The Revenue Department had absorbed all the most capable men whom the Punjab had spared. The executive in India is apt at all times to be impatient of the check exercised over it by the Bench, and it is therefore of importance that the men in whose hands such check is placed should be up to the level of their business. Mr. Colvin found them to be otherwise, and devoted his first efforts to strengthening the judiciary. He would not advance to the higher executive posts men who had not served their time on the Bench. He selected some of the best men whom he could find in the Revenue branch, and sought to transfer them to the Sadr Court. He deputed a judge from that Court to visit each district, and to remedy local defects. Incompetent judges were removed. Officers, competent but too rooted in their charges, were transferred. He tried especially to raise the status of the lowest class of native civil judges, and to secure the better training of men to fill subordinate judicial posts. Anticipating one of the reforms which was put into effect shortly after the Mutinies, he asked from the Supreme Government the establishment of Small Cause Courts. He arranged for the creation of the post of Government Advocate and Legal Remembrancer. Since that day, the Sadr has been amalgamated in the North-West with a High Court established under Royal Charter. Macaulay's Penal Code, after many years and much modification, has become law. Admirable Codes of Criminal and Civil Procedure have been enacted. The tone and
