reason, that in widow marriages men will generally marry women and not children, and the wife may be able to hold her own against a wayward or a cruel mother-in-law. There was commendable courage shown, by the Hindoo widow-marriage-party in Bombay, and they deserved more countenance and moral support from the other and especially the European section of the community than they received. The chief object which that party had in view was the release of the widows of the caste from a cruel bondage, not the bondage of permanent widowhood alone, but domestic bondage of a still more cruel kind. If a wife may have her flesh torn by the application of heated irons why should a widow - an object not of pity but of scorn to the Hindoo – expect gentler treatment when an electric mother-in-law had the vials of her wrath charged to the full ? It was the Hindoo widow-marriage-party that was looked to abolish the institution of child marriage, and that party was not zealously supported. They were left to right the battle unaided by Europeans of influence and power, and we know of no more favourable opportunity in the history of India in which this aid and influence could have been more beneficially exercised. The leaders of this movement have been reviled, ex-communicated, disinherited, and disowned, and can we wonder that the movement is in abeyance and its supporters crest-fallen ? And can we wonder that the leaders of the opposition have taken courage, and that domestic cruelty and torture reign rampant? Can we wonder that the life of many a tender guileless Hindoo wife is a thousand-fold more pitiable and deplorable than life of a convicted felon.
"It is of little use discussing individual cases of domestic torture : from the very nature of the relationship subsisting between the torturers and their victims and the conditions of Hindoo domestic life it is almost impossible to prove a single case in its completeness and hideousness. The law of the land may be strong but the law of caste completely renders nugatory than law of the land. Meanwhile infant marriage is a great institution, including within its circumference every thing that can debase womankind and bring the sex down to the level of the brute. If it is true that man is the natural helpmate and protector of the woman how can that office be best fulfilled in this country ? The days of chivalry have gone, but if they were not gone the wrongs of woman cannot be redressed if they are unknown. But we want no chivalry in this iron age. Let it but be known that brutal cruelty to women and tender aged girls is practised which imunity in this land, and that Hindoo who seeks the aid of English law to help him to secure his rights from his fellowman in the morning exercises the power of domestic tyrant in the evening and helps his wife to burn the
