The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-11 00:00:00

what smoke so foul as its breath ! what pitch so
defiling as its touch'. It is au Oriental saying,
that a cistern of rose water will become impure if
a dog is dropped into it; but a continent of rose
water, with Rebel slavemongers, would be changed
into a vulgar puddle. Imagine, if you please, what-
ever is most disgusting, and this pretended power
is more disgusting still. Naturalists report that the
pike will swallow anything except the toad ; but
this it cannot do ; the experiment has been tried,
and though this fish, in its voracity, always gulps
whatever is thrown to it, yet invariably it spews
this nuisance from its throat. But our slave-
monger pretension is worse than the toad ; and yet
there are foreign nations which, instead of spewing
it forth, are already turning it, like a precious mor-
sel, on the tongue." (Edipus," he goes on to
say, " in the saddest tale of antiquity, weds his own
mother without knowing it ; but England will wed
the slave power with full knowledge that the rela-
tion, if not incestuous, is vile." And the❑ : "The
foul attorneys of the slave-monger power, reeking
with slavery, will have their letters of license as
the ambassadors of slavery to rove from court to
court over foreign carpets, talking, drinking, spit-
ting slavery, and poisoning that air which has
been nobly pronounced too pure for a slave to
breathe."

IIIIVDOO FEMALE CELEBRITIES.*

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

No subject now excites more interest than the
education and position of women, and strange to
say, most, in the oldest and the youngest of nations,
We leave the Hindoo to dispute the Chinaman's
right to the greatest antiquity, accepting the Hin-
doo's claim for our present purpose. Both in India
and in America this has become the question of the
age, and as the position occupied by Hindoo women
is misconceived, we propose briefly to touch upon
the subject discussed in the last number of the Cal-
cutta Review. Those who know India are aware of
the high rank held by that long-established periodi-
cal, and we may observe that it and the Friend of
India, a weekly review, reflect no small credit
on Anglo-Indian literature. The opinion gene-
rally entertained is that Hindoo women are little
better than slaves ; that they are ignorant, and pur-
posely kept so by their masters, degraded into the
position of mere toys, and jealously guarded be-
cause false and lascivious. On the whole these are
mistaken ideas, though circomstances have tended
to give them a colouring of truth. The Zenana
was unknown to the Ilindoo previous t 3 the -can-
quest of the country by the Mahomedans, and it
was to protect their women from violence and in-
sult that it was instituted. Previous to that epoch
Hindoo women were freely allowed to appear in
public, and it is of a prior age that the writer treats,
promising another article for the discussion of
Hindoo Female Celebrities of more modern days.
The tales preserved tend to elucidate the position of
Hindoo women in times otherwise long pist into
o'-‘livion, and it is clear !hat the lama of Menu
regarding women were thei more rigidly ob-
served. Mr. John Stuart Mill and other great
writers have been betrayed into the error of
supposing that Menu a ivocatcd female thraldom,
from the following passage in his code :—" Day and
night must women be held by their protectors in a
state of dependence. Their fathers protect them in
childhood, their husbands protect them in youth,
their sons protect them in old age ; a woman is
never fit for independence." But Menu's laws.
while recognizing the comparative feebleness and
dependence of woman, assert her right not only to
protection, but to consideration, broadly discrimi-
nating between the affairs of life wherein she holds
a place of the highest importance in common with
man. and those from which she is to be excluder.%
These are thus briefly summed up in the code : " A
husband is one person with his wife for all domestic
and religious, not for all civil, purposes ;" and this
was the spirit of the Ilindoo law. It is true that
innovations, many wholly opposed to the spirit of
the lawgiver, have crept in and become sanctified
by long custom. Such, for instance, are the nuptials
of Ilindoo damsels when mere infants, and the gifts
to the fathers, through which their daughters are
sought in marriage. Not only is this latter hatit
opposed to the spirit, but also to the letter of the
code, wherein " a father who knows the law is pro-
hibited from reeeiv:ng a gratuity, however small, for
giving his flan;.:liter in marriage ; since the man
wl o, through avarice, takes a Gratuity for that pur-
pose is a seller of offspring." Try-Iced, Ilindoo maids,
instead of being married as elliidren, as is now the
practice, in .ancient times exercised more than an
ordinary control over their own destiny. Constantly
they were p'ermitted to choose husbands for them-
selves, and it was recognized that this should be
allowed where there were many suitors. A damsel
who waited three years after she had become- mar-
riageable then exercised the right of electing for
herself, a custom wholly opposed to that now
prevailing throughout nearly all the peninsula,
though there are portions of Ilindoostan where
Ilindoo women are allowed great latitude. The
code provides for the protection of the property of
women. " Male relations," it says, " who through
delusion of mind shall take possession of a woman's
property, he it only her carriages or clothes will, for
such offence sink to a region of torment." This is
strongly insisted on, while the rights of the sex in
other respects are also maintained. One is that
L 4 the names of women should he agreeable, soft,
clear, and captivating to the fancy." The Hindoo
girl, therefore, is wronged, whose father gives her a
harsh, disagreeable name, and might sue for da-
mages under Menu's code, which is a right in ad-
vance of anything claimed even in America by the
Women's Rights' Women. " Way must be made
for a man in a wheeled-carriage, or above 90 years
old, or afflicted with disease, or carrying a bundle,
for a woman, for a priest, for a prince, or for a
bridegroom." Polygamy was not formerly prac-
tised as now ; on the contrary it was almost prohi-
bited, individual cases only being named wherein
it was permitted. Menu discouraged the marriage
of widows, but did not absolutely forbid it, and the
young woman whose husband had died was left to
a solitary life so dreary as to make death prefer-
able. From this, Suttee may have sprung, coupled
with the selfishness of those not unwilling to be
rid of a burden. There is no mentiowof it in the
code, and it was so opposed to the spirit of Menu
that nothing would more shock his ghost, nor could
one be in a situation better adapted for a sensa-
tional photograph, if Mutnler with his apparatus
were present at this cruel practice to catch the spirit
likeness of Menu. How the immolation of widows
on the funeral pyres of their husbands origi-
nated is unknown, but Dio(lorus describes an in-
stance which occurred 300 years 8.C., and he accounts
for the practice as arising from the degrading con-
dition to which a woman who outlived her husband
was condemned. We are little interested in the
traditions of celebrated Hindoo women coming
from a mythical period, and although from these
very old stories much knowledge may be extracted
of the customs then prevailing, the incidents could
only amuss Hindoos and children. It is to one of
these Hindoo women, however, that the world is
said to owe chess. Mundadari, a Tamulian Prin-
cess, was the consort of Ravana, King of Lunka or
Ceylon, who, being much addicted to war, she
taxed her ingenuity to devise the game for his
amusement. Though many nations claim the in-
vention, Sir William Jones awards it to the Hindoos,
and they to Mundadari, and it so accurately de-
scribes the national mode of warfare, from the
most ancient period, that the game itself furnishes
no slight evidence. The castles are there termed the
boats, and the reviewer considers it ridiculous to in-
troduce boats into the manoeuvres of warfare in an
inland p'ain ; but this we do not se a for boats are
certain to take no unimportant part in a campaign,
ancient or modern, near the sea or far in the coun-
try, and we think the rebellion in America
Nithout
fur-
nished a better proof of this than ever did a wer on
the Gauges. The incidents involved
whollyvedinone of these
stories are too good to be passed
notice. Bikya, daughter of the Minister of the
Rajah of Kotua al, played therein a cunning, and
wa arc iaa.liae. 1 to lai:eve, a ndt unwomanly 1,.;.f.
Th:. Rajah had an only daughter, to whom the