them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: and among all classes of them it might be taken up as a lamentation, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Like prince, like people; the character of the upper classes is for the most part indicative of the general state of society especially in India, where so many have risen from the lowest to the highest stations of influence; for, though there be a caste among the Hindoos which is distinguished as a military, and another as a rajah caste, it is not at all uncommon to find, seated upon the musnud, or performing the duties of the dewan, one from the lowest orders of the Sudra caste. We could point to the throne, and tell the tale of one, who has been numbered among the princes and allies of the British power; who, having been taken from the tasks of a pot-maker caste, to sit among the kings of the earth, has again been set aside as unfit to sway a royal sceptre.

The conduct of native authorities in relation to the claims of woman, whether for the protection of her chastity, the enjoyment of her rights, or the exercise of her legitimate influence, affords her no security for virtue or prospect for moral elevation. Too often forcible possession of her person follows the capricious selection which momentary attachment dictated. Temporary and short-lived indulgence, which imperious and satiated lust required, is attained at an irreparable expense to the violation of virgin modesty, and the disruption of ties which conjugal fidelity deemed sacred and perpetual. And the subsequent rejection of the dishonoured and outcast victim of fickle passion, proclaims to all beneath the ruling class, that the choicest flowers and forms are nursed only to minister to carnal and base appetites; to bloom and be blown under poisonous and pestilent vapours which corruption has engendered; and that the highest style of woman is to be fondled and caressed as a tinselled toy, as a vapid and perishing nosegay; and then to be tossed aside as a withered weed, an unsavoury and decaying herb. The amorous dallying of such men, displayed in their selections for the harem, in their violent intrusions upon the fondest relations of domestic retirement ; or the favoured companions of their polygamous intercourse, with all the heart-burnings and jealous rivalries of their ignorant captives, however bright the love-tale may be made to glitter in the meretricious ornaments of sentimental fancy and oriental poetry, does more to degrade woman and despoil her influence, to brutalize the feelings of the community, than we can easily describe.

Hindostan Proper, where no influence from foreigners has been exerted, is, however, almost wholly destitute of any link which will bind the whole inhabitants together as a community. It is a wide continent, and peopled by myriads of cognate tribes, practising the same rites, worshipping the same gods, and divided into the same castes; yet, generally the bonds of fellowship are limited by the walls of the village or township in which they dwell. Each township enjoys the form, if not also the conveniences of a republican colony-it is a distinct society within itself, and possesses its proper and peculiar establishment of officers and servants, from the higher functionary, the potail, down to the bhat, or bard of the community. Every family has its appropriate occupation, or specific office, traditionally entailed upon it through successive generations. Under this rude form of government, the inhabitants of the several municipalities have lived from time immemorial, and the references or appeals to provincial or imperial authority have been comparatively few. The town lands, often comprising thousands of acres, arable and waste, derived by sunnuth, or leasehold from the crown, through various gradations of subordinate officers, have seldom altered their boundaries or occupants. Sometimes, indeed, they have been injured, and even desolated by war, famine, or disease; yet the same name, the same limits, the same interests, and the same families, have continued for numerous ages. The breaking up and divisions of kingdoms concerned the inhabitants but little, as members of the state. While their own circle remained entire, they cared not to what prince their land was transferred, or to what sovereigns it devolved. Their internal economy endured unchanged-the potail was still the chief inhabitant; and thus it continues the twentieth in descent still acts as the petty judge, the magistrate, and collector of their municipal revenue. This is the picture of all India, if we except the cities, which have become the residence of invading warriors or foreign emigrants; and it seems to warrant the conjecture, that one village had served as the hive from which every swarm had issued, modelled and regulated in the same The idea that every village or township thus constituted is peopled by families, whose individual character and internal policy answer the description already given, will enable the inquisitive reader to analyze truly the relative aspect of each part of such society, and especially of woman in India. Their influence here, low as it certainly is, may yet be reckoned the matrix from which the community derives its character and tendency; and their sufferings and calamities under solitary widowhood, may be deemed the same within every pettah, or native municipality.

manner.

But it is not from native despotism alone, or the unworthy estimate which Hindooism has formed of the weaker sex, that woman in India suffers. To many ills has she been exposed, and sad and dissolute has become the portion of many a daughter of India by the conduct of European invaders. Had the conquerors of India become her colonists, and fixed in it the home of their affections and their prospects; had the years expended in India, as well as the fortunes realized there, been regarded as the property of that country rather than belonging to the native country of the adventurers; the effects would have been otherwise in the experience of Hindoo women. But from the highest in authority to the lowest in rank, Europeans have regarded their residence as an exile, and their connexion with the people as a sojourn, which was to be rendered as unencumbered and irresponsible as possible: and with a selfishness which is base and discreditable indeed, they have not hesitated to employ the softest, and often pleasing children of India, as the handmaids of their pleasure, and the temporary companions of their banishment, who should be cast off whenever expediency made the demand. The many hundred thousand children of such parentage, which have sprung up in India, show upon what terms Britons have intermingled with Hindoo society. Whilst if the parents of such offspring had cherished reciprocal tenderness and fidelity, had lived in the lawful enjoyment of nature's most hallowed affections, few will question but the country-born population would have been far more numerous. The illicit and clandestine intercourse between the parties, either from the degradation brought upon the native woman, or the seeming and occasional deference of her companion to the pride of English family; the uncertainty which hung over the woman's destiny, who had become the temporary associate of the