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CASSICAN-CASSIOPEIA.

collected edition of the various works attributed to him was published at Basel, in 1559; the best at Frankfurt, in 1722. The best account of his life and writings is by Wiggers, De Johanni C. (Rostock, 1824-1825).

CA'SSICAN (Cassicus), a genus of birds allied to starlings, having an exactly conical bill, thick at the base, and extremely sharp pointed, the commissure forming an angulated line, the bill ascending on the forehead, and encroaching circularly on the plumage. They are all American birds of gregarious habits, feeding both on fruits and insects, and exhibiting such surprising skill and ingenuity in the structure of their nests, that an old lady once gravely asked an American ornithologist whether he did not think they might be taught to darn stockings!' The Crested C., or Crested Oriole (C. cristatus), is a native of Brazil, Guiana, and Paraguay. It is about 20 inches long, is sometimes seen in flocks of 50 or 100, and constructs its nest by knitting together shreds of a thin bark, Tillandsias, &c. The nest is about 36 inches long, and resembles a purse or pouch, the lower end hemispherical, and 10 inches wide, and is suspended from the extremity of a branch of a tall smooth-stemmed tree on the outskirt of a forest, apparently to insure safety from monkeys and serpents. Several of these nests are often to be seen hanging from the branches of the same tree. CASSI'NI, the name of a family distinguished by their services in astronomy and geography.

CASSINI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO, was born at Perinaldo, near Nice, on the 8th of June 1625, and studied at the College of Jesuits, Genoa. In 1650 he was appointed to the astronomical chair in the university of Bologna. His first work related to the comet of 1652. He subsequently devoted himself to the determination of astronomical refraction, and of the sun's parallax, &c. In 1664-1665 he determined the period of Jupiter's rotation. Subsequently, he determined the periods of the planets Mars and Venus, as also of the apparent rotation of the sun. He it was who discovered the third and fifth satellites of Saturn, and afterwards the first and second, as well as the dual character of that planet's ring. also the first who carefully observed the zodiacal light; he demonstrated that the axis of the moon was not (as had been believed) at a right angle to the ecliptic, and explained the cause of the phenomenon known under the name of lunar libration. One of his finest observations was the coincidence of the nodes of the moon's equator and orbit. C. died September 14, 1712, at Paris, whither he had gone in 1669, at the invitation of Colbert, to take charge of the observatory erected by that minister.

He was

CASSINI, JACQUES, son of the preceding, was born at Paris, February 18, 1677. In 1694 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. He travelled in Italy, Holland, and England, where he formed the acquaintance of Newton, Halley, Flamsteed, &c., and was elected a member of the Royal Society of London. On the death of his father, he succeeded to the charge of the observatory at Paris, and died April 16, 1756. C. wrote several treatises on electricity, the barometer, &c. In his treatise, De la Grandeur et de la Figure de la Terre (Par. 1720), he attempted to shew that the earth must be a spheroid elongated at the poles. The Newtonians denied this, inasmuch as it was opposed to the ascertained facts of gravitation and rotation, which necessitated the earth's being a spheroid flattened at the poles. As an observer, C. was eminently successful. He determined the periods of rotation of all the satellites of Saturn then known, the inclination of the planetary orbits, the obliquity of

the ecliptic very nearly, and the length of the year, &c.-His son, CÆSAR CASSINI, was also engaged in scientific pursuits.

CASSINI, JEAN DOMINIQUE, COMTE DE, the son of Cæsar Cassini, was born at Paris, June 30, 1748.

He succeeded to the charge of the observatory, and completed in 1789 the great topographical map of decreed in 1793 that the observatory should no France, begun by his father. But it having been longer be in the hands of one person, three others of it along with C., whose conduct on learning were in consequence elected to the superintendence this fact shewed that he had a greater regard for his own dignity than for the whole stellar universe. He refused to have anything more to do with astronomical science, and obstinately kept his purpose through a life that lasted nearly a century, and which was apparently so prolonged to test the durability of a Frenchman's disdain. In his 95th year he published a small volume of poems! He died October 18, 1845.

