bliss in another world. But what is there to justify the Christian ruler who looks coolly on while deeds are perpetrated, which he knows to be equally abhorrent to God and man?

On such a subject there should be only one question asked: In what manner can this horrid practice be most speedily, safely, and effectually abolished? We use the word " safely," but must at the same time observe, that no trivial or ordinary danger would induce a great nation to tolerate the existence of such enormities in its dominions. Its first thought should be the necessity of wiping off the foul stigma; and the next, the expediency of taking every proper precaution to encounter boldly the consequences, whatever they might be. But, in a good cause, it should not start back at every shadow of alarm that crossed its path; exclaiming, like the sluggard, "there is a lion in the way." What excuse, then, shall we offer for the Government of British India in conniving at these abominations, while the most experienced persons in the country assure us they may at once be put an end to with perfect safety and facility? Such, in fact, are the assurances contained in the documents lately printed by Parliament; and although volumes upon volumes of similar evidence have already been laid before the public, more than enough to have set the matter at rest, an examination of this cannot be superfluous, while there are still some hearts (but those, unfortunately, of the ruling few,) shut against conviction.

Among the authorities against the practice it is highly satisfactory to be able to quote that of one of the most distinguished natives of India, who has risen so superior to the common prejudices of his countrymen, as to enter the lists boldly against them in the fair field of discussion. In a work, published by Rammohun Roy in 1818,2 and then extensively circulated in the native language in those parts of the country where the practice of widow-burning is most prevalent, this learned Brahmin and ardent philanthropist has shown that the practice is not enjoined by the sacred books and lawgivers, which the Hindoos hold in highest reverence, but, on the contrary, repugnant to the fundamental doctrines and genuine principles of their faith. This position was of course warmly disputed by some advocates of female-immolation; but their arguments were refuted, and the point successfully established against them. We cannot enter into the particulars of this Brahminical controversy, which was conducted with a degree of subtlety and acuteness that would probably interest only theologians. The result, however, is highly important, as showing the very slender grounds which even the records of superstition furnish in support of a practice so contrary to reason. The author first appeals to the laws against suicide, which is forbidden by every shaster and race of men. He thus throws on his opponents the onus of proving that a suttee is excepted from the universal canon against self-destruction. He then refers to the rules laid down

2 Conference between an Advocate and an Opponent of the Practice of Burning Widows alive. Calcutta, 1818.

by their sacred lawgiver, Munoo, whose authority is paramount to all others; and who ordered that widows should live as ascetics, and thus merit final beatitude. Against this, the advocates of concremation bring forward the testimony of certain inferior authorities, Hareet and Ungeica, who strongly recommend widows to ascend the funeralpile, in order to attain an immense period of celestial bliss. In the papers before us, the advantages promised for it are summed up at page 198:

The woman who thus purifies herself, by passing through the fire, is, say they,-1st. To become equal to Urronduttee, wife of the Rushee Vahishta, who is fixed in the heavens as a constellation by the side of her husband, translated as one of the stars of Ursa Major.-2d. To be great among the inhabitants of heaven.-3d. To live in happiness with her husband for so many heavenly years as she has hairs on her body, which are computed at three crores and a half, or thirty-five millions; a day of heaven, moreover, being equal to one mortal year. -4th. To have this enjoyment for fourteen indrees, (above three hundred millions of mortal years).-5th. To cleanse from sin her relations.-6th. To atone for her husband if he has injured a Brahmin or a friend.-7th. To be inseparable from her husband.-8th. To be rendered fit for absorption.-And 9th. To change her sex.

Not only are these apocryphal doctrines incompatible with the inviolable precepts of Munoo, who prescribes to the widow a life of ascetecism, but they are opposed to the general spirit of the Veds. For, however vast in duration the enjoyment in heaven, promised as the reward of cremation, it is held to be immeasurably inferior to the state of eternal beatitude or absorption which is the reward of a holy life, spent in good works, performed without the desire of procuring sensual gratification. According to the whole scope of the most sacred books of the Hindoos, works without desire of fruition are of the highest possible merit; whereas all rites and ceremonies, to which people are enticed by the hope of obtaining sensual enjoyment even in heaven, are perishable, worthless, and vain, and only followed by fools doomed to endless transmigrations. "Faith in God, (says the sacred text,) which leads to absorption, is one thing; and rites, which have future fruition for their object, another. The man, who, of these two, chooses faith, is blessed; but he, who, for the sake of reward, practises rites, is dashed away from the enjoyment of eternal beatitude."

