Page:A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of the District, or Zila, of Dinajpur.djvu/92

80 sidered as totally vile and degraded, and they have little other resource. Parents however make every exertion, and very few girls in Dinajpúr have this excuse for their wantonness. Every prostitute holds out her house as an asylum for the girls who choose to join her, adopts them as her daughters, gives them clothes and ornaments to the utmost of her ability, and expects in return to be supported in her old age; with this view they endeavour, if possible, to purchase children from their parents who are indigent, although this practice is contrary to law. It is however perhaps owing to this, that few children in a state of common mendicity are to be seen, but the number sold in Dinajpúr is very inconsiderable. When the unfortunate women grow somewhat old, without having been able to procure adopted daughters, who might enable them to live in their own houses, they endeavour to procure some Muhammedan who will receive them as concubines (nekas), or they endeavour to join themselves to the fakirs or vaishnov, the two ordinary sets of religious mendicants; and they seldom fail to find some vagrant that will receive them into his company; very few are reduced to common beggary. They seldom acquire that hardened impudence so common in the European women who have departed from the paths of innocence, probably owing to their not being held in such great contempt; for it can scarcely be attributed to a superior mildness in the disposition of the Indian females. Until the age of 32 indeed, they usually put some restraint on their tongues; but after that, they consider themselves as pretty much at liberty, and a large proportion become determined scolds and vixens.

The people, I have said, are charitable; they are remarkably sober, and affectionate and kind to their relations. They are also hospitable to people of their own caste, but to no others; their chief faults seem to be lying, an insatiable rapacity in the higher classes, and a total want of inclination to pay what they owe in the lower, with a strong inclination in all to theft and robbery; in the perpetration of which they are cruel and bloody. Their credulity being a prominent feature, will unavoidably present itself often in the course of my report, and with their other faults may he chiefly attributed to their ignorance, which will be apparent from a view of the state of education.

The first rudiments of education are usually given both by Hindús and Muhammedans in small schools called pathsals, under the tuition of teachers called Guru, who may be of any caste or religion, who is poorly rewarded, who is little respected, and who is quite different from the proper Guru or teacher of religion. There is no public provision for these useful members of society, and they depend entirely on their scholars for a subsistence. In the towns of Dinajpúr and Maldeh, indeed, the average number of scholars to each master may be about 20, and the fees are from 4-8 anas a month, according to the progress the children have made: on an average the fees may be 6 anas each, or 7 Rupees a month for 20 scholars, which in this district is a decent income; but in country places the average number of scholars does not exceed 12, and the fees are from 1-4 anas a month, or on an average 2, so that the total average income is only 1 Rupee 14 annas.