Government, while this subject is before him, an idea or two, connected, as he humbly conceives, with the further improvement of the country: he would recommend-that the whole body of Hindoo and Müsŭlman law now in use, and the Regulations of Government, be laid before a select body of law officers, assisted by the oldest, and the most enlightened of the Hon. Compa ny's servants, and that these persons, corresponding with the most intelligent persons in every part of India, be directed to form a body of civil and criminal law suited to the present circumstances of our Indian empire; to be presented for revision to the great Law Officers of the Crown, and to the Parliament of England;-that this code of law, when ratified, be translated into the language of every district containing a court of justice, and two copies of it deposited in each court, for the use of the council both of the plaintiff and defendant; the Judge and first law officers to be also supplied with copies; and further, that every student be expected to read this code thrice over during his stay in the college, and to attend regular lectures in which it shall be explained ;-that the proceedings of every court of law be conducted in the language of the district in which each court-house is situated; that every Judge understand, and every attorney plead in this language; that the proceedings be open to all, and that no cause be examined, nor any witnesses heard, in private, by the officers of the court, previously to the open trial in court, on pain of a very heavy fine ;-that there be formed at the Presidency, a College for the instruction of native law officers in the legitimate meaning of this code, and that no native attorney (after a certain period) be permitted to act in a court of justice without a certificate from this college ;-that every instance of bribery, perjury, and extortion, connected with the administration of justice, or the execution of the laws, be punished in some mode most likely to counteract these crimes, so common at present, and so exceedingly destructive of the happiness of the subject ;-that no person be appointed to the of fice of a t'hanadar, or to any other office filled by natives, without a recommendation from ten of the most respectable inhabitants of the town or village where such officer is to be placed; that some mode be sought of interesting the inhabitants of towns in improving their roads, in removing nuisances, in watching over inferior officers of the police, in promoting different objects of benevolence, and especially charity-schools, which might be supported by an annual collection from the inhabitants themselves.

The principle so justly recognized by the Parliament of Great Britain, that it is the duty of the Government to improve the civil and moral condition of our Indian subjects, though this recognition was preceded by a long and painful delay, was bailed with joy by every philan

thropist. It is impossible to discover any object worthy of individual existence, if the good of others be not included in that object: but how much more true is this of nations than of individuals.—The Marquis of Hastings, in his late most excellent address to the Students of the College, very feelingly takes up the sentiment of the House of Commons, and urges with great force the policy, the necessity, and the divine obligation of raising to rational and happy life the subjects of this vast empire; and the author is happy to observe, that, under his Lordship's administration, experiments have been made to impart instruction to the rising generation in this country, in their own tongue, agreeably to the improved system of education for the poor, which, as a grand principle of moral health, promises to resemble in its blessings the tree of life, the very leaves of which are said to be "for the healing of the nations."

*

Many of those who have reflected on the miserably enslaved but delicate circumstances of our Hindoo and Musulman fellow subjects, have felt the greatest anxiety lest, by touching, in the slightest manner, the fabric of our Indian policy, it should shiver to atoms, but it now appears, that these apprehensions, like many others formed while walking in an unknown path at midnight, are wholly groundless. It is now proved beyond the possibility of hesitation, that the Hindoos, like all other human beings, are more pleased with day than with night, when the light is permitted to shine upon them through a medium which diminishes the effulgence of its rays; and that therefore the rudiments of knowledge may be imparted with perfect safety. Man, in the essential principles of his nature, and in his wants, is the same in every clime in the efforts of the wise and good to improve his condition, therefore, the great difficulty lies in discovering his real circumstances, and in suiting the means to the end.

Our present duties to this people seem to be comprized in imparting to them, first, knowledge, and then sacred principles; and in this God-like work, Schools, as well as the extensive circulation of elementary works on the first principles of science, and of the Holy Scriptures, ought to be patronized wherever power, or influence, or property, has been by a graci ous Providence bestowed. If he is a benefactor to mankind who makes a blade of grass to grow where one never grew before, how much more is he the friend of man, who sows, in a field extensive as a fourth part of the habitable globe, that seed which is to spring up and bear fruit unto life eternal.

The British government may reap the highest advantages from the general establishment of

* The Vidyalŭyů, or the HINDOO COLLEGE, and the SCHOOL BOOK SOCIETY, in Calcutta, reflect also the highest honour on those who originated as well as on those who conduct these institutions.

B

Schools: an involuntary attachment necessarily takes place between the person who bestows knowledge and the recipient. Every person who has read Park's travels, must have perceived the amazing effects of the Mahomedan schools in Africa, in drawing the hearts of the natives thus taught to their superiors. It is a singular fact, that in all the conquests which they have been able to retain, the Mahomedans have moulded the conquered into their own disposition: the difference in temper and character between the Musulman and the Hindoo in Bengal, though both were once Hindoos, is quite astonishing, and can only be attributed to education: it is the same change of character which is so visible in the native Africans after receiving instruction in the Mahomedan schools.

At some future time, these native schools may also be expected to supply a superior race of men for all the inferior offices of government and police, who will also form the uniting link between the population and their beneficient government. These fruits cannot be expected till years have elapsed after schools shall have been generally established, and therefore the author refrains from enlarging; but, as this horde of rapacious oppressors, dressed in a little brief authority,' is, and has always been, the greatest scourge of the country, so, a greater good can scarcely be found for it, than upright and benevolent men to fill up all the subordinate offices of government and police. Something of the hunger and rapacity of these men would be removed, perhaps, if a fine of twenty-times the amount of the sum given as a douceur for obtaining a place were levied on every offender, half of it to go to the informer.

