idiots, and even intoxicated women, from violation, but, curiously enough, while it placed girls and boys not twelve years old on the same footing as idiots and intoxicated persons in all other respects, so far as competency to consent was concerned, it allowed the former to be violated with impunity. The English law treated consent as a very simple fact, and held that "the consent even of a child under ten years of age to what otherwise would be an indecent assault, prevented the act being indictable" (Reg. vs. Johnson). Our Indian legislators were of a different opinion. They thought a child under ten was not competent to consent to such an act, and so they ruled it, but they were not prepared to make a greater advance upon the English law. Now that the English law itself has made a far more momentous advance than our Indian legislators ever dreamt of, it is time, I submit, for us to bring our code in harmony with the exigencies of society and the greater perfection of the English law. I am sure Lord Macaulay and his co-adjutors would be the first to move an amendment of Sec. 375, were they now living. I am sure they would now concede that they had stopped too short-that they had been content with making a very small improvement in the English law so far as children were concerned, though they had provided a thousand times better safeguards for unsound persons than any to be found in that law. Let the present Legal Member do the work left undone by them. Let him recognize the fact that a girl under 12 in India is really and truly as unable "to understand the nature and consquences" of seduction as a girl under 16 has been by law declared to be in England. Let him recognize the injustice of allowing her to give away her most precious possession-a possession dearer to her than riches or any earthly thing. The law punishes the thief of her jewels, even if she consent to the theft, but it lets go scot-free the thief of that priceless jewel of woman, her chastity, her honour, if she is just ten years old, and consents to the deprivation. Does she under stand the nature and consequences of this larceny better than that of the former? Has she more education than an English

girl of fifteen? If not, then why, in Heaven's name, should this absurd ungodly distinction disgrace our Penal Code any longer? We do not ask for special legislation. We simply confineourselves to a most temperate, a most reasonable demand. We want the exception and the further exception to the exception in Sec. 375 to be done away with. We want no more for the present; and Heaven forbid that we should have occasion: to ask for more at any future time!

III.

Our Legislature lays down :-"You shall not take or entice any boy under 14 years, or any girl under 16 years, out of the keeping of his or her lawful guardian, without such guardian's consent" no matter whether the boy or the girl consents or not (Sec. 361). Why this distinction? If so far as kidnapping is concerned, a girl is not supposed to be able to take care of herself before she is sixteen, while a boy is held to be so able when he is fourteen, why should the former be supposed capable of consenting at the age of 10 to an act which means her physical prostration and the ruin of her frame, while the latter is com-pletely protected? May I ask if girls require less protection> than boys? Who can doubt that they require one thousand times more protection? Nay, even the Legislature admits this in the case of kidnapping. I confess, I cannot for the life of me understand why a girl should be. supposed thoroughly competent at the age of ten to dispose of her most valuablepossesstion, while a boy under 12 is considered completely incapable of giving any valid consent to the transfer even of his jacket, or his boots. or his drawers. Will the Government redress this crying inequality? Why should there be an exception in the case of girls? Is it because they come to maturity earlier than boys? If so, then why raise the age of consent in their case to 16, and that of boy only to 14 so far as kidnapping is concerned? Besides, does any Indian girl reach maturity at ten? "With respect to offences upon girls," says Mr. Mayne, "the Legislature seems to assume that they

come to maturity two years earlier here than in Europe." Let the age of consent, therefore, be fixed if you like at two years earlier than in England. According to Dr. Chevers, females in India begin to menstruate after the twelfth year, or at the beginning of the thirteenth...... Menstruation at ten years is very uncommon, and probably does not occur in more than one or two instances out of a hundred females. It is equally rare that it should be delayed beyond the thirteenth year (p. 461 of Chevers' Medical Jurisprudence for India). "Perhaps in this country," says Taylor, talking of England "the most frequent age for the commencement of menstruation may be taken at 15 years. It is liable to be accelerated in its appearance by certain moral and physical conditions under which a female may be placed." The value of the revelations made by the Pall Mall Gazette consists in proving conclusively that girls even at the age of 15 do not understand the consequences of seduction. Here in India, it may be said with as great positiveness, that the child-wives under 12 hardly understand the consequences of sexual intercourse at such tender age. "Before

