CHAPTER VI.

EFFECTS OF IDOLATRY.

THE GENERAL EFFECTS OF IDOLATRY DEPLORABLE-FEMALE DEGRADATION-THE PREVALENCE OF INFANTICIDE-THE SUTTEE -DESCRIPTION OF ONE-ABOLISHED BY LAW-GREATER EFFORTS REQUIRED TO ANNIHILATE SUCH ENORMITIES-FEMALE EXERTIONS GREATLY REQUIRED THE SOCIETY FOR SENDING OUT FEMALES TO SUPERINTEND SCHOOLS.

SAD is the character of heathenism, and very deplorable are the prospects of its votaries. Their distance from God; their degradation; their prostration to dumb idols of wood and of stone, their services rendered to diverse lusts and pleasures; their strong delusions to believe a lie; their superstitions and abominable idolatries; and their exposure to the wrath and the condemnation of the Almighty; all are calculated to fill us with pity and compassion for their state, and to lead us to stretch forth the arm of deliverance for their rescue. if there be one part of this system more cruel and diabolical than another, and which bears more the impress of him who has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning, it is the bearing which it has upon the female part of the community. Nothing

But

FEMALE DEGRADATION.

77

can be more evident, than that the demons who established this system intended to support the strong in their mirth, their revelries, and their debaucheries, while they determined to trample the weak and the timid and the helpless in the dust.

As soon, therefore, as a Hindoo female has entered into existence, it is to be frowned upon by her parents merely on account of her sex. Her whole life is a series of insults and of disgrace. In the days of her childhood, she is made the drudge of the family, and every one thinks he has a right to despise her. If she is betrothed to an individual who is to become her future husband, she is sold like a slave to a man who loves her not and who cares for her not. Should her intended happen to die before the marriage be consummated, then she is doomed to perpetual widowhood-that is to perpetual infamy. In case he should survive, and she should enter the state of wedlock, it is to repair to the house of her mother-in-law where she is scolded, and buffeted, and treated almost like a beast of burden. Let her be hungry, she is obliged to wait till her master is satisfied. Should she fall into an error, there is no correction but an appeal to the lash. When they undertake a journey, she is not suffered to walk by the side of her husband; she must come up behind him, bearing the burden, as well as the heat of the day. Every step is to her a

step of degradation. Her very sex has disqualified her for giving her testimony in a court of justice,

78

FEMALE DEGRADATION.

and since no widow is there permitted to marry again, it is no extraordinary thing to see children of ten or twelve years of age, married to individuals of fifty or of sixty.

But these are mere trifles, and we might pass them by in silence, were it not that effects more diabolical remain behind. Speak you of the curse which in England rests upon the woman, it is a double-it is a ten-fold curse that rests upon her in Hindoosthan. For many a day, our ears were pained and our hearts were sickened with the tales of woe which reported to us the baseness of slavery, in heaping so many atrocities upon the female slaves in the West Indies; but what are these when compared with the calamities and the degradation which, according to law, and according to their mythology, fall to the lot of the daughters of India?

Infanticide, it is well known, still prevails to a very horrible extent throughout Hindoosthan. Among the Nairs upon the western coast; in Malwa and Rajapootan; in Oude and the northern provinces, it is impossible to calculate the amount of murder which is perpetrated upon female offspring. A few years ago, a gentleman belonging to the Bengal service was deputed by the government to make a tour through the northern and independent kingdoms, and to calculate the amount of evil which might arise from this source; and the report which he presented upon the subject, was sufficient to har

row up the feelings of the most hardened man, and to rend the heart of the most profligate female. In all the provinces through which he passed, the principal chiefs, not only acknowledged that this horrid rite existed among them, but that it was rooted in the affections of the people; that, with their own hands, they had murdered many of their own children, and that they knew their neighbours had destroyed many of theirs.

The following is a list of the proportions which were found in many of the villages between male and female children under twelve years of age: -There were found in Barilahori in eighty-five families, fifty-one boys, only fourteen girls; Chotilahori in fifty-eight families, sixty-six boys, and only fourteen girls; Garoli in seventy-nine familes seventy-nine boys and only twelve girls; Gurrumgarh in twelve families ten boys and only two girls; Manshargarh in seventy-one families fifty-eight boys and only four girls; Paprula in fifteen families twenty-two boys and no girls whatever.

Now, if the calculation be correct which shows that female births in our world, are equal, if they are not superior in number to those of the male; what an amount of murder is here committed upon female children! Oh! the vile and cruel parents, with what vengeance will the God of mercy find "in the skirts of their garments, the blood of the souls of these poor innocents?"

In riding through one of these villages, accom

panied by his friend, this gentleman was clamourously attacked by a female who demanded of him to desist from making any further attempts to put down this horrible custom. As he turned to reason with her upon the subject, and show her the impropriety of her conduct, "No," said she, "it has existed from time immemorial; it has the support and sanction of the shasters; there are predictions upon record which show that female births must be calamitous to our tribe; and I demand of you, therefore, to desist from making any further attempts to put it down." Oh! what an infamous system must that be which turns mothers into monsters, which deprives them of all those feelings and affections which the brute creation never fail to exercise, and which robs so many hundreds and thousands of infants of life and of happiness? Such deeds of atrocity and blood are attributed, I am aware, to their high regard to caste, and to the superior rank which they imagine they sustain and which will not suffer them to give their daughters in marriage to those whom they regard as inferior in rank to themselves. But no; it is the systemit is this accursed system which has established this caste-it is this caste which generates this prideit is this pride which begets this cruelty-it is this cruelty which steels the heart against compassion and which leads these parents to imbrue their hands in the blood of their female offspring.

No wonder that a system which is thus esta