runs cold to read the narrative of the revolting cruelty that was practised upon this occasion. The story is short, but all too long to be persued with any patience.
A Brahim girl residing in the city of Poona displeases her relatives (by marriage) - her husband, father-in-law, and mother-in-law – on account of an imaginary offence," when these relatives by law, having the girl in their own house and within their power, brand her on several parts of her body in a most cruel manner.' The narrative proceeds – "This of course was considered too lenient a punishment, and the miscreants considered it necessary to increase its severity. After the branding, the girl was tied hands and feet and fastened to a peg in the wall of the house, and kept in that predicament for some time, when she was taken off the peg and placed in a dark room for some time longer, the rope with which she was tied not being of course unfastened. This ordeal which the poor girl underwent lasted for three days." The narrative concludes - The accused parties are persons in affluent circumstances and well connected : facts which certainly tend to aggravate the crime."
"Let us hope for the sake of humanity that this cruelty was not inflicted on a helpless girl, child wife. If there are any depositions taken in this case we shall feel obliged if they can be placed at our desposal. If the narration given by the Deccan Herald is a narrative of facts, the facts cannot be too widely known nor too severely commented upon. The institution of child marriage is detested by even Englishman who knows anything of the domestic horrors that too frequently follow in its train. But how many Englishmen know nothing of the mysteries of Hindoo marriage. A child bride is regarded by Englishmen with feelings of pity : the child is pitied, the husband is pitied, and the parents on both sides are pitied. And when the girl bride is despatched to the home of her future husband to be wife perhaps at the age of twelve years - the Englishman again pities he condition; he cannot understand how she can be a wife at this tender age. Her instincts would make her seek the play-ground to romp, and scamper, and laugh but her education - ah ! her education, her mutlub and her destiny - force her to curb her natural proclivities and evince the modesty, the retirement, the humility, and the debasement of Hindoo matron. And this is all the Englishman usually knows about the institution of child marriage. His pity for a poor helpless child ends just where it should begin. Having seen the young wife enter the house of her husband, all that the Englishman knows about her is that she is domesticated amongst relatives in some kind of way. But the
