from that ludicrous interpretation
put upon the word by most of the " first class gentleman " of the
day. To enable our readers to form a just estimate of the aristocracy of
the Maritime Provinces, we may as well say that our own idea of it is this,—
that this aristocracy IB composed of the descendants of the servants of the
late Dutch Government and servants of the Dutch—some of Tamil extraction,
some of Singhalese extraction, some possibly of both Singhalese and Tamil
parents—whose position under the Dutch Government was analogous to that
of a Court Interpreter or a Mudalyar of a Corle or Mohandiram, or Arachy
of the present day. How the descendants of the Natives who had only about
a century ago served the Dutch Government as Mudalyars, Mohandirams and
Arachies, can claim to form an aristocracy in the present age, we cannot
conceive. But Sir Arthur Gordon, if we may Judge from the phenomena
of recent years, verily believes in the existence of an Aristocracy in the Maritime
Provinces and its antiquity. We are afraid that Sir Arthur's prejudices
are now too strong and too deeply rooted to admit of the possibility of our
disabusing his mind o f such a hallucination. We should not be surprised at
the partiality of Sir Arthur to a native aristocracy, i f a native aristocracy
really existed. Nor, indeed, would we complain of such partiality so long as
we are aware that Sir Arthur himself belongs to the aristocracy of Great
Britain. But our contention ie that no native aristocracy had ever existed,
or can exist, in the Maritime Provinces. That institution which pretends to
be aristocratical is an excrescence of modern date ; nay, coeval only with
{Sb administration of Sir Arthur Gordon. We confidently challenge th»