The daily sentinel., 1900-04-14
,NpIA.s PECULIAR PEOPLE.
The Bicycle Has Nearly Emancipated
The ParsI Women.


The ParsI Women.
The most peculiar people of India
are the Parsis (or "Parsees," meaning
"PersiansD, who feed their dead to
the vultures upon the Towers of ST.
lence, says Harpers Magazine. They
fled to India from Persia when that
land fell into the hands of the Arabs
twelve centuries ago. Their men are
the first very singular persons 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, patent
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 ma
tives of India, and have made and still
make their money in trade. They are
the only Indians who, as body, ad-
mire and cultivate western progressive
ideas, who treat their women fairly
well (according to our ideas), and who
permit their widows to marry again.
4ACAl LIE lulc Ol lAAC 10 " PlhSIiS0
benevolence, and no people do this
more literally. They maintain nearly
two-score charitable institutions in
Bombay alone. They are the only peo-
pie in the world who do not smoke,
and this is because they will not trif1e
with fire, which is sacred in their be-
lief. They never expectorate 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 Cor rooted, like the Hin
docs, 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 imprisoned with their
servants or otherwise degraded, but
may be met anywhere and everywhere
to the same extent as English women
in India. So often are these women
comely, and SO beautifully are they
clad-in such soft and eXquisitely col
ored silks-that, as one writer says:
''They appear as houris floating about
the earth in silk balloons, with bal
lasting of anklets, necklaces. earrings
and jewelry." 1t is nc more than fair
Of the Parsi men to let this be as 1t
is, for they are the ugliest men that
crawl upon this globe. An English
lady advised me to go and see the rich
Parsi young women riding bicycles on
the road beside the sea at o'clock of
any afternoon. What an ideal. The
bicycle has SO revolutionized young
womanhood in England that men who
return there after a short absence can
not credit their senses as they note
the change in the maidens and their
home government. What will it do
or not do-in India? Truly that mod
est-looking toy has worked as much OF
the change in this swift-booted CEN
tury as many of our important inven-
tions. 1t has proved steed which
leaps the highest bars OF prejudice,
runs away with the deepest-rooted con-
ventions-even outpaces the plans OF
women for their own emancipation.
try to fancy what it may do in India,
but, after all, 1t has only few thou
sands of ParAs upon whom to work.
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