nd commercial affairs, and several have shown remarkable
executive ability and judgment. Several of the native states have
been ruled by women again and again, and the Rannee of Sikkim
is to-day one of the most influential persons in India, although
she has never been outside of the town in which she lives.

An American lady told me of a remarkable interview she recently
had with the granddaughter of Tipu, the native chief who, in
the latter part of the eighteenth century, gave the English the
hardest struggle they ever had in India. He was finally overcome
and slain, and his territory is now under English rule, but his
family were allowed a generous pension and have since lived in
state with high-sounding titles. His granddaughter lives in a
splendid palace in southern India, which she inherited from her
father, and is now 86 years old. She cannot read or write, but
is a women of extraordinary intelligence and wide knowledge of
affairs, yet she has never been outside of the walls that surround
her residence; she has never crossed the threshold of the palace
or entered the garden that surrounds it since she was a child,
and 90 per cent of her time, day and night, has been spent in
the room in which she was born. Yet this woman, with a title
and great wealth, is perfectly contented with her situation.
She considers it entirely appropriate, and thinks that all the
women in the world ought to live in the same way.

The influence she and other women of old-fashioned ideas and
the conservative classes have is the chief obstacle to progress,
for they are much more conservative than the men, and much more
bigoted in their ideas. She does not believe that respectable
women ought to go to school; she does not consider it necessary
for them to read or write, and thinks that all women should devote
themselves to the affairs of their households and bear children,
duties which do not require any education. The missionaries who
work in the zenanas, or harems, of India tell me that the prejudice
and resistance they are compelled to overcome is much stronger
and more intolerant among women than among men, for the former
have never had an opportunity to see the outside of their homes;
have never come in contact with foreigners and modern ideas,
and are perfectly satisfied with their condition. They testify
that Hindu wives as a rule are mere household drudges, and, with
very rare exceptions, are patterns of chastity, industry and
co