The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1900-04-21
INDIA's PECULIAR PEOPLE.
This Account Says the Bicycle Haa
Nearly Emancipnted the Parsi
Women.

The most peculiar people of India
are the Parsis Tor "Parsees," mean.
ing "Persians"), who feed their dead
to the vultures upon the Towers OF
Silence. They fed to India from Persia
when that land fell into the hands OF
the Arabs 10 centuries ago. Their
men are the first very singular per-
SONS the traveller sees on board the
ship which takes him to India, their
singularity consisting in their long
sallow faces and large eyes, their
shiny, t-leather-looking, tubular
hats and their long and ugly COATS
They are most numerous in Bombay,
but one meets them in other cities
on Bombay side" and in Madras and
Calcutta on the other shore. They
are the richest natives of India, and
have made and still make their money
in trade.
: They are the only Indians who as
a body admire and cultivate western
progressive ideas, who treat their
women fairly well ((according to our
idens), and who permit their widows
to marry again. Their first rule OF
life is to practice benevolence, and
no people do this more literally. They
maintain nearly two score charitable
institutions in Bombay alone. They
are the only people in the world who
do not smoke, and this is because they
will not trife with fire, which is
sacred in their belief They never
spit, and they will not in any way
contaminate the earth or water or
defile the trees and flowers. That is
why they destroy their dead without !
burning the bodies.
They have no beggars among
them; they are monogamists; they
are not caste-ridden (or rotted), like
the Hindoos, for they acknowledge
but two classes the priests and the
people. They keep New Year day, not
only as a religious fete day, but,
much as we do, as day for general
visiting Their women are not i'm
prisoned with their servants or other
wise degraded, but may be met any
where and everywhere to the same ex-
tent as English women in India. So
often nre these women comely, and
50 beautifully are they clad-in such
soft and exquisitely colored silks
that, as one writer says, "they appear
IS houris floating about the earth in
silk balloons, with ballasting of
lnklets, necklaces, earrings and jewel
"" 1t is no more than fair Of the
7arsi men to let this be as it is, for
hey are the ugliest men that crawl
lpon this globe.
An English lady advised me to go
md see the rich Parsi young women
iding bicycles on the road beside the
ga at four o'clock Of any afternoon. ]
What an idea! The bicycle has SO
evolutionized young womanhood in
England that men who return there /
fter a short absence cannot credit {
heir sense as they note the change
n the maidens and their home gov
rnment. What will it door not do t
in India? Truly that oddest-looking
oy has worked as much Of the
hange in this swift-booted century
$ many of our most important inven-
ions. 1t has proved steed which ,
,aps the highest bars of prejudice, !
nns away with the deepest-rooted
onventions-even outpaces the plans
{ women for their own emsncipa-
on. l try to fancy what it may do
/ India, but, after all, it has only
w thousands of Parsis upon whom
} work.-Harper's Magazine.