CHAP. III.

The impossibility of detecting murder with the permission of this custom-palliation of it absurd-the propriety of adopting measures for the suppression of its atrocitiesutility of attending to the sick-confirmation of the statements concluding remarks.

These appalling facts are submitted to the attention of the humane in Britain and India. That such atrocious acts, under the semblance of religion, are perpetrated, is beyond a doubt; but ought such infractions of the inviolable principles of justice and humanity to be tolerated? The celebrated historian, Rollin, severely censures the conduct of Xerxes, in giving up his brother's wife to the revenge of his own, and says,"He was guilty of the weakest and most cruel piece of compliance; making the inviolable obligations of justice and humanity give way to the arbitrary laws of a custom." It is written, "Righteousness exalteth a nation." "Mercy and truth preserve the king, and his throne is upholden by mercy." It is not necessary for the preservation of the British power in India, that these cruelties should be permitted. The God of nations, is "a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he;" and He will "make inquisition for blood." Can it be doubted whether Britain possesses the power to issue a proclamation, declaring that whoever is accessary to the death of an individual by Infanticide, the Exposure of the sick, or any other inhuman custom, is a murderer, and as such amenable to the laws? In India our will is our law.' great is the responsibility of the British Government!

"Hear it, ye Senates-hear this truth sublime;

He who allows of murder, shares the crime."

How

The impossibility of detecting murder, with the permission of this custom, is apparent from the following facts. The late Rev. W. Ward thus describes the circumstances of a heathen dying by the Ganges.-"Just before or after being immersed, they spread the mud of the river on the breast, &c., of the dying man, and with one of their fingers write on this mud the name of some deity; they also pour water down his throat, shout the name of different deities in his ears, and, by this anxiety after his future happiness, hurry him into eternity; and, in many cases, it is to be feared, prevent recovery where it might reasonably be expected.

Some persons who are carried down to the river side revive, and return home again; but scarcely any instances are known of persons surviving after the half immersion in water. In cases of sudden and alarming sickness, many are actually murdered by these violent means of sending men to Gunga. "Private murder is practised to a dreadful extent among the Hindoos; and is exceedingly facilitated, and detection prevented, by the practice of hurrying sick persons to the banks of the river, and burning them as soon as dead. Many anecdotes on this subject might be given."*

Dr. Johns, in his pamphlet before referred to, speaks of a man drowned in sport. "Some years ago as Shivu Shiromee (the Brahmun who related the fact to the Rev. W. Ward,) was returning from bathing, with Kashenaut, another Brahmun, they saw a poor old man sitting on the bank of the river, and asked him what he was doing there? He replied that he was destitute of friends, and was about to renounce life in the Ganges. Kashenaut urged him not to delay then, if he was come to die. But the man seemed to hesitate, and replied that it was very cold. The Brahmun (hinting to his companion, that he wished to see the sport before he returned home!) reproached the poor trembling wretch for his cowardice, and, seizing his hand, dragged him to the edge of the bank; where he made him sit down, rubbed over him the purifying clay of the river, and ordered him to repeat the proper incantations. While he was, with his eyes closed, repeating these forms, he slipped down and sunk into the water, which was very deep, and perished."+ Was not this murder?

In the Circular Letters of the Missionaries at Serampore, accounts are given of the drowning of two lepers, at Futwa and Alumgung. "On hearing the people belonging to the boat say that a man was going to be drowned at Futwa, I looked out, and saw the poor creature, without fingers or toes, but in other respects apparently healthy. He was eating very heartily, and surrounded by several people, who appeared to have conducted him to the spot. The bank being high, I could not get out of the boat, till we got to a considerable distance from the place where the man sat. As I was running towards the spot, I heard the people on the top of the boat call out,' He is drowned! he is drowned! His attendants, who appeared to be his relatives, had assisted him down the bank of the river; but whether they pushed him in, or

+ Facts and

* View of the Hindoos, vol. iii. pp. 269. 291. Opinions relative to the Burning of Hindoo Widows, 1816, p. 70.

whether he got into the water of his own accord, I cannot tell; but the bank was so steep at the place that he could not possibly get out again. He made great efforts to reach the side, but had he been a good swimmer he could not have got out, the stream was so rapid. I saw him struggle much, before he sunk to rise no more. I endeavoured to impress on the people who attended him, the heinousness of the crime they had perpetrated; but they smiled at my concern, and said they had only complied with the wishes of the deceased, who had neither hands nor feet." (Nov. 1812).*

"A Hindoo, of the writer cast," says the Rev. J. Moore, "informed me he saw a Hindoo carpenter drowned, because he had the leprosy. He was carried from one of the Ghauts at Alumgung in a boat, in the presence of a large assembly of people, and, when in deep water, put overboard. Two large earthen pots, one filled with sand, the other with barley, were fastened to his shoulders. The man sunk, but after some time floated on the water. The people in the boat rowed after him and took him up, but made sure work of it the second time." (Oct. 1813.)

"The Cama Morun, or voluntary death, is when a person, who is in distress or disgrace, or believes it meritorious to die in the Ganges, forms the resolution of parting with life in the sacred stream. Some of them abstain from food that they may expire in the holy place; but the greater number drown themselves in the presence of the surrounding multitude. Their children and other relations generally attend them. It is no uncommon thing for a father to be pushed again into the river by his sons, if he attempt to swim back to land!"+ Are not these acts of murder? Must not India be greatly defiled with blood?

