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    trouble and perplexity to ultimate ruin and dome * - attA that he cannot turn ? a \ vay feom the light of truth , and violate sacred and human responsibilities , with impunity . As to the danger of interference , I confess I cannot see , as it has been practised in one case , why it should be so dangerous in smother . Infanticide was prohibited , though I suppdse it was as much a custom as the burning of widows ; and what were the terrible consequences that ensued ? Here the

    government did its duty at once openly , honourably , and effectually , and the best results have followed ; the children are saved ' , and the natural affections and sympathies of the mothers are preserved . Here Christianity may commence hs labour , for there are natural feelings to work upon . Why not preserve ; them from another crime not less shocking , and possibly more destructive ? The children have been saved for the mothers , and why not also save the mothers for the children ? Life is a doubtful gift to a child when

    deprived of the blessing of a parent ' s care . If we have exerted authority in the one case without losing it , surely it ought to be fried in the other . It has never yet been judiciously , resolutely , and perseveringly tried ; if it had , it would , in all probability , have succeeded , and England would have been released from a disgraceful situation . The good sense and right feeling of the English public is not to be blinded ; it will judge for itself ; and sooner or later it will make itself heard . The humane , the enlightened , and the

    religious an this country beseech their representatives abroad to take this subject into consideration , and if higher influence does not awaken them , if Jhe voice of justice and the warnings of Christianity are unheard , to listen at least to the call of their country , and to do nothing to ally her with superstition and shame ! At the same time they would reeomiriend temperate measures ,

    knowing that all reformations have succeeded the best that have been carried © n in this spirit . But temperance need not involve indecision ; and the last reports from India are such , that every well-wisher of the interests of human nature and of the fame and honour of his country , must be aware that the present system will lead to future evils of a very complicated nature , and that he ought to raise his voice aloud to implore its repeal .

    E . J . [ A writer in Blackwood ' s Magazine has given a very good summary view of the state of this important question , which we transcribe as a supplement to our Correspondent ' s remarks . Ep . ] " The papers published by the House of Commons , on the burning of the Indian widows , are a striking evidence of the affected delicacy which men can assume in matters which do not touch their own interests . Within the

    five years ending with 1824 , there have been no less than—will it be believed ?—two thousand nine hundred and eighty-one murders of wretched women , committed in the face of day , by the most horrible of all tortures , in the presence of the British authorities , and , fox the most part , in the very centre of our power , the presidency of Bengal !

    ' The plea on which these horrors have been sanctioned , ( for to permit them under the circumstances is to sanction them , and , ia fact , the British authorities are in general present , ) ia the delicacy of interfering with the prejudices of the people . But if the question were one of tribute , we have no delicacy on record . It must offend the Hindoo population as much to be ( compelled to pay a tax > or to be shot , as ' to see a miserable woman pnohi-

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    $ 7 < $ Burning of Hindoo Wtdows .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1828, page 370, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2561/page/10/