the 14th August," it has been said "it is a crime to shoot grouse, lest an immature bird should not yet have a fair chance to fly. The sportsman, who wishes to follow the partridge through the stubbles, must wait till September 1, and the close time for pheasants is still later. Admitting that women are as fair game as grouse and partridges, why not let us have a close time for bipeds in petticoats as well as as for bipeds in feathers? ......Fish out of season are not fit to be eaten.

.....

.......

The law

ought at least to be as strict about a live child as about a dead salmon."

Our Penal Code in this matter was based more or less on the English law. The amendment proposed will be welcomed by the whole of India. No one dare come forward and say that girls should be allowed to be outraged when under twelve. Such a brutal act would undoubtedly be an outrage, a violation; and yet the law does not punish it. It may be said, no gross cases

have been brought to our notice of such outrages. But how can they be? There is no Pall Mall Gazette among our vernacular papers. Instances, however, are not wanting.* But I say if one single instance can take place of such an outrage under the present law, the law ought to be amended. There may be only 12 murders committed in a province during the year--there may be only one case of rape-there may be no case of an unnatural offence—and yet the law provides punishments for all these. Does it not? Why, then, should it leave girls under 12 unprotected?

APPENDIX IV.

SOCIAL REFORM IN RAJPUTANA.

Early in March last was held at Ajmere a meeting of Sardars, Officials and Charans from all parts of Rajputana, for the purpose of adopting some rules for regulating the expenditure on marriage and funeral ceremonies among the Rajputs. It seems that Colonel C. K. M. Walter, Agent to the GovernorGeneral for Rajputana, has been interesting himself very actively in the cause of social reform in Rajputana, and that the meeting at Ajmere in March last was a result of his long continued labours in that direction. We are enabled, through the kindness of a friend, to reproduce the rules and regulations

I have had myself to try at least two cases which arose from the unwillingness of the child-wife to surrender her person to her husband. In the first the charge against the husband was of causing her grievous hurt. She had tried to run away from him to her parents, and he had pursued her and thrown her down and cut off the tip of her nose. In the other case the child-wife, to be rid of her nocturnal tortures, had plucked some Dhatura and put it in the rice cooked by her for her husband. The husband was anxious to have her back, and prayed for a nominal sentence.

agreed to by the Conference at Ajmere. These rules and regulations have been signed by about forty delegates from the different States of Rajputana. Among the signatories are to be found several Thakurs, Sardars and Charans. It was these rules and regulations which formed the subject of conversation in the House of Lords some time ago when Lord Northbrook, Lord Kimberley, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Lord Cross, the present Secretary of State for India, passed the highest eulogiums on the Rajput Princes and on Colonel Walter for the reform they have inaugurated throughout Rajputana. According to the London correspondent of the TIMES OF INDIA, Lord Cross is reported to have said that "it was the greatest advance made in the present century and might lead to changes which no man living could foresee." With these brief preliminary observations we give below the rules and regulations adopted at Ajmere in March last:

All the Sirdars of the various States of Rajputana assembled at Ajmere, for the purpose of discussing arrangements for regulating the expenses incurred on the occasion of marri ages, deaths, &c., having come to an unanimous decision, the following observances have been prescribed and will be binding on Rajputs of all ranks, except ruling chiefs :

1. If the marriage is that of the Thakur himself, or an eldest son, or a daughter, the amount to be expended is fixed as under :

When the value of the Estate is above Rs. 20,000, not more than of the annual income.

When rental is below Rs. 20,000, but not less than Rs. 10,000, not more than 3 of the annual income.

When the rental is below Rs. 10,000, but not less than Rs. 1,000 not more than of the annual income.

When the income is below Rs. 1,000, not more than rds. of the annual income.

The above limits are in no case to be exceeded, but any body can spend less if he likes.