e servants. For
instance, the caste barber and washerman are commanded to serve him
and his no longer. The severity of this interdiction cannot possibly
be realized by westerners, who are not always dependent upon these
functionaries. But in India every one depends upon the barber and
washerman for their service even more than a westerner does upon the
service of the butcher or the doctor. The Hindu never dreams of the
possibility of doing for himself the duties performed by these caste
servants for him. Moreover, the barbers and washermen of other castes
would, under no circumstance, be allowed to render him the service
thus prohibited to him by his own caste.

Add again to these inflictions the further one of complete isolation
in times of domestic bereavement. Should a member of his family die,
not one of the caste members is permitted to help in the last sacred
rites for the dead. Even at that moment, when one would expect the icy
barriers to melt away, the heart of caste is as hard and its severity
as rigid as ever. The helplessness of a family under these
circumstances is, to any one who is not a slave to the whole accursed
system, most pitiful and heartrending.

Another caste penalty which has received undue public prominence of
late is called _prayaschitta_, which means atonement. It is usually
applied as punishment to those who have had the temerity to cross the
ocean for foreign travel, business, or study. More correctly, it is
rather a process of cleansing and ceremonial rehabilitation than an
act of punishment. The exclusiveness of caste delighted in calling all
foreigners Mlechhas, which, though perhaps not as vigorous a term as
the Chinese sobriquet, "black devils," connoted, and still connotes,
to the caste Hindu, "unclean wretches," contact with whom brings
ceremonial pollution and sin. He who crossed the ocean would
necessarily be debased by these defiling ones and would be, as a
matter of course, engulfed in the pollutions of their life! To
prohibit travel, which necessarily involved such sin and degradation,
became therefore the concern of the ancient lawmakers of India. Hence
the _prayaschitta_, under which the educated community of India chafe
so much at the present time. For many of the best and most promising
youth of India travel abroad or reside temporarily in England, with a
view to perfecting their educational training so as to qualify
themselves for highest positions of usefulness in the ho