of her lot, and this prospect before her in case of a refusal, a widow of sensibility and reflection should feel almost distracted, and prefer a speedy death to the unknown horrors of her future destiny.

There is also another fact which ought not to be overlooked. Certain brahmuns perform the ceremonies observed at the funeral pile on which a widow sacrifices herself. These brahmuns receive even from the most indigent families something on a widow's actually devoting herself to the flames; and from some wealthy families as much as two hundred rupees on these occasions. While, then, it is the obvious interest of these brahmuns that the wife should be induced to destroy herself when the husband dies, they have access to every family, and are acquainted with the age and circumstances of the various inhabitants, especially of those who are wealthy. That they should constantly recommend this dreadful practice, and prepare the female mind for the perpetration of the deed, particularly in cases where the husband is aged or sickly, is the natural effect of their caring for their own support. But these brahmuns, as they are in some cases the family priests, are in habits of familiar acquaintance with the husband's relatives, and have much to expect from them. In what dreadful circumstances then must a helpless female stand, who has for her spiritual adviser on the subject of her living or dying, a man who has every kindness to expect from those who are presumptive heirs to the property of her infant son, or who may merely dread her devolving on them as a burden to the end of life! Nor is it necessary to suppose that brahmuns in forwarding the views of an infirm husband's relatives, and preparing the mind of the wife for self-destruction, should consider themselves as actual auxiliaries in the murder of a fellow-creature. They of course must be supposed to be as much habituated to the employment, from which they derive their gain, as a slave-captain formerly was to kidnapping and selling slaves, of whom probably a third died in the middle passage through ill treatment and want of air. They may possibly regard the act as meritorious, rather than cruel, and admire those relatives who thus wish to raise the reputation of their families, through the death of their brother's widow. And in this case even the distant prospect of a large remuneration, may urge them so to work on the mind of a simple, artless female, whose age is perhaps under twenty, that at the moment of the husband's death, no persuasions shall be needed to induce her to make the fatal declaration-beyond the insiduous dissuasions of her husband's relatives, increasing her desire by affectedly doubting her resolution, and really inflaming her vanity. Were these relatives, however, sincere in these dissuasions, they have it always in their power to prevent the act, as both the preparation of the funeral pile, and all cost and expenses of the widow's destruction, devolve wholly on them, without the exception of the fee to the brahmun who thus assists in the actual murder of the young, the amiable, and the defenceless.

That other feelings than those of unconquerable affection for a husband, often twice or thrice their own age, or than any inspired by a steady belief in those wonderful tales of conjugal felicity to be

enjoyed with him for boundless ages, influence the minds of the greater part of these unhappy victims, might be shewn by numerous instances wherein widows have been prevented by accident from burning. Of this kind is an instance which occurred a few months ago, in a village about four miles from Serampore.

A man of the writer cast, at Kona-nugura, about four miles south of Serampore, between twenty and thirty years of age, died in December last, leaving two wives, one about thirteen years of age and the other about sixteen. Both of these, in the usual manner, expressed their wish to burn themselves with their deceased husband. The eldest of them being pregnant, however, was advised to delay till after her confinement, and then to burn herself with something be longing to her husband. The youngest, not being prevented, was burned with the corpse, of her husband. The eldest solemnly engag ed to burn herself a month after her confinement till which period she was taken home by her own parents. She at first expressed such displeasure at being thus denied the opportunity of burning herself, as to beat herself severely and possibly accelerate the time of her confinement; but, at the expiration of the month after that period, when called upon to fulfil her engagement, she had considered the subject more at leisure, and being at home in the house of her own parents, she positively refused to destroy herself; nor could all the appeals made to her feelings, all the threats and reproaches poured upon her, alter her resolution in the least degree. She was in the house of her parents, and completely independent of her husband's relatives; and as every thing which could be done was of course confined to verbal exertion, she determined to remain with her parents, where she continues till this day.

