The Newark journal., 1902-03-07
ToRruREs OF HINDoos.
Terrible Pu1isams1 or Native fof
 Breaking a Rule of Caste.

jungle adventures in India IS so en- crossing in interest, has written let ter to friend in Carlstadt, N. J., re- garding the mysterious and powerful influence of caste among the natives of India and the tortures of punish ment which they sometimes undergo for infraction of it's rules.
 "There are" he says, "289,0 100000 natives in India. To European (all white men are styled Europeans) there seems to be countless number of castes. The two principal creeds are Hindoo and Mohammedan. The highest Hindoo caste are the Brah- mins. This caste includes the priests and principal oficeholders. Brah- mins are vegetarians and never know the taste of meat. The trades or pro- fessions are the same, each trade hav- ing its separate and distinct caste, and as the caete is hereditary, 1t fol- lows, of course, that the trade must also be.
 "These castes are distinguished by various signs. The Brahmins paint their forehead with red or white paint to denote which God they serve; some others wear string of beads on the right arm, while even the folding of turban is indicative of something.
 .To describe even one-tenth of them would be impossible, as the meaning of the marks is known only to the Hindoos themselves. The Fa- zirs are distinguished by peculiar colored robe they wear, sort of saf- iron yellow. They are about the most grotesque and hideous looking ob- jects have ever seen. A native is not pretty sight at the best of times, but when that man is crowned with head of long, dirty, unkempt hair, and is smothered from head to foot iD wood ashes (as these Fakirs are) he becomes positively repulsive.
 "The power of the priests over the natives is unlimited. Should native be so unfortunate as to lose his caste by eating a prohibited food, by using a vessel or utensil which has in any way come in contact with an infdel or person of another caste, or by sl- lowing an infdel or person ofanother caste 10 use caste vessel for drinking purposes without immediately de- stroying the same, or should he per nit the infdel or person of another caste 10 pass by at meal time so that the shadow touches his food, not to mention some hundreds of other for bidden acts, then the priest fixes the amount of the fine he must pay or punishment he must undergo 10 re- gain his lost caste.
 "Should the offense be beyond pal liation the priest condemns him to be an outcast, oftentimes for life. "The punishment inflicted by these priests upon outcasts is to an outsider incredibly severe, cruel ordeal un- dergone merely for the sake of re- hgion whose visible benefits are nil and whose final reward is promised 10 be absorption into the Divine Es- sence-Brahm (God). Yet among the 240,Oo0,o00 Hindoos there is not one who would refuse to obey and car " out punishment in obedience to the will of his priest for any offense against the Hindoo deities
 q saw one of these unfortunates at l Bareilly. chad been condemned for life to wander on foot throughout Hindoostan, resting only for cer- tain length of time daily, with his arms stretched to their full extent 7 above his head. Day or night, walk ing or at rest, he must forever keep his arms in this position.
 ms does not sound very awful, ) perhaps, but try it for five minutes, and then you will get an idea of what it must be like for life. When I saw him he had been undergoing this tor ture for six years. His hands were T held erect above his head, palms turned inward, the whole of the arms bandaged.
 ''The hands, arms, in fact all the g muscles of the shoulders and arms had ] become paralyzed through being kept r in this position. Even though the de- crees of the priest condemning him to c this punishment were revoked, it n would be impossible for him to bring his arms to their natural position at his side, as the paralysis has turned | them into the yithered stumns of