51. CHIEF COMMISSIONER, ASSAM (MR. ELLIOTT) QUOTES THE FOLLOWING FROM THE ASSAM NEWS.-The re-marriage of widows is not in vogue among the Brahmans only. Those of all other castes re-marry freely whenever they choose, while the austerities practised even by our Brahman widows who are not allowed to remarry are not half so severe as those which widows of any caste are obliged to undergo in other parts of India. The Assamese widows are free to eat and drink anything not forbidden to Hindus, except fish and flesh, and the observance of Ekadashi, which is the bane of the lives of widows in Bengal, is quite optional with those of our country.

52. LIEUTENANT COLONEL H. C. A. ZEZEPANSKI DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WUN DISTRICT,-As regards widowhood it is only enforced amongst Brahmins and the higher castes. The general opinion is that the rule should be so far relaxed as to allow the re-marriage of virgin-widows. The argument is that child-widows are suffering from some conduct in a previous existence which can only by meritorious conduct in this-such as widow; but as men do not suffer in any similar way and are allowed to marry again, it is, as a native described it, like a cart with only one wheel.

grave misbe expiated remaining a

53. BAPUJEE HARI HEAD CLERK OFFICE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BULDHANA.-I do not mean to say that there are no widows in those countries where infant-marriage is never dreamt of. All I mean to say is that there are more young widows in India than in all other countries put together. India's widows are made martyrs, while widows in other countries are pitied and prayed for. Here they are shunned by their own kith and kin; there they are looked upon as objects of compassion. And all this for no fault of theirs. They are married in infancy and when unfortunate in losing their husbands, are loaded with all sorts of misery, sufferings, and pain.

54. NARAYEN PRABHAKER PARASPE HEAD MASTER A.V. SCHOOL RAJA DEULGAON.-The remarriage of my own sister, who

was deprived of her first husband when she was only 11 or 12 years old, has given me sufficient experience of the persecution of excommunication and of the influence of the religious authorities. The so-called civilized or Europeanized Hindus (I am one of them) are very small in proportion to those in favour of the old customs and manners, and the former carry little influenceover the latter, Hence they always fail in removing the prejudices of the masses. What best the reformers can do under the existing circumstances is that they should keep up their energies and devote their attention to the mental culture of the Hindu mind; promote morality in particular; and when sufficient moral courage is gained and a portion of the old bigotry has disappeared, it will be the proper time for reformers to bring social reforms into practice.

55. VISHNU MORESHWAR MAHAJANI M. A., HEADMASTER HIGH SHCOOL AKOLA.-It is not the priest who is a tyrant-but the whole caste. The bulk of the people follow immemorial custom rather than the priest. The other day one of the Shankaracharyas,—the Pope of the Hindus— moved by some of the new reformers ruled that the Shastras were not opposed to intermarriages among certain sub-castes of Brahmins, and yet few people have availed themselves of the liberty. Why? Because they fear that if they intermarry, their children would be looked upon, to. borrow an expression from natural history, as 'cross breeds,' and they could not then have as large a field for selection as they now have.

56. SHRIKRISHNA NARHAR, EXTRA ASSISTANT COMMISSIONOR ELLICHPUR.-As a matter of fact though the ceremonious portion of the marriage take place early, the actual consummation never or very seldom, is allowed before the pair attain full maturity; and to this purpose, the ceremony constituting it is deferred two, and in some cases four years after one of the parties has grown up, to allow the other to complete his years of nonage......

His (Mr. Malabari's) ideas are derived from the social satires and appeals, and therefore tainted with the haziness and exaggeration which are but too common in those compositions.

57. SHRIRAM BHIKAJEE JATAR B. A., DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, HYDERABAD ASSIGNED DISTRICTS.In 1867 a meeting was held at Akola in order to excommunicate a Brahmin who had brought about the marriage of his widowed sister in Poona. Some one said (rightly or wrongly) that the meeting was illegal as Government had passed an Act for making widow remarriage legal. The meeting dispersed without arriving at any conclusion, but that did not prevent the man from being excommunicated in reality. He was not only not invited to dinner parties, but people refused to drink the water touched, by him. When the man retired and went to live in Poona he had to buy readmission into the caste by paying a sum of money and feeding many Brahmins. I do not know how Government can

prevent this.

