tomb of a woman who burned herself many years ago, and it is still pointed out as an object of curiosity. How different the result is in our own territory, has been shown by the melancholy detail into which we have just entered. We are far from inferring that this variance is exclusively the effect of encouragement in the one case, and indifference or opposition in the others; but we have no doubt that those causes do exercise a very powerful influence. Many a mischievous project has expired under neglect, which would have been encouraged and confirmed by coercion; and many a beneficial change owes much of its success to the violence and persecution it has encountered. The security which we have hitherto enjoyed in India is, in a great measure, the result of the toleration we have practised-of our respect for the rights, and our indulgence for the prejudices, of our subjects. If we desire that security to continue, we must remember that toleration is letting people do what they like, not what we like. In this sense our declarations have been made, and in this sense they ought to be fulfilled. It is not sufficient that our ends be good; our means also must be judicious. We may improve by our example, and enlighten with our knowledge; but we must take care how we innovate in matters of religion. But it is alleged that we have already innovated, and innovated successfully, on the religious customs of the Hindoos. Among the instances which are cited, it is said that we inflict capital punishment on Bramins, whose lives, by the Hindoo law, are sacred; and that we have abolished the practice of infanticide, which had prevailed from time immemorial; and as no attempt has been made, in either instance, to resist or resent our measures, it is contended that no injurious consequence would follow our prohibition of the burning of widows ;* in other words, that our Indian subjects, having already borne much, will, therefore, bear more. Fortunately, our government has been too wise to try experiments on the endurance of its subjects; or we might have found, that, abject and pusillanimous as a great portion of them unquestionably are, even with them forbearance has its limits, and that resistance, when it does begin, is formidable in proportion to the difficulty with which it has been provoked. But let us see how the facts stand. Reasoning that proceeds upon analogy is always to be watched with care. Cases are frequently assumed as parallel, which, in truth, are not so. We confound apparent with real resemblance. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish between those maxims which are inculcated in the law of the Hindoos, and those which are respected in their practice. To kill a Bramin is un questionably denounced, in their law, as a crime of the deepest dye, and yet it is one which they are not deterred from committing. They will not shed the blood of a Bramin, in the literal sense of the term, but they do put Bramins to death by slow and indirect means-by starvation, by unwholesome food, by rigorous confinement. To execute a Bramin, therefore, though a breach of the law, is not a violation of the practice of the Hindoos; and we can hardly be said to shock their prejudices, when we only disregard an injunction, which they themselves not unfrequently evade. But even were the practice otherwise, in order to constitute a parallel case, it would not be sufficient that we inflict capital punishment on Bramins, unless we require the Hindoos to do so. There is a wide difference between the practical effect of doing or avoiding a thing ourselves, and requiring others to do or avoid it. As long as we leave them at liberty to follow their own customs, they care little whether we follow them or not. do not encounter danger by doing what they think wrong, but by preventing them from doing what they think right. They do not desire that we should conform to the Hindoo law, but they are alarmed at the slightest indication of a design, on our part, to compel them to abandon it. We Of the practice of infanticide, it is necessary to our argument, and may be interesting to our readers, that we enter into a short examination. The printed papers relative to this subject, which are the last in the series now on our table, are divided into four parts, and describe the different modifications of the practice, and the measures which have been adopted for its suppression. 1. Among the Rajkoomars, inhabiting certain districts in the direction of Juanpoor; 2. and 3. Among the Jahrejas, a tribe of Rajpoots in Cutch and Cattewar; and 4. Among the Hindoos at the southern extremity of Bengal. The details of this subject are striking and characteristic in the highest degree; and although the practice of infanticide has been hitherto treated as a question only subordinate and accessory to that of self-immolation, it really appears to us to constitute, both in character and magnitude, by far the more appalling and flagitious evil of the two. 1. The Rajkoomars are described by Mr. Duncan, in 1789, as amounting to about 40,000; and they did not hesitate to avow their practice of putting all their female issue to death, by withholding sustenance from them from the moment of their birth. The only reason assigned by them for this horrid usage, was the expense of procuring suitable matches for their daughters, if they allowed them to grow up. They preserved their race by intermarrying with other tribes of Rajpoots. In 1789, an agreement * Papers, June 17, 1824, p. 5 and 6. was was proposed by Mr. Duncan, and executed by many of them, declaring the custom of destroying their female offspring to be criminal, and promising to renounce it for the future.* In 1795 and 1803, regulations were enacted by the Bengal government, directing the magistrates to proclaim, throughout their several jurisdictions, the prohibition of this inhuman practice, and providing that, if any Rajkoomar shall designedly prove the cause of the death of his female child, by prohibiting its receiving nourishment, or in any other manner, he shall be committed and tried, in the manner directed with respect to other cases of murder.'t But, notwithstanding these measures, in 1819, the date of the latest paper on this branch of the subject, Mr. Cracroft, the magistrate of Juanpoor, states that the practice of infanticide' still subsists in as full force as it ever did, and appears to be almost irremediable.' 