r man of good caste made to experience the bitter sense of
degradation which falls to the lot of a gentleman who, from poverty and
misfortune, has fallen out of his original class into another far below
him. The Indian may descend into the most humble spheres, but if he
attends to the regulations of his caste he is always a member of it, and
his feelings of self-respect are maintained by the fact that, however
poor, it is quite possible that his daughter may be married by a man of
wealth and position. But in this country, where a man has gone a long way
down the hill, when he has descended--as many gentlemen especially do in
our colonies--into the lower ranks of life, he loses all connection with
people who are of his own rank by birth. I do not, of course, mean to
allege that this want of caste feeling is to be lamented with us, but I am
merely stating facts which seem to me to show the number of ways in which
this much-reviled caste system can be proved to have compensating
advantages which tend to counterbalance the drawbacks of the situation.

Before concluding this chapter, it may be useful to make a few remarks as
to the way in which caste laws act as regards the social condition of
people who have by wealth raised themselves above the general average of
their order; and I shall at the same time notice a few instances that
have fallen within my observation as to the way in which caste laws of
the most stringent nature are occasionally set aside by universal consent.

The old idea we entertained of caste was that, to use the words of
Tennent, "each class is stationed between certain walls of separation,
which are impassable by the purest virtue or the most conspicuous merit;"
or that, to come to more recent times, and to use the words of the late
Mr. Wilson, in his speech before leaving for India, "in India you see
people tied down by caste, and, whatever their talents or exertions may
be, they cannot rise." Now the history of many families that have risen to
eminence entirely belies this assertion, and the evidences are so numerous
that I need not weary the reader by quoting them. But one instance I may
perhaps mention, as the circumstances seem to me somewhat extraordinary,
and a reference to them here may induce some one to make more particular
inquiries in the locality alluded to. Buchanan notices that "in Bhagulpore
there were certain families who, from having adopted a pure life, had
within the memory of man r