Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/169

Rh which she claimed the monopoly for herself and the then existing families of dancing-girls. The District Judge dismissed the suit, but the High Court ordered a re-investigation as to the question of the existence of an hereditary office with endowments or emoluments attached to it.*

(g) A girl, aged seventeen, instituted a suit against the trustees of a pagoda. It was alleged that a woman who died some years previously was one of the dancing-women attached to the pagoda, and, as such, entitled to the benefit of one of the temple endowments; that she had taken in adoption the plaintiff, who was accordingly entitled to succeed to her office and the emoluments attached to it; that the plaintiff could not enter on the office until a bottu-tāli had been tied on her in the temple; and that the trustees did not permit this to be done. The prayer of the plaint was that the defendants be compelled to allow the tāli to be tied in the temple in view to the girl performing the dancing service, and enjoying the honours and endowments attached thereto. The Judge dismissed the suit on the ground that the claim was inadmissible, as being in effect a claim by the plaintiff to be enlisted as a public prostitute. † (h) On the death of a prostitute dancing-girl, her adopted niece, belonging to the same class, succeeds to her property, in whatever way it is acquired, in preference to a brother remaining in his caste. The general rule is that the legal relation between a prostitute dancing-girl and her undegraded relations remaining in caste be severed. ‡

(i) A pauper sued his sister for the partition of property valued at Rs. 34,662. The parties belonged to