we have every right
to do, that this statement is universally true, it is evident that the
social separation maintained by caste has been of incalculable advantage.
On the other hand, however, a number of disadvantages have been indicated
by various writers; but only one of them seems to me at all worthy of
serious attention. It has been asserted that this segregation has impeded
advancement, that it has prevented the Indians learning as much from us as
they otherwise might, and that it has impeded the mainspring of all
advancement--education. Here, I apprehend, the argument against caste, as
far as rural populations are concerned, utterly fails, and, in a province
contiguous to my own, a most signal instance to the contrary can be
pointed to. Few people have more proudly segregated themselves than the
Coorgs; nowhere is the chastity of women more jealously guarded; and yet
they were the first people in India who desired and petitioned for female
education. And how, then, can it be for one moment asserted that the
tendency of caste is to check the progress of the people?

Having thus glanced at some of the effects of caste institutions as they
affect the rural population, we will now consider caste as it affects the
people of the towns. Following, then, the same order, and directing our
attention to the same points selected for consideration when treating of
the rural classes, let us ask how far caste has operated with the
townspeople as regards the connection of the sexes and the use of alcohol.
And here we shall find that the subject may be dismissed in almost a
single sentence; for caste laws, as regards these points, can never act as
a moral restraint, because the possibility of enforcing them cannot and
does not exist. Nor need I waste time in proving that people in towns,
whether in India, or any other part of the world, may readily do things
which could never escape the prying eyes of a country society.

Then, as regards the segregation from foreigners, it is evident that we
need employ little time, for such of the town populations as have
maintained a fair state of morality amid the evils of large cities, are
not likely to be materially affected by the bad habits and customs of the
white races; and as for those who have never led a steady life, it would
not much matter with whom they mixed. But caste not only brings with it no
good as far as the town population is concerned, but its continuance is
fraught with a