CASSIODO'RUS, or (according to several MSS.) CASSIODO'RIUS, MAGNUS AURELIUS, a Latin writer, who distinguished himself by his erudition in an age of barbarism, was born at Scylaceum (now Squillace), in Calabria, about 468 A.D. He was a member of a noble Roman family, and soon attracted the attention of Odoacer by his monarch he held various offices, but after the superior abilities and accomplishments. Under this defeat and murder of Odoacer by Theodoric the The highest honours now fell upon him; and for Ostrogoth, he passed into the service of the latter. years he administered the Ostrogothic power with remarkable prudence and success. In his 70th founded the monastery of Viviers, and employed year, however, he withdrew to Calabria, where he himself and the other monks in the invaluable work of copying classical MSS.; his great desire being to improve the education of the clergy. C. was about 100 years old when he died. Besides his grammatical and rhetorical manuals, which were used as important work, entitled Variarum Epistolarum text-books during the middle ages, he wrote a very Libri XII. This is a collection of state-papers, the most reliable source of information which we and is, in fact, the most extensive as well as possess in regard to everything connected with the Ostrogothic rule in Italy. The style, however, is very peculiar, and shews the influence which the and modes of thought. The editio princeps of the political career of C. had exercised on his language Variarum was printed at Augsburg in 1533.

CASSIOPEIA, the Lady in her Chair, a constellation in the northern hemisphere, near Cepheus, and not far from the north pole. It is marked by five stars of the third magnitude, forming a figure like an M. A line from Capella to the bright star in Cygnus passes nearly through the middle of this M. Č., according to Flamsteed, contains 55 stars, all of small magnitude. The figure is that of a woman sitting in a chair with a branch in her hand. In the year 1572, there all at once appeared in C. a new star. It was first noticed by Tycho Brahé on the 11th November, when its lustre exceeded that of all the fixed stars, and nearly equalled that of Venus. The star gradually diminished in lustre, from the time of its being observed until, in March 1574, it disappeared. It is said to have alarmed all the astronomers of the age. Tycho Brahé wrote a treatise on it, and supposed that it had previously appeared in 945 and 1264; but this supposition would not appear to be founded on reliable observation. Sir John Herschel suggested the possibility of its reappearance in 1872

CASSIQUIARE-CASSOWARY.

peace, which he obtained, on condition of paying tribute and giving hostages.

CASSIQUIARÉ, or CASSIQUIARI, a river of Venezuela, South America, forming the south bifurcation of the Orinoco, which it leaves in lat. 3° 10′ N., long. 66° 20′ W., and after a rapid south-mon wear, but now usually worn only by the west course of about 130 miles, joins the Rio Negro in lat. 2° 5' N., long. 67° 40′ W. About 100 yards in breadth when it issues from the Orinoco, it gradually increases until at its union with the Rio Negro it attains a width of 600 yards. By means of this singular river, water-communication is established, through the Amazon, Orinoco, and their affluents, between the interior of Brazil and the

Caraccas in Venezuela.

CA'SSIS (Fr., the black currant-tree), a French liqueur prepared from black currants; the manufacture has recently become of great importance. See CURRANT.

CASSITERIDES. See SCILLY ISLES.

CA'SSIUS, LONGI'NUS CAIUS, one of Cæsar's assassins. At the breaking out of the civil war, though a tribune of the plebs, he sided with Pompey and the aristocratic faction against Cæsar. He was taken prisoner by the latter, who pardoned him, and even made him one of his legates. In 44 B. C., through the influence of Cæsar, he was made Prætor Peregrinus, and was promised the governorship of Syria in the following year. But his mean and jealous spirit could not endure the burden of gratitude imposed upon him by the generosity of the dictator, and he resolved to be released by the murder of his benefactor. Having attached to himself the mutinous spirits among the subjugated aristocracy, and also won over M. Brutus, the pseudo-patriotic conspiracy was soon matured, and on the 15th of March, 44 B. C., Cæsar fell by the daggers of assassins. The result of this bloody deed was not what C. had expected. The popular feeling-as witnessed by the riots that broke out at Cæsar's funeral-was strongly against the murderers; and the military power fell into the hands of Mark Antony. C. therefore fled to the east, and made himself master of Syria. Afterwards he united his forces with those of Brutus, and having greedily plundered Asia Minor, they crossed the Hellespont in the beginning of 42 B. C., marched through Thrace, and took up a superior position near Philippi, in Macedonia. Here they were attacked by Antony and Octavian. The division commanded by C. was totally routed, although, on the other hand, Brutus succeeded in repulsing the troops of Octavian. C., supposing that all was lost, compelled his freedman, Pindarus, to put him to death. C.'s wife, a halfsister of Brutus, survived him upwards of sixty years. She died in the reign of Tiberius, 22 A. D.