The Editor of the Bengal Hurkaru, in Aug. 1825, very judiciously and forcibly observes, on this subject,

"We will make a remark or two on a topic that has been brought to public notice in the Columbian Press Gazette, and which has been attempted to be palliated on the ground of its being a Hindoo rite. It would be idle to waste words to prove, that if it could be clearly made out in evidence that a sick man was put to death by his relations, by Brahmuns, or by any body

*The Rev. H. Townley, recently related the following anecdote, illustrative of the Hindoo character.-"A Hindoo once said to me, 'Why are you so very earnest to save others? What is it to you if they should be lost?" I said to him, 'If you should see a poor fellow-creature sinking beneath the waves of the Ganges, and your boat was passing by him, would you not be glad to put out your hand that you might save him?' 'No,' he replied, I should look to myself.' Christianity reprobates the inquiry,'Am I my brother's keeper ?'" † Burder's Miss. Anec. p. 37.

else, when carried down to the river, or by any other means, and whether against the prayers of the sick man or not, at least within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, it would be murder; just as the performance of a Suttee would be murder. The pretence, that the Hindoo religion authorized such practices, would be equally unavailable in one case as in the other. The fact, that death is anticipated by violent means may be denied, and we certainly are in possession of no other proof than common report; but, if such facts do exist, we do not conceive that the presence of Police Peons is any protection at all against abuse; certainly not if they are Hindoos. We should be glad to know, by what authority it is that dying persons are exposed by the river side; and would thank any of our readers, learned in the languages and customs of the Hindoos, to give us precise information; for without violence, and without the use of suffocation, the mere exposure on a muddy bank, under a burning sun, of a person dangerously ill, cannot be considered by any reasonable man, but as an act approaching very near to murder, under whatever pretext it is done.

"There is a kind of fanaticism prevalent among Europeans in India, which is a melancholy proof of the force of habit, and of the puerile tendency to extremes that disgraces even intelligent men, who adopt theories that their self-love becomes interested to support. We allude not to the fanaticism in the dogmas of Christianity, but a fanaticism that is ready to go all lengths in palliation and support of the most revolting doctrines of Hindoo superstition. This turn of mind, of which we have perceived many traces in the writings of Europeans who have been in India, naturally arises from a wish to dignify those things which have been the subject of their studies and investigation; and might be excused or pitied did it not lead to laxity of moral reasoning, and to sneers at real religion. Their religion is one monstrous tissue of absurdity and cruelty-absurd in doctrine, cruel in practice; which no ingenuity in allegory, and no sophistry, can make reconcileable with common sense and humanity! Prudence may induce us to tolerate, prudence may induce us to be silent, but it is too much to speak of such a system with respect. Such conduct cannot but excite indignation.

"There may be purposes to be served, and vanities to be gratified;-the Philologist, who has mastered the difficulties of Sanscrit, and explored with tedious care the occult meaning of Hindoo Mythology, may gratify the pride of a futile labour by a preposterous estimation of the value of his attainments:-the cold Politician, who looks only to the preservation of power, may be tremblingly anxious to prevent all alarm, and to throw discredit upon all attempts at conversion:-and the concealed Unbeliever in Christianity may be delighted in an opportunity of instituting presumptuous and impious comparisons; or insinuating that, when once the order of nature is quitted, there is no rule of judgment, and one mystery and one miracle is prima facie as probable as another. But every candid believer, every friend to morals, to human nature, and to happiness, ought severely to examine his own mind, and deeply pause, before he is led away by literary zeal and vanity, by political interest and prejudice, or by polemical hate, to step forward, the concealed or the avowed defender of a system that is degrading to man, and has entailed slavery, wickedness, and misery upon millions of millions of men."

The inhumanity of the Native police shews the difficulty of allowing this custom to continue, consistently with the principles of justice and the well-being of society. On this subject it is remarked, in one of the Calcutta Papers;-"In

order to prevent the continuance of these inhuman practices, we deemed it right to call attention to them, and to suggest the necessity of adopting some regulations, making it incumbent on the Brahmuns to have the authority of a Native Doctor, at least for pronouncing a fellow-creature so far past the hope of recovery as to justify, according to their own laws and customs, the administration of the inhuman ceremony adverted to. But we are told there is no necessity for this; and why? because the John Bull is persuaded that the cruel practices of Hindoism are, in many instances, exaggerated, therefore prevention and inquiry are unnecessary! We are told that Police Peons are stationed at the Ghauts to prevent such murderous scenes as are said to occur. These, it must be admitted by all who know their character, are bad securities against the perpetration of inhumanity: fellows who look on with the utmost indifference at any scene of cruelty, whether it be a widow burning, a man drowning, or a poor diseased creature suffocated by a Brahmun. As for their reporting to a Coroner any thing of the kind, even if they did so (which we believe they would not), he has no control beyond the Mahratta ditch; nor indeed have the Police Peons above referred to, for they are under the jurisdiction of the Zillah magistrates. We hope the Zillah magistrates will deem it their duty to institute some inquiry into this matter; for humanity loudly demands it."

Palliation of the nature of this rite appears absurd. A correspondent, in one of the Indian papers, proves that no dependance can be placed on the unprincipled Native officers. The idea of chokedars interfering in this business appears ridiculous to those who are at all acquainted with the nature of the country. I have frequently passed a dozen villages and Ghauts without seeing or hearing of a single chokedar. How are these people to inform the Coroner, or any body else, of what is passing in these places, when they themselves are often ignorant of it? Unless there be, a particular and strict injunction laid upon them by the higher powers, (which I do not suppose is the case,) it is absurd to suppose they would interfere."

The Calcutta John Bull in Aug. 1825, attempted to palliate these evils." We feel at all times a satisfaction in being enabled to vindicate the Native, and particularly the Brahminical character, from the charges so often thrown upon it, as disfigured by all that is dishonest, selfish, and cruel; but we withhold not our assent to the assertion, that there is much to lament over, after all that has been exaggerated has been