Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-03-22
INDIA'S PECULIAR PEOPLE.
This Account Says the Bicycle Has
Nearly Emancipated 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 fled to India from Persia
when that land fell into the hands OF
the Arabs IL centuries ago. Their
men are the first very singular per.
sons the traveller sees on board the
ship which takes him to India, their
sin@ularity consisting in their long
sallow faces and large eyes, their
shiny, Notwithstanding, 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
il 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
ideas). 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
viii 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
defle 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 Tor rottedD. 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 a 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 eN-
tent as English women in India. So
often are these women comely, and
so beautifully are they clad-in such
soft and exquisitely colored silks
that. as one writer says, they appear
as houris floating about the earth in
silk balloons, with a ballasting of
anklets, necklaces, earrings and jewel
ry" 1t is no more than fair of the
Parsi men to let this be as it 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 four o'clock of any afternoon.
What an idea! The bicycle has so
revolutionized young womanhood in
England that men who return there
after short absence cannot credit
their sense as they note the change
in the maidens and their home gov
eminent. What will it door not do
in India? Truly that oddest-looking
toy has worked as much of the
change in this swift-booted century
as many of our most important inven-
tions. 1t has proved steed which
leaps the highest bars of prejudice.
runs AWAY with the deepest-rooted
conventions-even outpaces the plans
of women for their own emancipa-
ton. 1 try to fancy what it may do
in India, but, after all, it has only a
few thousands of Parsis upon whom
to work.-Harper's Magazine.