58. RAGHUNATH B. TALVALKAR HEAD MASTER HIGH SCHOOL AMRAOTI.-Modern India has not deprived woman of any rights of which she was possessed in ancient times. She enjoys them still. Her status has ever been subordinate, but not much inferior to man who has been always her guide and guardian. The class of misguided widows is very small.

SECTION V. EXTRACTS FROM OPINIONS GIVEN TO MR. MALABARI.

59. DR. RAJENDRALALA MITRA C. I. E.-Your picture about the immorality resulting from widowhood is highly over-painted......Under the present state of human civilisation there must always be a large number of men who will not or cannot marry, and as the proportion of men and women of

marriageable age is all but exactly the same, there must always he large numbers of women who cannot get husbands, and nature must prevail in most of these and the result will beimmorality. There is no escaping out of the difficulty. Every widow married takes away a husband from a maid, and your utmost efforts result in converting a number of maids into fallen women. The less the number of widows, the greater the number of maids who can never have husbands. You must not conclude from this that I am an enemy to widow-marriage: far from it; I yield to none in advocating widow-marriage, but, advocate it on the broad ground of individual liberty of choice and not on account of immorality possible or contingent, You know well enough that in England maids number not by thousands but by hundreds of thousands, and you will not have the hardihood to tell me that all of them or the bulk of them are chaste or for the matter of that more chaste than our widows. Nor can you tell me that unchaste maids are better than unchaste widows.

60. J. D. B. GRIBBLE ESQ., C.S.-I have long been of opinion that there is an immense amount of unpublished crime which is mainly due to these two evils. My experience over 20 years as Magistrate and Sessons Judge has confirmed that opinion. Take, for instance, the case of reported suicides and deaths by drowning. I find that in this Presidency (Madras): about one in every 35 deaths is reported either as a suicide or an accidental death. These figures an appalling, but strange to say they seem to have attracted little or no notice.

61. GOVIND W. KANITKAR, B.A., L.L.B.-The victims. of the agitation for widow remarriage.................. ......are leading: their lives in social alienation like converts to Christianity. They are considered as a caste by themselves. The faithlessleaders of the agitation gradually proved false to the standard they had raised.

62. VITHAL K. SHRIKHANDE, OF HYDERABAD COLLEGE.-At present the sufferings to which our widows are subjected are simply heart-rending and it would be sheer

cruelty to refuse relief to the wretched victims. The present condition of Hindu widows is a deep blot upon Hindu Society.

63. RAO BAHADUR SIRDAR GOPALRAO HARI DESHMUKH LATE JOINT SESSIONS JUDGE AND MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, BOMBAY.-Within these fifty years many lower castes have given up re-marriage simply to approach the Brahmins. Ne reform can be carried out unless some political infiuence is brought to bear on it.

We see many parents not only content with imposing the Vow of chastity upon their daughters (widowed), but they shave the girls at their tender age and deprive them of all ornaments and decorations and keep them half starved throughout life. They are particularly deprived of all privileges of attending marriage and other religious ceremonies. Their appearance on festive occasions is considered an ill omen. In all higher castes the treatment of widows is very cruel, especially among Rajputs, Khatris and Banias. They vie with Brahmins in treating widows with great cruelty. The wonder is that they do not think that it is cruelty, but they think it is virtue and piety. The widows are made to sit a dark room for two or three years; and I have known of a widow who did not leave her room for more than thirty years and was considered a living Satti.........

in

It must not be forgotton that priests derive a very large benefit from perpetual widowhood. A widow thinks that her misfortunes arise from her not having attended to religious duties in former lives, and therefore she must devcte her time and wealth to pilgrimages and so on. The wealth of most widows is devoured by priests. It is the widows rich and poor, who maintain priesthood in luxury.

64. SURGEON MAJOR D. N. PAREKH CHIEF PHYSICIAN GOKULDAS TEJPAL HOSPITAL.-In my professional capacity, I have had many opportunities of seeing Hindu widows, young and old, in Poona and Bombay. I invariably noticed that they were feeble, prematurely aged, looking pale, devoid