Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-02-01
THE CURSE OF INDIA
CASTE, WHICH FIXES THE STATOs
 OF EVERY HiNOOO.

However Unclean, I'm Which He
 Was Born-Neither Wealth Nor suc-
 cess Affects the Caste of Any One.
 In the fixed scalesof descent in India some classes are merely inferior, while some are "unclean" or "untouchabl ble, T but from whatsoever class a man be born fin he has no escape but death Children born in an "unclean" caste remain "unclean;" children born in an inferior caste remain as their fathers were. Nothing that they can do can in the slightest degree change their situation. They were born ''unclean;'' their ancestors were "unclean" their descendants will be "unclean" till the end of the chapter.
 To give a few illustrations from many, a weaver Is less ''unclean" than carpenter, carpenter is above a house cleaner, house cleaner is above street cleaner and street cleaner is above pariah or no caste man. Every trade or occupation has its exact place, arbitrarily fixed, in the scale of degra- dalton.
 Above all the men that labor with their hands in whatsoever way are the tradesmen and shopkeepers, also with subdivisions into classes; above the trsdesmen Is the useless and now almost idle warrior class; above the warriors is the Brahman or priestly class, and with these grand divisions the structure of the system Is com plete.
 Wealth or material situation or sue cess has nothing to do with the caste of any man. You may hire for your cook or valet a Brahman of the purest strain serene who for weeks before you en- gagged him may have been on the verge of starvation The meager beggar to whom you toss aims in the road may be of very high caste. The well fed groom, resplendent in gorgeous livery. flashing by on a carriage that covers the beggar with dust. is very likely of a caste mile below the beggar. Time no more than effort can break down these walls of division. One of the wealthiest and most distinguished fam ilies in Calcutta, the famous Tagore family. lost caste about two centuries ago. Members of this family have re- ceived honor from the government, have conferred great benefits upon city and country and have been noted for their numerous charities and benefac- tions. One exerted himself all his life to further native education. Another helped to endow Calcutta university All are enormously rich, and all bear enviable regulations for goodness, hon esty and philanthropy. But the wall of caste has never fallen for them. They are still hated and avoided by their countrymen exactly as they were at the beginning of their exclusion. In the streets of Calcutta Is many a ragged artisan that would not sit on the same bench with Tagore or touch the end of his robe.
 Pain, suffering, penury, even death Itself, is nothing to the Hindoo com pared with the loss of caste. Many a Hindoo that in the old days would yield nothing to the most fiendish tor lures quickly surrendered his secrets when threatened with something that would contaminate him-a piece of cowskin, perhaps, or a glass of water that had been touched by parlah. In. l suppose, thousands of cases persons that have hopelessly lost their caste have abandoned their homes and wan dered miserably along the roads until death overlook them. Thousands of others have thrown themselves into the Ganges or deliberately starved
 Three Brahman girls who had been degraded by Mussulman went before a judge to demand vengeance and when the judge declined to interfere killed themselves in the courtroom.
 At town called Buj Buj widow lost caste by falling in love with a man beneath her. As loss of caste by one member of the family degrades the others also, her eldest son imine- diately swallowed poison and died, and his remaining brethren fled the country.
 A husband shares a wife's degrada- ton. A wife goes down the steps with a husband. For more than 100 years a Brahman family of Santipur has been outcaste because one member fell in love with the daughter of shoe maker. Charles Edward Russell in Cosmopolitan Magazine.