As this instance is by no means a solitary one, we have little reason to conclude that the desire to destroy themselves is more firmly fixed in the minds of multitudes besides, than it was in the mind of this young woman: the apparent wish to die which is thus factitiously produced, is in most instances the mere effect of circumstances created by others; and therefore no more exculpatory of the guilt of deliberate murder, than would be a man's intoxicating another with wine, or any deleterious drug, so as to deprive him of the power of resistance, that he might secure his destruction. Such then are the circumstances in which the most amiable and virtuous among the Hindoo women are constantly placed; circumstances are already hinted, by no means confined to the sacred tribe, but extended to the lowest casts among the Hindoos, as often as there is credulity enough to render the delusion sufficiently strong to become fatal.

If these circumstances be carefully weighed, it will appear that this inhuman practice has not even those pretensions to its being a religious ceremony, which most people have been ready to imagine. That it has no foundation in any peculiar command given in the shastras we have already had occasion to shew in our strictures on that valuable tract on the subject ascribed to Rama-mohuna-raya, which was reviewed in a former number. Nor indeed is there in the ceremony itself any thing that marks it as being peculiarly of a religious nature.

The woman devotes herself to no deity; her professed object is merely that of rejoining her husband in a state of happiness. It is true that certain brahmuns officiate and obtain a sum of money on the occasion. But this is not peculiar to this ceremony: in almost every concern of life brahmuns are called in, and there are few which are not to them a source of profit.

Nor is this practice by any means prevalent in other parts of Hindoostan in the degree in which it now exists in Bengal. Of this the following letter contains a proof, which was sent us on the subject some months ago, by a gentleman who has been some years resident in Hindoostan.

"I cannot forbear expressing my pleasure at seeing that the Editors of the Friend of India' have taken up the cause of humanity in calling the attention of Government and of the public towards the abolishment of Suttees. People in Bengal are not generally aware how unfrequent is this most barbarous custom in the upper provinces of Hindoostan. In eight years, mostly spent in this quarter, no Suttee has come to my knowledge; and my moonshee (a kshutriya), a man of about forty-five, informs me that he never saw but one, and that was at Lucknow; the victim, a widow of a Cashmerian pundit. There can be no doubt but a law of prevention would neither create surprise nor resistance in these provinces, and were it enacted for them only, it would lead to its being established hereafter in Bengal, should the Government hesitate as to the propriety of making it more general at present. Feeling you have done little towards a more glorious work until the minds of the natives be prepared by some change from their present insensibility and cruelty, I have written more at length than I intended, and beg your excuse for it."

This letter furnishes a pretty strong proof, that the cruel practice has in it more of the nature of a civil, than a religious ceremony. It is a well-known fact, that in Bengal, at the present time, the Hindoos are far less tenacious of their religious tenets and ceremonies than in almost any other part of India; that they are far less careful respecting caste, and that the brahmuns in numerous instances are guilty of actions which, according to the strictness of the law respecting caste, would degrade them completely. We have heard it mentioned as the opinion of Hindoos well acquainted with the subject, that were the law of caste enforced in all its strictness, there would be few families around who would be wholly safe. Yet the number of widows who are thus put to death scarcely at all decreases. It seems indeed to increase in the vicinity of the metropolis, where the greatest laxness is to be witnessed relative to things wholly religious. How can we account for this vast disparity in the number of these murders perpetrated in Hindoostan, and in the lower parts of Bengal, without having recource to other motives than those of a religious nature? But the moment we recur to other reasons for the continuation of this murderous custom, they present themselves on every side. The want of feeling manifested by the natives to their own countrymen when in danger of death by accident, as in a storm, or even when actually drowning, is known to most Europeans. The venality

with which they are charged relative to oaths, is not without founda tion; yet these must often involve life itself, as well as character and property. That they should then be peculiarly tender of the life of a brother's widow, who must at the best be a burden on them to the end of life, and who may bring disgrace on the family, is a thing scarcely to be expected. And when we consider the circumstances in which the widow is placed, together with that want of regard for human life, which is both the effect of their religious system and the characteristic of the nation, instead of being surprised that so many widows are every year cruelly destroyed, we shall rather wonder that any escape these fatal lures, when the husband's relatives so evidently encourage the practice.

