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LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN.

MDCCCXXVI.

Mills, Jowett and Mills, (late Bensley,) Bolt Court.

THE ORIENTAL HERALD.

No. 25.-JANUARY 1826.-VOL. 8.

ON THE BURNING OF HINDO0 WIDOWS.

Nec minus uxores famâ celebrantur Eoæ:
Non illæ lachrymis,-non femineo ululatu
Fata virum plorant; verum (miserabile dictu)
Conscenduntque rogum, flammâque vorantur eâdem!
Nimirum credunt veterum sic posse maritûm

Ire ipsas comites, tædamque novare sub umbris.

Ir deeply concerns the character of the British nation to come to a just and a speedy decision, as to the possibility or impossibility of abolishing a practice which forms the darkest stain on the reputation of our empire in the East. We shall therefore offer no apology to our readers for again recurring to this important subject; for while every day brings new victims' to the flaming pile, it is the duty of every one, who has the least spark of humanity or regard for the honour of his country, to omit no opportunity of calling upon his countrymen to put a stop to these horrors. Are we alone, of all civilized people, to continue usages that would disgrace the most savage barbarians? While we boast of being the most enlightened and civilized of nations, should we not afford our Indian subjects the benefit of that mental superiority in the exercise of that power which we have usurped over them? It would be some compensation for having deprived them of the power of self-government, if we were to employ our ascendancy to deliver them from the ferocious tyranny of a custom, which their degraded and darkened minds are too weak to shake off. But if we, who are completely beyond the sphere of that spell which binds them to their bloody rites, yet allow them to be practised under the sanction of our supreme authority, do we not incur a deeper share of responsibility than even the deluded wretches themselves, who think that to sacrifice the innocent is a meritorious service? In performing these rites, so revolting to human nature, the infatuated Indian has the consolation of a false conscience, which tells him that, by a momentary pain, he is securing myriads of ages of future

1 According to the last returns there are almost, on an average, two women burnt to death for every day in the year; so that this Tophet of British India may be considered as never extinguished, but continually smoking with human sacrifices!

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