The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 2,1§b8

where thrown into confnsion, while hordes of robbers,
driven into crime by the distresses of the times, traversed
every part of the land, perpetrating the most cruel
atrec ties.

The following, however, is the most singular
instance we have met with of the national preju-
dice which Mr. Framjee brings to the study of
ancient history :

History (he says) fully proves that the ancestors of the
Parsers not only dined with their mothers, wives, and
sisters, but took their ladies out with them to feasts. At
dinner, ehid to have been given by Amyntas, King of
Macedon, to the Persian ambassador, at his Court, the
latter, in acknowledgmept of some toast, is said to have
expre.se•l his grief that no ladies were present, as was the
custom in his own country, for without their fair compa-
nions the happiness of the company could not be said to be
complete.
_ _ _

If we remember rightly the story in ITerodotus,
these same Persians, when the ladies were intro-
duced, behaved themselves so indecently that the
King's son Alexander had to assassinate them
all. From whence perhaps it ought rather to be
inferred that they were not accustomed to sit at
table with women above the rank of dancing-
girls.
Though Mr. Framjee's estimate of events which
took place in ancient times is coloured by party
spirit, he takes the greatest pains to be unpre-
judiced in discussing the questions of the day.
According to his representation the politics of the
I'arsecs are of the most advanced description.
Whatever is illiberal and old-fashioned they dis-
card with contempt ; English principles, English
manners, whatever may remind them of Europe,
they receive with the utmost enthusiasm.
Indeed, our only fear is lest their Anglomania
should carry them too far and degenerate into
affectation, so eager do they seem to abandon
whatever is distinctive in their manners. For
instance, we can hardly read the following obser-
vations with all the satisfaction with which they
appear to have been penned :

Such are the ceremonies attendant upon a Parsee mar-
riage at the present dnv, but it may be as well to notice
that increased intercourse with Europeans has considerably
modified the nature cf the festival from what it once was.
It has lost in a great measure those purely Eastern fea-
tures which formerly characterized ; and although it
may, consequently, be less showy and splendid, it is more
in consonance with that enlightenment which the Parsees
have displayed under Western influence. The long pro-
cessions, made noisy by horrible earsplitting native music,
the fancifully caparisoned steeds, the boys bubited as
European officers, and the little girls as English ladies,
together with the silver-plated palankeens, and all the
semi-barbarous ornaments, have latterly almost entirely
disappeared before the effects of increased civilization,
which, chile giving a more sombre tone to the marriage
ceremonials, has imbued them with an infinitely more
rational air.

While we ourselves at home are trying hard
" apprendre d'kre yifs," we can hardly see with
satisfaction our well-affected dependants seeking
to win our approbation by the abandonment of
all the gay and sprightly ceremonial with which
their fathers taught them to embellish life.
Irrational it may be; why not, so long as it does
not pretend to he rational ? It may not be in good
taste ; to an artistic eye it may be the reverse of
beautiful. This is a good reason for improving
it, but a poor reason for abandoning it. But we
have not space here to go through the whole
justification of joy and of the untaught instinctive
symbols of joy—symbols, the worth of which lies
not so much in their intrinsic beauty as in their
spontaneousness and appropriateness, but which
do not fail, like other productions of nature, to
assume a beauty of their own to the eye that can
discern it. We hope this is at last understood
in England, in theory at least, however much our
practice may lag behind it; and we hope that
those nations whose practice has hitherto been
beyond ours in this respect will not suffer them-
selves to be corrupted by our bad example. It is
upon their commercial genius that the Parsecs
pride themselves ; they leave war to the brainless
Mahommedan. Their merchants are found in
every city of India; they followed the British
army to Cabul. They have mercantile houses in
t'hina ; about three years ago Coma and Co.
opened one in London. They boast of their
commercial morality; written agreements are
unknown among them. They own the finest
houses in Bombay ; they have been prime movers
in the establishment of banks. They are ship-
owners; they are highly successful railway con-
tractors. They form twenty per cent. of the
population of llombay ; there are in that town
upwards of 60,000 Parsee merchants, bankers,
and brokers. The pride of the sect:l:is Sir