fluence upon the morals and general condition of this people. Without entering at large into their nature, the author wishes to conclude this volume with a few observations.

The early marriages of the Hindoos claim our first attention. Admitting that many well-founded objections may be made to deferring this union too long, still nature seems to require, that the parties should be old enough to nourish, educate, and govern their offspring, which can hardly be the case, where marriages are contracted at the age of twelve or fourteen. To these premature marriages we are undoubtedly to attribute the general appearance of old age in the persons of Hindoo women before they have reached even the meridian of life. Another more serious objection to this custom, arises from the number of persons left in a widowed state before the consummation of the marriage; for, after the performance of the ceremony, the girl, being in many cases too young, remains with her father for one or two years, and there perhaps becomes a widow,-and as widows are prohibited from marriage, she is almost invariably drawn into forbidden paths. I am not prepared to speak to the probable number of these infant widows, but am assured, by unsuspected, because unsuspecting, witnesses, that they are very numerous.

To this unfeeling custom is to be added another, still more barbarous, and which falls upon the whole body of females, that of denying them even the least portion of education; the most direful calamities are denounced against the woman who shall dare to aspire to the dangerous pre-eminence of being able to read and write. Not a single female seminary exists among the Hindoos;

and possibly not twenty females, blest with the common rudiments of even Hindoo learning, are to be found among as many millions. How greatly must a nation suffer from this barbarous system, which dooms one half of the immortal beings it contains to a state of brutal ignorance!

This deficiency in the education and information of females not only prevents their becoming agreeable companions to their husbands, but renders them incapable of forming the minds of their children, and of giving them that instruction which lays the foundation of future excellence: by which tender offices, European mothers become greater benefactors to the age in which they live, than all the learned men with which a country can be blessed.

To this we might add, that from the education of the other sex are excluded even the simplest elements of geography, astronomy, natural history, and every portion of history.-It might be possible, however, by securing the co-operation and influence of learned natives, to prevail upon the masters of native schools to introduce the elementary principles of science, as additions to their present plan of education, were proper books prepared, and promises held out of rewards to such as should send to the Magistrate of the district proofs of proficiency in these parts of elementary knowledge.

The exclusion of females from every public and social circle, is another lamentable blemish in the civil institutions of the Hindoos; for who will deny, that to the company of the fair sex we are to attribute very much of the politeness and urbanity which is found in the manners of modern times amongst European nations?

But the Hindoos not only deny to their females the inestimable benefits of education; even their legislators direct, that they shall be kept in a state of the most complete depression: thus the divine Munoo; " Women have no business with the text of the védů; thus is the law fully settled; having, therefore, no evidence of law, and no knowledge of expiatory texts, sinful women must be as foul as falsehood itself; and this is a fixed rule. Through their passion for men, their mutable temper, their want of settled affection, and their perverse nature, (let them be guarded in this world ever so well) they soon become alienated from their husbands. Munoo allotted to such women a love of their bed, of their seat, and of ornament, impure appetites, wrath, weak flexibility, desire of mischief, and bad conduct. Day and night must women be held by their protectors in a state of dependence."

The permission of polygamy, and the ease with which a man may put away his wife,' must be highly unfavourable to the interests of virtue, and contribute greatly to the universal corruption of the people. It is only necessary for a man to call his wife by the name of mother, and all connubial intercourse is at an end: this is the only bill of divorcement required.

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The Hindoos not only seize many of their widows, and burn them alive: but the perpetual degradation and starva

"A barren wife may be superseded by another in the eighth year; she whose children are all dead, in the tenth she who brings forth only daughters, in the eleventh; she who speaks unkindly, without delay."—Mŭnoo.

A person who may be an occasional visitor, not unfrequently addresses himself in this manner to the females of the family, as a pledge for the purity of his behaviour.

tion to which those widows are reduced whom they permit to live, sinks them below many of the most savage tribes.

Domestic slavery, which is very common in India, however mild, surely demands the reprehension of every individual who has a proper idea of the dignity of human nature. In some parts of India, children are as much an article of sale as goats or poultry.

The division of the whole population into different casts, is prejudicial, in the highest degree, to the general happiness it is not the creation of different orders founded on merit, property, &c. which still leaves all the social and benevolent feelings in unconstrained operation, but the cast has all the effect which the prejudices of the Jews against the Samaritans had: "How is it, that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me who am a woman of Samaria?" If, however, this institution cannot be changed by a summary law, surely, in a case so deeply affecting the happiness of the governed, the whim or enmity of an individual should not be permitted to bring upon a person a disaster worse than death: such a sentence, one would think, should proceed from some regular and acknowledged authority, in consequence of an offence clearly defined and ascertained.

The honours, next to divine, claimed by the bramhŭns, even where the character of the claimant is notoriously infamous and the degradation of three-fourths of the Hindoos, under the name of shōōdrus, may well awaken the compassion of every benevolent individual.-Such are the blemishes in the Social Institutions of this people, operating on the great mass of the population so as to reduce them to the lowest possible state of degradation.

The habitations of the Hindoos are highly unfavourable to health, especially during the wet and cold seasons, as the people have nothing but a thin mat betwixt them and the cold damp earth during the hours of repose. It is very common also to make a large pit by the side of the house, with the earth drawn from which the walls are formed; these pits, being filled with water during the rains, contribute greatly to the unwholesomeness of the dwelling-house. To this we might add, that vast numbers who travel to festivals are obliged to sleep on the bare ground at night, exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. To these circumstances, added to unsubstantial diet, some of the most dangerous diseases of the country are perhaps to be attributed.

The lightness of the Hindoo dress must also add, in the cold season, not only to the misery of the poor, but to the number of the afflicted: the eagerness of the poor to obtain shreds of coarse woollen cloth to cover their heads, and their general dislike of the cold season, prove that they suffer much from the cold.

The imperfection of their medical system, and the ignorance and rapacity of the quacks who bear the character of physicians, greatly adds to the general misery.— It would surely be an act of philanthropy to improve the medical knowledge of the Hindoos: and this might be easily done, by instituting a college at Calcutta, for the instruction of the medical class; and by disseminating, in the native languages, European ideas on the nature of diseases and their remedies, pointing out, at the same time, the absurdities in the Hindoo practice.

Nor can I avoid suggesting, that, while the plan of