CASSIUS, PURPLE OF, is a colouring substance of very ancient use, which is prepared by adding a mixed solution of protochloride and bichloride of tin gradually to a solution of chloride of gold, when a more or less abundant precipitate of the double stannate of gold and tin (AuO,SnO, +SnO,SnO,) is thrown down. The Purple of C. is soluble in ammonia, yielding a very pretty purple solution, from which it can again be obtained, with solid form unchanged, by evaporating the ammonia. Mixed with borax, or some fusible glass, Purple of C. is employed by the potter to communicate a rich purple or rose tint to the better kinds of china, and it also imparts the red colour to the kind of glass known as Bohemian glass.

CASSIVELAU'NUS, a British chief, who fought against Cæsar during his second invasion of the island, 54 B.C. He ruled the country north of the Thames, and had a great reputation as a warrior, but his capital was taken by the Romans, and he himself compelled to flee. He afterwards sued for

CA'SSOCK, a long loose coat, formerly in comclergy. As worn by the clergy of the Church of England, it is a long coat with a single upright collar. Black is the common colour for all orders of the clergy, but on state occasions bishops frequently Church, cassocks vary in colour according to the wear purple cassocks. In the Roman Catholic dignity of the wearer-priests wearing black, bishops purple, cardinals scarlet, and the

pope

white.

CA'SSOWARY (Casuarius), a genus of birds nearly allied to the ostrich (see BREVIPENNES and OSTRICH), but distinctively characterised by still greater shortness of wing, by a laterally compressed bill, by a bony crest, by pendent wattles on the naked neck, and by three toes on each foot, all furnished with claws, the inner toe short, and armed with a very long and sharp claw. There are also very important anatomical differences in its digestive organs, which are not adapted to the same coarse diet, for the C. 'has short intestines and small coeca, wants the intermediate stomach between the crop and gizzard, and its cloaca does not proportionally exceed that of other birds.' Only one species is known, Casuarius galeatus, sometimes called Emu by the older naturalists, before that name was appropriated to the Australian bird which now alone receives it. The C. is a native of the Moluccas, New Guinea, and other Asiatic islands, chiefly inhabiting deep forests. In general appearance, it is not unlike the ostrich, but has a much shorter neck. It is the largest known bird except the ostrich, and its height, when erect, is about five fect. It feeds on fruit, eggs, and succulent herbage. When attacked, it defends itself by kicking obliquely backwards with its feet, and by striking with its short wings, the rigid barbless shafts of which, although useless even to aid it in running, are not

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without value as weapons. There are only about five of them in each wing, somewhat resembling the quills of a porcupine; and at the end of the last joint of the wing there is a spur. The colour of the C. is brownish black; the feathers are loosely webbed, and hang down, so that, at a little distance, the bird seems clothed with hair. Those of the rump are 14 inches long, hanging down in place of a tail. The head and upper part of the neck are naked and of a bluish colour, and there are two pendent wattles, partly red and partly blue, on the

CAST-CASTAÑOS.

front of the neck. On the breast is a callous bare part, on which the bird rests its body on the ground. The bony crest or helmet reaches from the base of the bill to the middle of the crown, and is about three inches high, exhibiting the most intense blue, purple, and scarlet blended together. The C. lays a few eggs, which it leaves to be hatched by the heat of the sun; and which are greenish, and have a much thinner shell than those of the ostrich. Its flesh is black, tough, and juiceless. The C. is not unfrequently to be seen in menageries in Europe, but is becoming more rare in its native regions, in which it is sometimes kept tame.

iron in quality. No. 3 is intermediate between the extremes. When cast-iron is partly gray and partly white, it is called mottled iron. Cast-iron contains from 2 to 5 per cent. of carbon, the maximum amount in steel being 2; but steel is practically free from silicon, sulphur, and phosphorus, while castiron is not.