In short, it appears that the ritual ceremonies of the Hindoo religion were only intended by its authors for those persons who were too gross and ignorant to worship in spirit. They were accordingly enticed by sensual attractions, lest they should otherwise have lived without religion altogether. Those not able to attain the purer and better part, by leading a holy life, were permitted to occupy their minds with the baser substitute of ritual observances. Among the latter, the practice of female-immolation appears to have crept in after this manner: Vishnoo lays down this precept, that "after the death of her husband a woman shall become an ascetic, or ascend the fu

neral-pile." Originally, some thousand years ago, this was probably nothing more than a form of expression, intended to impress strongly on the mind of the widow the indispensable duty of leading a virtuous life, by presenting to her so dreadful an alternative. The writer, who employed this ambiguous language, might confidently trust to nature and reason to interpret it correctly. The widow, to whom the option was presented, might or might not eventually follow the one course, but was placed under no obligation to adopt the other. Perhaps, however, some frantic woman, in the first phrenzy of grief for the loss of her husband, might throw herself upon his funeral-pile, and be consumed before the interposition of friends could save her. This heroic proof of devoted affection would be extolled till she was raised to the rank of a goddess and fixed among the stars. So glorious an example would naturally excite others to imitate it, till by degrees it grew up into a custom, and the ambiguous phraseology of Vishnoo was then interpreted as a religious sanction of the deed. Subsequent commentators, following the fanatical spirit of their age, heaped on it the most extravagant praises; and the body of the people, kept in darkness by the Brahmins, regarded it as a positive duty. But, fortunately, the ascendancy of priestcraft has been broken down by successive revolutions and invasions; and one of the most learned of the sacred order has himself turned against them, and done much to open the eyes of the multitude to their delusions. He has shown them that female-immolation is not a positive duty, and that the extravagant praises of it, and the promise of reward in the salvation of the woman's and her husband's progenitors, &c., are, according to the genuine principles of their own faith, mere lures held out to the ignorant. He adds this conclusive argument, addressing the advocate of concremation: "If, in defiance of all the shasters, you maintain that such promises of reward are to be understood literally, and not merely as incitements, still there can be no occasion for so harsh a sacrifice, so painful to mind and body, as burning a person to death in order to save their lines of progenitors; for, by making an offering of one ripe plantain to Shivu, or a single flower of kurubeer either to Shivu or Vishnoo, thirty millions of lines of progenitors may be saved"!!!

Even admitting, however, these shasters, or modern religious books of apocryphal authority, (which have corrupted the purer principles of the ancients Veds,) the worst of them do not sanction female-immolation, as now practised in British India. For, according to them, the Hindoo ought to "enter the flaming pile," and perform the sacrifice in a manner entirely spontaneous and voluntary. Whereas now she is tied down, or built into the pile before it is kindled; so that when the fire is applied she cannot escape, but must perish, however much she struggle and pray for deliverance from this dreadful death. There has not appeared among the Hindoos any lawgiver, or any book of superstition, so atrocious as to sanction this infamous practice now suffered to exist under British rulers, and which is only paralleled by the bloody deeds of the fathers of the Inquisition. These religionists of the West have, indeed, acted on the principle of forcibly subjecting

their victims to slow and lingering tortures, as a punishment for their errors of opinion. But the Hindoo legislators, even of the worst class, have not gone farther than permitting their followers to immolate themselves under the delusive notion of seeking their own happiness. The very worst of them, we repeat, (for it is a fact that should not be forgotten,) have not sanctioned anything like force or compulsion being used on the unhappy victim, which the British rulers of India now suffer to be practised openly, in the face of day, at the very capital of their empire!