The SECOND CHAPTER of this work contains an account of the different casts or orders of Hindoos, which, including what may be called the trading casts, amount in number to more than forty. To this is added, a description of the arts, the manufactures, and the agriculture of the Hindoos, and of the climate, soil, and produce of Bengal, comprising a general view of the social order of this people as far as affected by the cast.

The writer has not spared the authors of this iniquitous system of social misrule, but has endeavoured to shew its flagrant injustice, its shocking inhumanity, and its fatal impolicy in paralizing the genius and industry of the country. The instances given of the dreadful consequences following the loss of cast, which might be multiplied into a large volume, filled with cases of unparalleled cruelty and injustice, will no doubt fill the mind of the reader with the deepest horror. And yet this detestable system, which cuts up by the roots every tender

and generous feeling, and, for the most innocent and even praise-worthy-actions, inflicts a pu nishment worse than death itself,-has found apologists even amongst enlightened Britons.

Never was there any thing invented by the deep policy of man, so well calculated to rivet the chains of superstition, as the cast. By this institution, all the Hindoos are divided into distinct classes, and their civil, domestic and religious duties defined. The rules for the practice of these duties are so minutely arranged, and rendered so binding, that a Hindoo can never embrace any thing new, however wise, or necessary, or profitable; nor transgress the bounds of his prison-house. The mere circumstance of eating even the purest food, with persons not of the same order, however enlightened, or virtuous, or venerable for age, exposes a man to excision from his wife, chi'dren, father, mother, and every other tender relation ; but what is still worse, the very reception of such persecuted individual involves the receiver, though a mother or a wife, (Oh! these mild and humane Hindoos!!) in the same dreadful sentence. Yet all these horrors must be braved by a person perishing with thirst, who should, to save his life, dare to receive, even the sacred water of the Ganges, from one of inferior cast;—all this misery must be endured by the person, who, to secure his eternal salvation, should dare to embrace a new religion. Had the cast continued to be what it was under the Hindoo monarchs, and what the framers of its rules wished it to be, all that is terrible in becoming an outcast, and "a vagabond on the face of the earth;" all that is revolting to human naturè in losing the esteem of connections, in contempt and persecution, in the fear of perishing through want, and in being excluded from the most distant hope of returning to home and friends on this side death, all these terrors must have been welcomed by every Christian convert, who must thus have become a martyr the very moment he declared himself on the side of the new religion.

But let us rejoice that the rust of these fetters has nearly eaten them through : there are indications in the present state of Hindoo society, which evince that, on account of the number of transgressors, these barbarous laws cannot be much longer enforced :

1. The social impulse is evidently felt as strongly by the Hindoos as by other nations; and this leads those who have formed friendships in the same neighbourhood to join in offering mutual pledges of hospitality: hence, in numerous instances, we find that groups of Hindoos, of different casts, actually meet in secret, to eat and smoke together, rejoicing in this opportu nity of indulging their social feelings. There is also a strong propensity in human nature to pass the bounds prescribed by partial and short-sighted legislators; and in these private meet

ings, the parties enjoy a kind of triumph in having leapt the fence, and in being able to do it repeatedly with impunity.

2. Early marriages being necessarily acts of compulsion, and against nature, it too frequently happens, that the affections, instead of fixing upon the law-given wife, become placed upon some one not of the same cast, who is preferred as the darling object of uncontrouled choice: here again the cast is sacrificed and detested in secret.

3. The love of proscribed food in many instances becomes a temptation to trespass against the laws of cast: many Hindoos of the highest as well as of the lowest cast eat flesh and other forbidden food; and, should detection follow, the offenders avail themselves of the plea, "These are the remains of the offerings presented to my guardian deity."

4. The yoke of the cast becomes still more intolerable through the boundless license which a Hindoo gives to his sensual desires; and these temptations to promiscuous intercourse with all casts of females, are greatly strengthened by absence from home for months and years together, which is the case with thousands, especially in Calcutta and other large towns, as well as throughout the native army: hence cohabiting, eating and smoking with women of other casts is so common, that it is generally connived at, especially as it is chiefly done at a distance from the offender's relations.

5. The very minuteness and intricacy of the rules connected with cast also tend powerfully to induce a forfeiture of the privileges it bestows: social intercourse among Hindoos is always through a path of thorns. Cast is destroyed by teaching religious rules to persons of inferior rank, by eating, or by intimate friendship, with such persons, by following certain trades, by forbidden matrimonial alliances, by neglecting the customs of the cast, by the faults of near relations, &c. &c. And where the cast is not forfeited, in many cases persons are tormented and persecuted to the greatest excess.

From hence it will appear, that an institution, the rules of which are at war with every passion of the human mind, good as well as evil, must, sooner or later, especially if the government itself ceases to enforce these rules, fall into utter disuse and contempt. The present state of Hindoo society respecting the cast, therefore, will cease to be a matter of wonder. No one will be surprised to hear, that, although the Hindoos give one another credit, as a matter of convenience, for being in possession of cast, and though there may be an outward, and, in the