CAST-STEEL. This term, until lately, was confined to steel made by melting Blister-steel (q.v.), obtained by the old cementation process. Through this simple operation of melting it in crucibles, which was invented by an Englishman named Huntsman about the middle of last century, steel CAST, an impression produced by pouring a was first readily made perfectly homogeneous, and ductile substance, such as plaster of Paris, into a fitted for the production of the finer kinds of tools mould. This method was employed by the ancients and cutting instruments. The crucibles are made in multiplying not only objects of art, such as the of fire-clay, mixed with a small proportion of the small household statues of the gods, but articles of material of old ones and coke. They are very caredirect utility. The so-called Celts, or chisels of fully prepared and annealed, but notwithstanding bronze, which, with the moulds for casting them, this, the heat of the furnace is so high that they can are found in England, Ireland, and France, testify only be three times used. Each crucible contains to the fact, that the art of casting from a mould from 30 to 40 lbs. of steel, which is poured, when is one of the earliest acquired by semi-civilised melted, into cast-iron ingot-moulds previously nations. Casts are of incalculable value in familiar-smoked. The name 'cast-steel,' however, can no ising the eyes of those who can never look on the longer be confined to steel so made, because Besoriginals with the grand and beautiful forms of semer steel, although produced by a quite different antique art. The best to be had in this country process, is truly a cast-steel. In Sheffield, the finer are those executed, and sold on application, at the kinds of cast-steel are now sometimes called British Museum. Casting, when applied to metals, crucible steel;' but since puddled steel, which, like is called Founding (q. v.). the Bessemer, cannot be used for fine cutlery, is also cast in crucibles, such a term is not sufficiently distinctive.

are

CAST, CASTING-LINE. The casting-line, in Angling, is a gut-line on which the artificial flies fastened. It is made up of several lengths of gut, knotted together, and usually from two to four yards long. The flies are attached at intervals of about two feet, and the line with its flies is called a cast. The term cast is also applied to a part of a stream where certain fish may be taken, as a trout-cast, a salmon-cast.

now from the subterranean Styx. The fountain, whose waters are still pure and delightful as in the days of classical antiquity, now bears the name of St John, from a small chapel of that name close by.

CA'STANETS, a musical instrument of percussion in the form of two hollow nut-shells, which are bound together by a band fastened on the thumb, and struck by the fingers to produce a trilling sound in keeping with the rhythm of the music. The krotalon of the ancients was somewhat similar. The C. were introduced into Spain by the Moors, where they retain the name of castanulas, from their resemblance to the form of the chestnut. The C. are now much used in the ballet and in the opera.

CASTA'LIA, a fountain on the slope of Parnassus, a little above Delphi, in Phocis, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. It was the 'holy-water' of the Delphian temple; and all who came to consult the oracle, or visited the place with any religious purpose whatever, were wont to bathe their hair rore puro Castalia (in the pure dew of C.), but those CAST-IRON, or PIG-IRON. This is the crudest who wished to be purified from murder, bathed their form of iron, and the method of its production is whole body. The Roman poets feigned that its described under the head IRON. There are two waters filled the mind of those who drank of it leading kinds of it-namely, white pig-iron and with poetic inspiration. It was imagined to have gray pig-iron; the former is also called forge-iron, some connection with the river Cephisus, and to from the fact of its being chiefly used for conversion into malleable iron and steel; and the latter is often called foundry-iron, on account of its suitability for castings. Of each of these, again, there are many varieties; and much light has of late years been thrown on what constitutes their different qualities, by experiments in the manufacture of steel. White cast-iron, when smelted from the argillaceous ores of the coal-measures, is of inferior value to the gray; much of it, indeed, being produced against the will of the iron-master, when the blast-furnace is working badly. But when obtained from pure ores and fuel it is the most valuable kind, because it contains fewer impurities, and has its carbon nearly all in the combined state, in which case it is best suited for CASTAÑOS, DON FRANCISCO XAVIER DE, Duke the manufacture of wrought-iron and steel. Gray of Baylen, a celebrated Spanish general, was born at pig-iron contains carbon both in the combined and Madrid in 1756, and studied in Germany the milithe uncombined (graphitic) state. In the grayest tary tactics of Frederick the Great. For some time kind, uncombined carbon greatly prevails, and the after his return to Spain, he had no opportunity of fracture of the iron is more distinctly granular or acquiring distinction; but when Napoleon I. invaded scaly-crystalline than is the case with other varieties. that country, C. received the command of a division Such cast-iron is usually called No. 1. It is much of the Spanish army, and on the 22d of July 1808, softer, but fuses at a higher temperature than white compelled 20,000 French, under General Dupont, to pig-iron. It also becomes thinly liquid when melted, surrender at Baylen. It is asserted, however, that and expands slightly just before cooling-properties the merit of this prodigious success belonged more which render it extremely valuable for castings. to Aloys Reding, a Swiss by birth, and the second As the grayness and graphite-like brightness dimin- in command. In November of the same year, C. ish, the iron is known as No. 2, No. 3, and so on was in turn defeated by the French at Tudela. for several numbers, till we come to the close texture The arrival of Wellington necessarily reduced him and light colour of white pig-iron; No. 2 being but to a subordinate position, but he took part in slightly different from No. 1, and No. 5 from white the important battles of Albuera, Salamanca, and