The report before us, which has been laid before Parliament, is in this respect entirely false and deceptive. It is there asserted, that the sacrifices were "voluntary ;" that the widow was burnt" of her own accord;" of "her own free accord;" or, to make it stronger still," of her own free will and accord;" and this falsehood is repeated over and over, without qualification, more than a dozen of times in every page. (pp. 42, 43, 46, 47, 49, &c.) Now, what is the fact, which these reporters know well, who disguise the enormity with such fallacious colouring? The widow is built into or fixed down upon the pile by means of weights, ropes, and levers, so as to be cut off from that retreat which her own superstition, dark and bloody as it is, has mercifully left open to her. The shasters have prescribed the rites by which, if she please to draw back, she may be restored to her family and caste, and her broken vow expiated. But this door of escape so provided, when nature should shrink back from the dreadful ordeal, the British Government has now suffered to be inhumanly shut against her. To deny this is impossible, as we have conversed with those on the spot who witnessed those horrid spectacles in the neighbourhood of Calcutta in 1822, the period to which this report refers. Their statements were published in the newspapers of that day, then allowed to state the truth, and they remained uncontradicted! But now, when the press is shackled, these infamous murders, without one mitigating circumstance, are represented to the British Parliament in the mild light of simple suicide, performed "voluntarily," with the victim's own free will and "free accord"!!

In fact, under the present system of concealment, the truth would hardly ever be known respecting this and most other things in India, but for the accidental presence of some Europeans, who force these atrocities upon the public attention, and then the authorities cannot avoid noticing them. The most horrid case detailed in these papers was one which occurred at Poonah, in September 1823. The woman, on feeling the torture of the fire, threw herself from the flames, and the European gentlemen present extinguished her burning clothes by plunging her in the water. She complained that the pile, from being badly constructed, consumed her so slowly that she could not endure the pain. When her inhuman relations saw her shrinking back from it, they laid hold of her and placed her upon it by force, and held her there, striking her with logs of wood, till they were driven away by the flames. She then escaped a second time, burst through her murderers, and, to assuage her torture, plunged herself into the

water, her skin being by this time almost entirely scorched off her body. On this, the miscreants tried to drown her, but were prevented, and the wretched woman, having lingered till next day, died in the hospital! But for the accidental presence of several English gentlemen, (Major Taylor, Lieuts. Morley, Apthorpe, Cooke, Swanson, Mr. Lloyd, and others,) who made it known through the newspapers, and attested the facts beyond dispute, this also would have been set down as a voluntary suttee, or pehaps never have been heard of at all. As it was, the evidence of the Native officers, who were present officially, went to prove, in contradiction to these six gentlemen, that the woman's continuance in the fire was perfectly spontaneous, and that she was saved from it against her will! After such a glaring fact, what reliance can be placed on these reports? Who can doubt that the Native officers of our Government are bribed to countenance, and justify by perjury, if necessary, these diabolical scenes? According to the evidence of Major Taylor, (p. 174,) and the other gentlemen above-named, these Native officers were the very persons who encouraged the murderers to proceed, otherwise the deed would not have been accomplished. When the gentlemen would have prevented it, they said it was the custom to burn women when they attempted to escape;" and that the Brahmins" had permission from the collector, Sahib, to carry on the suttee." No one could venture to interrupt a murder committed under the sanction of such high authorities. Thus the presence of the police has a pernicious rather than a beneficial tendency, and the present mode of interference by licensing regular suttees, instead of preventing even irregular ones, is supposed to justify them all. At page 212, it is said, by a person who endeavoured to dissuade the Natives from the practice: "This permission of Government I found that the people most ignorantly and perversely abused; and at every stage of my argument with them, an appeal was made to the order of Government as a vindication of their conduct!! The people construe it into a direct approval of the dreadful act, and for a long time Sircar ka kookim seemed to be a triumphant answer to all my arguments."

Let us see what are the advantages of a regulation having so baneful a tendency. It professes to save widows who are under sixteen years of age, or who are pregnant, or Brahminees who are absent from their husbands at the time of their deaths, and in some few other cases; which, all put together, would not save perhaps one suttee in ten. For the sake of this one, the other nine receive a legal sanction strongly strengthening the practice, merely a little circumscribed. But these rules, which pretend to narrow the evil, are at the same time allowed to be violated with complete impunity. The perpetrators of the atrocious murder before mentioned at Poonah were tried and acquitted; because the shasters, or native law interpreters, declared that such deeds were customary. "The acts of which the court had found the prisoners guilty, (say they,) one of obstructing the egress from the fire, and the other of attempting to drown the suttee, are not mentioned in the shaster as crimes, therefore there can be no punishment"!