Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/30

18 persuasions of their next heirs, interested in their destruction, to burn themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands; that others who have been induced by fear to retract a resolution rashly expressed in their first moments of grief, of burning with their deceased husbands, have been forced upon the pile and there bound down with ropes, and pressed with green bamboos until consumed with the flames; that some, after flying from the flame, have been carried back by their relations and burnt to death. All these instances, your petitioners humbly submit, are murders according to every Shastra, as well as to the common sense of all nations.'

The question of Sati had for years been engaging the anxious attention of Government. Here again its sincere desire not to interfere with native customs and observances, more especially in the case of a religious rite, had prevented the Company from taking active steps. From the outset the Company had scrupulously maintained the principle it had adopted of full and complete religious toleration. Yet here was a religious observance which to them was opposed to every sentiment of humanity. It was a difficult position. Sati was undoubtedly a rite sanctioned by the Hinduism of the day, with which according to the principle they had adopted they should not interfere, yet it was impossible for them to stand by and see human life, as they considered it, wantonly sacrificed. It was