2. and 3. Among the Jahrejas of Cutch and Cattewar, who are a tribe of Rajpoots, the practice of destroying their female issue is described as an ancient and immemorial custom, confirmed by prejudice and family pride,'§ it being considered disgraceful to a Hindoo father that his daughter should not be affianced before she attains a marriageable age. The first establishment of this tribe is said to have been in Sind. They afterwards extended over a great part of Persia; and Colonel Walker supposes, that the original Rajpoot inhabitants having been compelled to adopt the Mahometan religion, on the conquest of their country by the Caliphs, the Jahrejas resorted to this practice, on account of the difficulty of procuring suitable matches for their daughters. Speaking of it to Colonel Walker, their chief defended it, by saying that it relieved them of much vexation and expense. Instances do occur of their preserving their female children, but the act is optional and voluntary, and they hold it more reputable to destroy them. Colonel Walker could ascertain only five instances of fathers who had reared their daughters. Even in these cases the girls were dressed like boys. They seemed ashamed of their sex, called themselves boys, and appealed to their fathers in support of the assertion. If a father wishes to preserve a daughter, he previously apprizes his wife and family, and his commands are obeyed; but if a mother has the same wish, and the father objects to it, the infant must be put to death. There are cases where the influence of the wife obtains the husband's consent to preserve a child; but these instances of maternal solicitude are said to be either unfrequent, or seldom successful. The father sometimes expressly orders the infant to be put to death, probably when he suspects a desire on the part of Papers, June 17, 1824, p. 8. ↑ Ibid. 9 and 11. ‡ Ibid. p. 15. § Ibid. p. 28. the the mother to preserve it; but in general this intimation is unnecessary, the silence of the husband being considered to imply his resolution that the child, if a female, should perish. To aggravate, if possible, the horror of the deed, the mother is commonly the executioner of her own offspring. Women of rank may have their slaves and attendants, who perform this act; but the greater number of them perpetrate it with their own hands. Immediately after the birth of a female, they stifle it, or destroy it by introducing opium into its mouth, and, in some cases, it is laid on the ground, or on a plank, and left to expire for want of sustenance. This compliance, on the part of the women, is the more extraordinary, as they themselves belong to tribes who rear their females, and have been bred in families where their own existence bears testimony against this unnatural practice; but as they are affianced at an early age, they imbibe the barbarism of their husbands, and are said to be even advocates for the practice. If any person ask a Jahreja the result of the pregnancy of his wife, he would, if the child had been a female, answer nothing;' and this expression, in the idiom of the country, is horribly significant. There is a wide discrepancy between the different estimates of the number of the females annually destroyed among this tribe, but it must be great. Colonel Walker seems to think that it exceeds 15,000. In 1808, an engagement similar to that by which the Rajkoomars in Juanpoor had consented to bind themselves, was proposed to the Jahrejas; and Colonel Walker states, that, with the exception of one individual, every chief, readily, and without offering a single objection, subscribed it.'* Even that exception was afterwards removed by the individual's becoming a party to the engagement; and in 1819, a treaty was concluded between the East India Company and the principal chief of Cutch, which stipulated for the total abolition of the practice. Yet, in 1821, the latest period to which these papers extend, Mr. Elphinstone states that, from the best information Major Ballantine could obtain, it would not appear that more than one hundred females, born since the agreement, are now in existence; and it is not easy to say how many of these might have been spared, if the engagement had never been entered into.' 4. The practice which prevails in Bengal is similar in effect, though it differs in its cause, from both those which have been described. The Rajkoomars and Jahrejas destroy their offspring, to get rid of an encumbrance: the deluded beings who frequent the annual festival at Sangor devote theirs to destruction as an offering to propitiate the deity. When they are apprehensive of not having issue, it is common for them to make a vow, that, in the event of their prayer for five children being Papers, June 17, 1824, p. 31. Ibid, p. 115. Ibid. p. 116. granted, granted, they will devote the fifth-to the Ganges, it is said, though we apprehend in reality to Kalee. The children are thrown into the river from a point of the island of Sangor, which lies at the mouth of the Ganges, called, in Rennell's map, the place of sacrifice,' and are either drowned or devoured by sharks. One instance is mentioned, where the parents having made the vow, and being apprehensive that these sacrifices might be prevented by the interposition of our authority, before the period of its performance arrived, resolved to devote a boy of twelve years old, who, not being the fifth child, was not within the letter of the vow, and he was accordingly thrown by them into the river. He endeavoured to save himself by swimming, and a spectator offered him his protection; but he was again seized by his parents, and they succeeded in effectuating their purpose. * Some children appear to have been sacrificed on account of their being affected with incurable maladies; † and many instances of voluntary selfdestruction occurred on the part of aged persons of both sexes. The periods for the performance of these sacrifices are the full moons of November and January. No estimate is given of their probable extent. In 1802 a regulation was passed in Bengal, declaring that all persons exposing any infant to be drowned or devoured by sharks, or aiding or abetting the same, shall be held guilty of wilful murder.' In 1821 it is stated that the prac tice of immolating children had entirely ceased;' but a guard is still sent to Sangor, every year, at the periods of the festival. it. The success of our interference in the case of infanticide has by no means, therefore, been such as to sustain the argument which has been built upon In the two graver of the three instances, the practice still continues in unabated force, notwithstanding our continued efforts to suppress it; and in the remaining instance the revival of it is only prevented by the employment of military force. But even had our success been complete, and had this abomination been utterly extirpated, it must still be remembered that the practice of infanticide was not a general practice, and, even by those addicted to it, has never been supposed to have its origin in any precept of religion. It does not appear,' say the Calcutta magistrates, speaking of the practice at Sangor, that sacrifices of this nature are sanctioned by any tenet of the Hindoo code.'-' The practice appears to be little countenanced by the religious orders, or by the great body of the people, who, on the contrary, think it a pious and meritorious act to rescue a child from destruction, and afterwards to adopt and maintain it at their own expense.' || We must not, therefore, confound a partial with an universal Ibid. p. 137. § Ibid. p. 143. Papers, June 17, 1824, p. 134. + Ibid. p. 131. usage, |