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

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS.

Professor Goldwin Smith addressed a distin-
guished assembly, embracing all the members of
the Cornell Univehity at Ithaca, New York, May
19, in reply to Senator Sumner's speech. The
opening portion of his address, wherein he reviewed
national antipathies, and those interested in war
was of great interest; but when he placed the
English view before his American hearers he went
over ground, however novel to them, thoroughly
familiar in England. Considered as the remarks
of an Englishman to an American audience, the
speech was well conceived and expressed. Nearly
all the strong points were touched on quite suffi-
ciently to give his bearers another view of this much-
vexed question. But, to an Englishman here, they
appear weak when contrasted with the strong wine to
which he is accustomed in the discussion of this sub-
ject. We need not follow him along a path now
so familiar to our readers; but, to do him justice,
be has redeemed the error of his letter to the Bee-
hire, which has found its way back to America,
creating there no little astonishment. The Ameri-
can papers contrast their action in at once placing
this speech in full before their readers with that of
the English press in suppressing the oration to which
it was a reply. Mr. Smith gives these extracts from a
celebrated speech of Senator Sumner on Foreign
Relations, delivered during the war, which he
asserts was the prototype of that be then answered,
to show the Senator's frame of mind on the subject
of slavery. "Not to blast is to bless," says the Confe-
deration of the Slave States ; he terms " a Alai:plum
whose fellowship can have nothing
but the filthiness of evil," "a mighty house of
ill-
fame," " an Ishmael," " a brood of harpies defiling
all whi.;ll it cannot steal," " a one-eyed Cyclops of
Nations," " a soulless monster of Frankenstein," a
wretc')ed ciea'ion of mental science without God."
" Who," he prouels, " can welcome such a crea-
tion ? who can consJrt with it ? There is something
loathsome in the idea. There is contamination even
in the thought. If you live with the lame, says
the ancient provefb, you will learn to limp ; if you
keep in the kitchen, you will smell of smoke ; if
you toub pitch you will be defiled. But what lame-
ness so -pitiful as that of this pretended Power !

•what smoke so foul as its breath what pit Cll so
defiling as its touch It is au Oriental saying,
that a cistern o. 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 powc..r
is more disgusting still. Naturalists report that the
pike will swallow anything except th..! 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 then : " 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."

lILVDOO FEMALE CELEBRITIES.*

(Front 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 Ilin-
! doe'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 circumstances have tended
to give them a colouring of truth. The Zenana
was unknown to the Hindoo pv,vioua to the con-
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
Ilindoo women in times otherwise long past into
oblivion, and it is clear that the laws of Menu
regarding women were then more rigidly ob-
served. Mr. John Stuart Mill and other great
writers have been betrayed into the error of
supposing that Menu a 'vented female thraldom,
from the following passage in his code :—" Day and
ni,,ht Inns`, 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 Venn'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 exclude'.
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 Hindoo 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 Hindoo damsels when mere infants, and the gifts
to the fathers, through which their daughters are
sought in marriage. Not only is this latter habit
opposed to the spirit, but also to the letter of the
code, wherein " a father who knows the law is pro-
hibited from receiving a gratuity, however small, for
giving his daughter in marriage ; since the man
wto, through avarice, takes a gratuity for that pur-
pose is a seller of offspring." Indeed, Hindoo maids,
instead of being married as children, as is now the
practice, in ancient times exercised more than an
ordinary control over their own destiny. Constantly
they were permitted 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 Hindoostan where
Hindoo 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, be 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
o 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 he made
for a man in a wheeled carriage, or ahoire 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 mention of 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 Diodorus describes an in-
stance which occurred 300 yearsn.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 amuse Hindoos and children. It is to one of
these Ilindoo 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 plain ; bat thi3 we do not se for boats are
certain to take no unimportant part in a catnpaign,
ancient or modern, near the sea or far in the court-
try, and we think the rebellion in America fur-
nished a better proof of this than ever did a w.ir on
the Ganges. The incidents involved in one of these
sto
ries are too good to be passed wholly without
notice. Biky a, daughter of the Minister of the
Rajah wal, played therein a cunning, and
weare inclined to believe, a not unwomanly part.
of i ti
Th,, Rajah had an only daughter, to whom the

Minister desired to wed his son, and thus seeur
for his fami)7 the principality ; but astrology Lail
foretold that a handsome young man name:l Chan-
dra-Hasa would become the viler. The Minister
not feeling inclined to accept the decree of the stars
took active measures to defeat it, plotting in vain
against Chandra-llaqt's He, but on finding that
he could not accomplish his destruction, he sent lota
with a letter to his son, wherein was written,
" Chandra-Hasa is my enemy ; give him poison..
Making a long journey, the weary bearer of his
own death-warrant lay down by a tank and fell
asleep, where Bikya, straying alone in the direction,
found him, with the letter falling from his breast.
Attracted by the handsome young man, and curious
to know what the letter contained, she took it up,
and was surprised to see that the address was t°
her brother, in the handwriting of her father.
Opening it she read the contents, and determined
to defeat the design. By taking away a siegie
letter she turned "enemy" into " friend;" the word
signifying poison is bika, aed by inserting " y " it
became Bikya, and the sentence then ran—" Chan'
dra-Hasa is my friend ; give him Bikya.” She
then sealed it with her father's seal, replaced
it in the youth's bosom, and left him to awake and
deliver the missive, which he did, and the order
being imperative, the astonished sou had the nuptials
performed that night. Such stories serve to esta-
blish the facts that Hindoo ladies were allowed 3
greater latitude than now, that they were able to
read and write, and it appears certain that they
were also instructed in music and dancing, accom-
plishments now confined to nautch girls. The
brother of one of these heroines, Uttara, is described
as being welcomed back from a warlike tour by 3
procession of beautiful damsels, and the Rani had her
cup of wine, for which, as a matter of course, she sent
to the house of her brother. We hope the reviewer
will deal when treating of celebrated Hind°
women of later times with the Raui of Jhausi, the
bravest, and most inspired of the Hindoos, with dis-
like to the British raj. It is reported of her that
during the mutiny, when her ammunition failed,
she fired bags of pice (copper coin) at the cneultl
and she is said to have been killed by a charge (3'
British dragoons, whom she courageously encoun-
tered at the head of her horsemen in the open field.
In three different epochs have three women of three
different nations ruled over the destinies of Indlaci
The first was Prem-Divi (Hindoo) ; the second
Sultana Rizia (Mahommedan) ; and the third Vic"
toria (Christian) ; and the fact that a llinde°
woman did sit on the throne of Delhi speaks volumes
for the position of the sex in Hindoostan in ancient
days; showing that the Hind'io women of the present
have been robbed of the rights they once poss..esect