Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/46

Rh contracts. As an unhappy consequence of these prejudices, female infanticide has been very largely practised among all Rajpoot clans and families of India. Soon after the cession of the province of Benares to us, when Mr. Jonathan Duncan was its superintendent, infanticide was found by him to be a common custom, and his inquiries disclosed a fearful annual destruction of female infants. His endeavours to suppress it were unremitting while he remamed there, and were renewed with great zeal, philanthropy, and persistence, in the northern part of the Bombay presidency, of which he became governor. It is only within the last few years that it has been possible to check this shocking crime: and it is to be feared that it continues in many localities, notwithstanding the measures which have been taken for its prevention. Commencing with the earliest endeavours of Mr. Duncan in Bengal, the efforts of political officers have in turn been directed to the whole of the states of Rajpootana proper, and to those of Kach, Kattiawar, and Guzerat. In most of these, the local chiefs and princes have seconded their efforts with every indication of goodmll in regard to the success of the measure; and by the punishment of offenders, and the encom-agement of those who have preserved their female children, as well as by reducing the expenses of marriages and the fees of Bhats or bards which were before exorbitant and extortionate—have materially assisted the progress of this reform. There is, perhaps, no social question connected with the British administration of India, which affords more interest in its details of progress, and in which success has been so chequered with failure, as that of the suppression of female infanticide. No criminality, either by law or usage, had ever been attached to it; and by the greater portion of the Rajpoot classes, rich and poor alike, the destruction of female children was considered necessary, nay, unavoidable, in order to preserve the honour and purity of families and their connections. Immediately on the birth of a female infant, it was either smothered in a bowl of milk, or opium was administered, which destroyed the child. We see by the official reports, that while mothers acquiesced in many cases, there were others whose tender maternal instincts resisted the dreadful sentence, and fearful scenes were enacted in the private apartments of Rajpoot ladies, which were ultimately disclosed. It may now be said, however, that in most localities of the British provinces, the destruction of Rajpoot female children has ceased, that the census return shows a fair proportion of girls to boys, and that the difficulties of marriages have been greatly overcome. In native Rajpoot states, the engagements of chiefs and princes with us, and the system of registering female births which has been introduced, have contributed in a large degree to the success of this measure; and thus thousands of lives have been saved, which, under former custom, would have been infallibly sacrificed.

Rajpoots usually affect martial habits and professions only, especially when they leave home. Our regular native army, and the police, contain large