Such then is the real state of the case respecting the burning of widows, which so many have been almost ready to tolerate under the idea of its being a most sacred religious ceremony, with which it would be sacrilege to interfere. With almost as much justice might the Slave Trade have been regarded with veneration, as a sacred relict of antiquity handed down from the earliest ages;-or the practice of killing all prisoners taken in war;-or that of sacrificing hecatombs of men at the funeral of a favourite chief;—or the conduct of certain banditti in this country, who, (from time immemorial no doubt) are said to seize men and immolate them at the shrine of their imagined deity. It has scarcely enough of religious ceremony connected with it to varnish it over with the name of religion. It is generally accompanied with the most unfeeling jocularity. Instead of its being a deed of mere superstition, there is reason to fear that it is too often the offspring of the meanest self-interest. It has not even the features of religion. It is not binding on all. It falls only on one sex, while the deed is perpetrated by the other, whom it can never reach and of that sex it affects only one description of persons, and with these it is professedly optional: were it a religious ceremony however, it would be binding on all. But this class, while generally the most amiable and virtuous, are the most defenceless, are left as fully in the power of relatives who do not profess any feeling for them, as the kid when in the paw of the tiger. It is never equally the interest of the husband's relatives that the widow should live, as that she should be burnt to death. With the former there is connected in every case, a certain loss of reputation, and the expenses of maintaining a person to the end of life in whose welfare they feel no kind of interest; with the latter, the full removal of this burden, and a high degree of reputation to their families.

;

So much do these circumstances affect the case, that were second marriages esteemed honourable, and the children born of them permitted to inherit equally with those of a first marriage, a practice sanctioned not merely by the laws of all Christian nations, but even those of Greece and Rome notwithstanding their idolatry, many think, that this alone would gradually extinguish the practice. But is it right, that in a country so richly endowed with the bounties of Providence, the mere question of interest, the loss of a few rupees annually, should be suffered to doom the most amiable, the most virtuous

of our Hindoo subjects, almost daily to the most cruel death in nature; merely because their being uninformed in mind renders them liable to the grossest deceptions, and their being unable to support themselves, renders them dependent? We would intreat all our readers to remember, that murder concealed from public view is murder still; and, that our not actually witnessing the dreadful deed, when we are certain that it is committed, will do little towards exonerating us from guilt.*

SECTION II.

The cruel rite of Suttee not enjoined by the most authoritative of the Hindoo Legislators and opposed to their views of eminent virtue. Force absolutely forbidden by the Shastras, yet generally employed.

A learned native, already well known among our countrymen by his luminous examination of the Hindoo theology and philosophy, has printed and widely circulated a tract in the Bengalee language, the object of which is to dissuade his countrymen from the practice of these horrid rites; and has likewise published a translation of the tract in English. The tract is in the form of a dialogue between an advocate and an opponent of the system. The advocate cites various passages from Ungira, Vyas, Hareet, and the Rig-veda, which enjoin or applaud the practice of self-immolation. Against these passages the opponent produces an extract from Munoo, the great Hindoo legislator, of whom the Veda itself says, that "Whatever Munoo has said is wholesome;" which Vrihusputi corroborates by adding, "Whatever is contrary to the law of Munoo is not commendable." The extract is as follows: "Let a widow emaciate her body, by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and fruits, but let her not, when her lord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man. Let her continue till death, forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules of virtue which have been followed by such women as were devoted to one only husband."

From this passage the opponent infers, that as Munoo directs the widow, after the death of her husband, to pass her whole life as an ascetic, he intended she should remain alive for this purpose; and hence that this direction of Munoo is totally opposed to the directions of the other sages; and that their authority must bend to that of this great legislator. The opponent then adduces, as his next argument, the disesteem in which the generality of the Hindoo sages regard works of merit or demerit, or more properly, works done with the interested motive of gaining future happiness thereby; and to shew that these are not necessary to the attainment of what the Hindoos esteem the highest state of felicity, absorption in Brumhu, he quotes the following passage from the Veda: "By living in the practice of re* Friend of India, (mon. ser.) Vol. ii. Page 322-332.