Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-11-16

cattle are drinking their fill and men
and women are bathing. which is /
common sight, for there are no stan /
1ards Of morality here.
Are you wondering what kind OF /
funerals there are here? We have
been describing the living and yet, |
the rate Of mortality is very high. |
On the other hand, so is the birth
rate. But l started to tell you about
funerals. I have seen several kinds. /
When in Bombay recently. we met
a Parsee funeral Only men attend
ed this one. They were all dress
ed in white. The men who carried
the bier or stretcher, were dressed
in white and had their feet and legs
bound with white. strips of cloth. The
body was wrapped in white-it was a
man-and a sheet was thrown across
the stretcher. The procession, for
there were about two dozen men &C
companying the body, and they We're
on the way to the Tower of Silence.
After reaching here, the body would
be placed on the top of the tower
where large vuItures have been await
ing fresh prey, and they would swoop
down upon it and in less than twenty
minutes the flesh would be eaten off
and the blood and bones drop through
the iron grating into the tower below
How different is that of another
funeral that l saw here lately in ia
balpur. I heard a dreadful shouting
and noise, and looking around, I
saw funeral procession coming down
the street. It was a woman this time
for the body was bound in red, like
a mummy and tied on to the bier or
crude bed; men carried it and as
they stumbled along carrying it, the
body would wabble from side to side,
as if it would roll off any minute.
A lot of women were walking beside
it and they would pick up a handful
of dirt and with an unearthly shrek
would throw it on to the body. The
two men in front carrying it would
boiler Ram the name of their god
and the two in the back would shout
Ram all the way. They were TAX
ing this body to the cemetery for bu
rial or perhaps to be burned on the
funeral pyre. Then they would go
home and have a big feast lasting
many days.
These are not very bright pictures,
are they?, but there are so many
dreadful sights and scenes in India,
that makes your blood curdle in your
veins and your heart turn sick. l
thought l saw poverty and cripples
in America. but here it is terrible,
for along with their beggarliness and
poverty, they have palsy and leprosy
and filth and rags and their bodies
are. emaciated and twisted out of
shape and rather than appeal to one,
they have the opposite effect, that of
responsiveness and disgust Mark
Twain said that Constantinople
would take the first place in the world
for crippled beggars. I think India
is not far behind that A large ma,
jority of beggars or of the beggar
''caste" and because their GRANDPA,
theirs fathers before them for genera
tons are, and have been earning their
livelihood by begging, so do they, and
all they say is What can | do?"
They seem to travel in colonies. Of
ten when going down to the "Sudder'
or market, I see them in groups of
twenty and thirty and such a looking
outfit of humanity 1t is disgrace.
full!
There is only one thing that can
and DOES change all these condi-
tions and that is Christianity
Wherever the Gospel of Jesus Christ
goes, is preached and accepted, peo-
pie mend their ways and it is mar
Velous how individuals, families and
villages change in appearance and in
social life. Idols are banished and
a church is built and a school-house
is constructed Then, is it not worth
while to labor here for the enlighten-
ment of these people physically,
mentally and above all, spiritually
that these people may come out OF
their darkness and walk in the golri-
Gus light and liberty of the Gospel
of Christ?
MRS. G. C. HERMANN.