CASTE.

Vittoria. In 1811, he was appointed general of the 4th Spanish corps d'armée, and commandant of several provinces. In 1815, he was placed at the head of 80,000 troops, destined to invade France, some of which had already crossed the frontier when the news came of the battle of Waterloo. Although no great favourite with the court politicians, his talents could not be overlooked. In 1825 he was called to the state council, where he became a decided opponent of the Carlist party. He died 24th September 1852, at the advanced age of 96.

divisions of the Indians into seven tribes or castes, mentioned in olden times by Strabo, by Diodorus Siculus, and by Arrian. Nor was it forgotten that the Egyptians, whose early civilisation was as undoubted as that of India, were also divided, according to Herodotus, into seven classes of priests, warriors, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters, and pilots, to each of which were assigned particular districts.

About the middle of the 16th c., however, Abraham Roger, chaplain of the Dutch factory at Pulicat, gained the confidence of a Brahman, acquainted with the Sanscrit language, and by this means learned pretty exactly the account of the origin of C. given in the Laws of Menu, a work inferred to have been written not later than 900 B.C., which was long known only by name in Europe, until about the end of the last century, when a copy was obtained, and. translated by Sir William Jones. The whole of the Hindus are represented by Menu as divided into four classes:

CASTE, a term applied chiefly to distinct classes or sections of society in India, and, in a modified sense, to social distinctions of an exclusive nature among the nations of the West. When, at the end of the 15th c., the Portuguese began to penetrate to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and to trade with the Deccan or southern portion of the Indian peninsula, they found arbitrary social laws, full of intricate regulations which constantly interfered with their intercourse with the natives, especially in matters involving the 1. The Brahmans, or sacerdotal class, who are subdivision of labour. They found certain pursuits said, at the moment of creation, to have issued from invariably followed by a certain class, and any the mouth of Brahma. Their business is reading attempt to induce a man to perform offices not and teaching the Vedas, and the performance of appointed for the class of which he was a member, sacrifice for themselves and others. They are to be met with violent opposition, though such offices the chief of all created beings; the rest of mortals might, according to European notions, be more enjoy life through them. By their imprecations, honourable than many he was content to fulfil. they can destroy kings, with all their troops, and They observed, also, that these different classes elephants, and pomps. Indra, when cursed by one often varied in appearance, the result, in some of them, was hurled from his own heaven, and cases, of their addiction for many generations compelled to animate a cat. Hence, the Brahman to the same pursuits; in others, of their having is to be treated with the most profound respect, actually arisen from a different stock. Hence they applied to these various divisions of society the term casta-a Portuguese and Spanish word, meaning a breed. As applied to these classes of Hindu society, the word has passed into most European languages. From its frequent use in India, it has sometimes been erroneously considered of Hindu origin.* Of late, it has been spelled caste, but by old authors cast; and it is even a question, whether the word may not be as genuine English, as casta is Spanish.

