Oldfield, J.

1. I have bad the advantage of reading the judgment which my learned brother is about to deliver, and concur in it, I shall therefore merely state shortly the negative reasons, for which I think that the appellants legal argument must be rejected,

2. The case, it seems to me, must be decided on the broad ground that it is for the appellants to show that the illegitimate daughter of a woman, who lived in adultery, inherits her stridhanam, over which she had full power, in preference to her legitimate son; and that they have neither produced any direct precedent for such succession nor established any principle justifying it. As it is not alleged that direct precedent is available, I turn at once to the principles put forward.

3. Firstly, the appellants contend for the application of the law of succession applicable to dancing girls to the offspring of a prostitute, such as they allege the first appellants mother to have been. It is not necessary to decide whether she was one, as the appellants contend with reference to Annayyan v. Chinnan (1910) I.L.R., 33 Mad., 360, and the fact that her immoral life began after her marriage, or was a permanent concubine as the facts suggest. For the argument must fail, even as put forward. On the assumption thai; she was a prostitute, there is no authority in Madras for applying to her estate the law, which has been recognised as applicable to dancing girls solely in virtue of the established custom of their caste. [vide Venku v. Mahalinga (1888) I.L.R., It Mad., 393 and Muttukannu v. Paramasami (1889) I.L.R., 12 Mad., 214], And I observe here, as in connection with the appellants other connections, that there is no reason for a liberal construction, the effect of which would be to disappoint expectations founded on legitimacy.

4. It was then contended that references to "daughters" in the Mitakshara should be read as including all daughters, both legitimate and illegitimate, and that all alike should be preferred to the legitimate son, as heirs to their mother. But, firstly, that is not the primary sense of those references and is unauthorised by the rules of interpretation recognised by both English and Hindu law [vide Bhimacharya v. Ramacharya (1909) I.L.R., 33 Bom., 452. And next it has not been shown how such a substitution can be carried out or logically limited, should it, for instance, be extended to the law relating to the daughters right to inherit from the father in spite of the absence of any special provision in her favour such as is available in the case of illegitimate song?

5. Next, there is the argument based on the alleged severance of the first appellants mother from her legitimate family owing to her unchastity and consequent degradation. It is based first on an opinion of the pundits in Tara Munnee Dossea v. Motee Buneannee 7 Bud. Diw. Ad. Rep.. 273, that the hairs of an unchaste and outcast woman are her daughters, born (as the report in the next case cited shows) in prostitution, who lived with her as prostitutes; not the sons of her daughter, who had married and lived respectably. The principle of severance is statedly relied on and no doubt justified the decision against the legitimate family, but it may be pointed out that it involved nothing affirmative in favour of the prostitute daughters, defendants, and that it was not necessary that it should do so, when the disqualification of their opponents was sufficient for the decision of the case. Mayna Bai v. Uttaram (1864)2 M.H.C.R., 196 dealt with competition between illegitimate children only, but contains an obiter dictum that "in Madras it has never been doubted that the children of the prostitute succeed to the property of their mother." The law however, as it now stands in this Presidency, must be taken to have been stated finally in the much more recent case of Subbaraya Pillai v. Ramasami Pillai (1900) I.L.R.,23 Mad., 171 at p. 177. It no doubt does not appear that there was competition there be