to modern attack. This, doubtless, is the
reason why orthodox Hindus are so vehement in their opposition to any
and all endeavour to remove the many disabilities and cruelties which
the marriage regulations of the land inflict upon Hindu women. There
is no land under the sun whose weaker sex suffer more from marital
legislation than India; and yet the people can do nothing practically
to remedy the crying evils of the same, simply because the mighty
engine of caste is arrayed against them. Its perpetuity is linked
closely with the resistance of all efforts at reform.

Next in importance to the connubial is the convivial legislation of
caste. It is the business of every member of a caste to conserve the
purity of his _gens_ by eating only with his fellow-castemen. Under no
circumstance can he inter-dine with those of a caste below his own.
The dictates of caste in this matter are sometimes beyond
understanding. Not only must a man eat with those of his own
connection; he must be very scrupulous as to the source of the
articles which he is about to eat; he must know who handled them, and
especially who cooked them. Some articles of food, such as fruit, are
not subject to pollution; while others, preeminently water, are to be
very carefully guarded against the polluting touch of the lower
castes. The writer has entered a railway car and accidentally touched
a Brahman's water-pot under the seat, whereupon the disgusted owner
seized the vessel and immediately poured out of the car window all its
contents. It has been truly said that that monster of cruelty, Nana
Sahib of Cawnpore, was able, without any violation of caste rules, to
massacre many innocent English women and children at the time of the
great Mutiny; but to drink a cup of water out of the hand of one of
those tender victims of his treachery and rage would have been a
mortal sin against caste, such as could be atoned for only in future
births and by the fiery tortures of hell! The rationale of this
interdiction is doubtless the desire to preserve the purity of caste
blood. As food becomes a part of the body, and, as the Hindu thinks,
of the life, it is imperative that all the members of a caste shall
eat only the same kind of food, and also that which has not been
subjected to the ceremonially polluting touch of outsiders.

This urgency is increased by the fact that different castes proscribe
different articles of diet. The _Sivar_, so-called, are strict
vegetar