In the south of India, the Portuguese became acquainted with what is considered the most exaggerated evil of caste. There are found there large numbers of a class called Pariahs, or, in other districts of India, Chandalas. They are probably the relics of some early conquered race, who have been degraded by uninterrupted ages of oppression, as is represented to have been the case with the Helots of Sparta, and people in a similar condition. These Pariahs were always identified with outcasts-i. e., persons who had forfeited the privileges of their original order. No one of any C. would have any communication with them. If one of them even touched a Nayr, or warrior of high C., he might with impunity kill him. Some sorts of food were defiled by even their shadow passing over them; and the name of Pariah or Chandala conveyed to the Hindu the idea of the utmost vileness and disgust. All who violated the institutions of their class were held to sink into this class a condition which involved the loss of all human respectability and comfort. These regulations were, moreover, referred to religion.

As India was at this time the land of the marvellous, and its inhabitants, though as various as the different nations of Europe, viewed as one homogeneous people, what was only true of one portion of the peninsula, was considered as prevailing everywhere, and as identical with the

* In Sanscrit, castes are called Varnas, i. e., 'colours;' colour being, no doubt, the chief distinction at first.

even by kings. His life and person are protected by the severest laws in this world, and the most tremendous denunciations for the next. His own offences are treated with singular lenity; all offences against him, with terrible severity. He is forbidden to live by service, but on alms; and it is incumbent upon virtuous men and kings to support him with liberality; and all ceremonies of religion involve feasts and presents to him. The first part of his life is to be devoted to an unremitting study of the Vedas-books, be it observed, older than the code of Menu, and yet, except, perhaps, one of the later hymns, containing no mention of C. as a religious ordinance. He is to perform servile offices for his preceptor, and beg from door to door. In the second quarter, he lives with his wife, reads and teaches the Vedas, assists at sacrifices, and, clean and decent, his hair and beard clipped, his passions subdued, his mantle white, his body pure, with a staff and a copy of the Vedas in his hand, and bright golden rings in his ears,' he leads a studious and decorous life. The third quarter of his life he must spend in the woods, as an anchorite, clad in bark, without fire, wholly silent, and feeding on roots and fruits. The last period he is released from external forms and mortifications, and is to spend his time meditating on the divinity, until at length he quits the body, 'as a bird leaves the branch of a tree, at pleasure.'

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2. The Kshatrya, or Chuttree, or military class, sprang from the arm of Brahma, and bear something of a sacred character. It is stated that the sacerdotal order cannot prosper without the military, or the military without the sacerdotal; and the prosperity of both, as well in this world as in the next, is made to depend on their cordial union. The Kshatrya are to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Vedas, and defend the people. Though Brahmans are to draw up and interpret laws, they are carefully excluded from administering them. The executive government is vested in the Kshatryas alone.

3. The Vaisya, or Bais, or mercantile class, sprang from the thigh of Brahma. Their grand duties are

CASTE-CASTEGGIO.

to keep cattle, carry on trade, lend on interest, the man who sweeps your room will not take an cultivate the soil, and turn their attention to every empty cup from your hand; your groom will not description of practical knowledge. They are to be perfect men of business.

4. The Sudras, or Sooders, or servile class, came from the foot of Brahma. They are to serve the three superior classes, more especially the Brahmans. Their condition is never to be improved; they are not to accumulate property, and are unable by any means to approach the dignity of the higher classes. Utter and entire submissiveness to the Brahmans is the spirit of all a Sudra's duties, and this is to be enforced by penalties as severe as they are ridiculous. Yet, withal, the Sudras were not to be slaves, either public or private, and to occupy a position much higher than the Chandalas. Mixture of castes, though not absolutely forbidden, entails disadvantages on the children, and the offspring of a Brahmanical woman and a Sudra becomes a Chandala, or outcast.

Such-omitting the minute and childish laws and penalties, many hundreds in number, by which it is proposed to carry the principle of C. into the pettiest affairs of life is a brief outline of it, as gathered from the code of Menu. There is no historical evidence that it ever existed in this form, and, from the nature of the case, we may conclude that it never did. In the Toy-cart, the oldest Hindu drama, no extravagant veneration for Brahmans anywhere appears. In fact, one of them is condemned to death; and the arrangements of society appear to have been the same as at present. The laws of C. form, it is true, a part of what is reputed to be Hindu law, but they have remained in all the states of India, Hindu as well as Mohammedan, to a great extent a dead-letter. There is nothing to shew that the code of Menu was drawn up for the regulation of any particular state. Some have even conjectured that it may have been the work of some learned man, designed to set forth his idea of a perfect commonwealth under Hindu institutions, just as Plato in The Republic gives us his idea of a model government under Greek institutions.

