659515-1889-Civil-Service-Cadet-Regulations — Page 4

THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 5TH OCTOBER, 1889.

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2. Gentlemen in the Civil Service will be required, before they can be promoted to the Third Class, to pass a second examination of the character herein-after described. The promotion from the Third Class will be deferred, in the case of gentlemen who fail to pass their second examination within six years from the date of their being attached to one of the Public Offices, to that of those who shall have passed within that period, and have entered the Third Class before them.

3. The subjects of examination will be the native languages (Sinhalese and Tamil), Law, and the System of Accounts employed in the Government Offices.

4. At their first examination Candidates will be examined in Sinhalese or Tamil (whichever they may prefer), in Law, and in Accounts; at their second, in Law, Accounts, and both languages; and the examinations will be conducted after the following scheme :---

SINHALESE.

In the first examination the Candidate is to write an English translation of two short Sinhalese letters or reports from headmen, written in different running hands. He is to translate a short English judgment or other official paper into Sinhalese; dictate off-hand the translation into Sinhalese of an English report or other official paper, to a native who shall take it down in writing; read and translate an extract from a Sinhalese newspaper, and from the proceedings of a Gansabhawa case put into his hands for the first time; answer a few plain grammatical questions on declensions, conjugations, and compound words; read, construe, and parse in English any easy sentences in Sinhalese that be set by the Examiner; to be tested in conversation so as to satisfy the Examiner as to his understanding natives of different classes, and of making himself understood by them, both in common conversation and in the usual course of official business.

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The second examination shall be similar in its nature to the first, but more difficult in degree. The Candidate will be required to act as an interpreter between the Examiner and natives perfectly ignorant of English; the interpretation to be on matters connected with some ordinary civil or criminal case.

Candidates taking up Sinhalese as their second language will only be tested by the lower standard. TAMIL.

In the first examination the Candidate should have a knowledge of the leading principles of Tamil grainmar, as regards the orthography and the etymology of the language. He is to read, construe, and parse in English, extracts selected from the "Thesavalamy," and the "Kathásinthamani;" read and translate any easy Tamil book, as also a Tamil newspaper or a Tamil manuscript—such as a letter on any common subject, a report from a headman, or a bond or title deed; write in plain ordinary Tamil, a letter or order to a native headman-the subject of such letter or order to be given by the Examin- er; translate vivâ voce a short judgment, official letter, or report from English into Tamil, and dictate the translation to a native, who shall take it down in writing; converse in Tamil with tolerable ease and fluency on the ordinary topics of the day, and on such subjects as arise in connexion with the discharge of public duties.

The second

ad examination will be similar in its nature to the first, but more difficult in degree. A knowledge of the chief rules of syntax, as given in Pope's Catechism of Tamil Grammar, will be required. The Candidate will be required to act as interpreter between the Examiner and natives perfectly ignorant of English; the interpretation to be on matters connected with some ordinary civil or criminal case.'-

Candidates taking up Tamil as their second language will be tested by the first standard of examination only.

Great importance will be attached to Candidates being able to read and translate advertisements and articles in the native newspapers with ease.

LAW.

Candidates will be examined in Law, Civil and Criminal, obtaining in the Colony at the time of the examination, and in the following Text Books :-

At their first examination-Roscoe on Civil and Criminal evidence, Stephen's Digest of the Law

of Evidence, Anson's Principles of the English Law of Contract.

At their second examination--Taylor on Evidence, Grotius' Introduction to the Laws of Holland, Smith's Mercantile Law, Story or Spence on Equity, Jurisprudence, Chalmers' Digest of the Law of Bill of Exchange and Promissory Notes, Pollock's Law of Contracts, Pollock's Law of Torts, Armour's (Perera's Edition) Kandyan Law.

5. The Examinations will be conducted on a system of Marks, and the time allotted to each subject will be fixed by the Examiners.

6. Any Cadet who is of Sinhalese, Tamil, or Eurasian parentage will be required to take up for his first examination whichever of the native languages has not been spoken by, or familiar to him, as a child.

Colonial Office,

31st October 1888.