Be this as it may, the C. which at present exists throughout the greater part of India is very different from that described in the code of Menu, though to this it owes, no doubt, much of its stability and its importance in the eyes of Europeans. With the exception of the Brahmans, the pure castes have disappeared, and out of the intermixture of the others have sprung innumerable classes, many of them unauthorised except by the people themselves. So engrained in the whole community is this tendency to class distinctions, that Mussulmans, Jews, Parsees, and Christians fall, in some degree, into it; and even excommunicated or outcast Pariahs form castes among themselves. Most of the existing castes partake of the nature of associations for mutual support or familiar intercourse, and are dependent upon a man's trade, occupation, or profession. Many of them have been described by Mr Colebrooke in the Asiatic Transactions, vol. v. Many have had their origin in guilds, in schism from other castes, in the possession of a particular sort of property (as, for instance, landlords are spoken of as the C. of zemindars), and similar accidental circumstances. Their names are often due to the district in which the C. took its rise, to their founder, to their peculiar creed, or any random circumstance. In the Bengal presidency, there are many hundreds of such castes, almost every district containing some unknown in those adjacent. Among the lowest classes, and especially among the servants of the English at Calcutta, it has degenerated into a fastidious tenacity of the rights and privileges of station. For example,

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mow a little grass; a coolie will carry any load, however offensive, upon his head, but even in a matter of life and death, would refuse to carry a man, for that is the business of another caste. Such and many other regulations are described in every work on C., but are as unworthy of serious regard as are the assertions of self-importance found among little people all the world over. When an English servant pleads that such a thing is not his place,' his excuse is analogous to that of the Hindu servant when he pleads his caste. When an Englishman of birth or profession, which is held to confer gentility, refuses to associate with a tradesman or mechanic -or when members of a secret order exclude all others from their meetings-or when any other similar social distinction arises, it would present itself to the mind of the Hindu as a regulation of

caste.

Nor does C., at the present day, tie a man down to follow his father's business, except, perhaps, in the case of the more sacred functions of the Brahmans. For the rest, Brahmans serve as soldiers, and even as cooks. Men of all castes have risen to power, just as in England our statesmen have sprung from every class of society. Nor, again, is loss of C. anything so terrible as has been represented; in most cases, it may be recovered by a frugal repast given to the members of the C.; or the outcast joins another C., among whom he will commonly be received with the heartiness due to a new convert. The question of the restoration of a Christian convert wishing to rejoin the Brahmanical C., has been differently decided by his fellow caste-men in different places.

As in the West, so in the East, C. enters into all the most ordinary relations of life, producing laws often most tyrannical and too anomalous to admit of generalisation. In the West, however, whilst good sense and Christianity have ever tended to ameliorate social differences, the feeble mind of the Hindu and the records of his religion have had a contrary effect.

These modified views of C., which have begun to prevail in recent years, will be found more fully developed in Shore On Indian Affairs, Irving's Theory and Practice of Caste. Full accounts of the petty regulations of C., as laid down in the code of Menu, may be seen in Sir William Jones's Translation of the Code of Menu, Robertson's Disquisition on India, Richard's India, Elphinstone's History of India, Dubois's India, Colebrooke's Asiatic Transactions, vol. v., and in various articles in the Calcutta Review. The most authoritative account of the subject of caste is to be found in the first volume of Dr John Muir's Original Sanscrit Texts on the Origin and Progress of the Religion and Institutions of India; collected, translated into English, and illustrated by Notes (5 vols. Lond. 1867-1871; vols. 1 and 2, new ed.), a work of the utmost value.

The question how C. is to be dealt with in converts to Christianity, has now been determined by common consent of missionaries in India; and it receives no recognition within the Christian church. An opposite policy, in former times, founded on the opinion that C. might be regarded as merely a civil or social institution, and not as a part of the religion of the Hindus, is now believed to have been among the principal causes of the comparative decay of the churches or congregations founded during the 18th c. in the south of India.

CASTE'GGIO, a town of Piedmont, Northern Italy, five miles east-north-east of Voghera. In the campaign of 1859, C. was occupied by Austrians

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