diseased and aged animals:  but that is a result of religious superstition, not of real sympathy, for the same Brahman who is afraid to bring a curse upon his soul by killing an animal “will beat his domestic animals most cruelly, and starve and torture them in many ways, thus exhibiting his lack of kindness.”  And the women fare infinitely worse than the animals.  The wealthiest are perpetually confined in rooms without table or chairs, without a carpet on the mud floor or picture on the mud walls—­and this in a country where fabulous sums are spent on fine architecture.  All girl babies are neglected, or dosed with opium if they cry; the mother’s milk—­which an animal would give to them—­being reserved for their brothers, though these brothers be already several years old.  Unless a girl is married before her twelfth year she is considered a disgrace to the family, is stripped of all her finery and compelled to do the drudgery of her fathers household, receiving

“kicks and abuses from any and all its members, and often upon the slightest provocation.  Should she fall ill, no physician is consulted and no effort is made to restore her health or to prolong life.”  “The expression of utter hopelessness, despair, and misery” on such a girl’s face “beggars description.”

Nor are matters any better for those who get married.  Not only are they bestowed in infancy on any male—­from an infant boy to an old man with many wives—­whom the father can secure[266]—­but the daughter-in-law becomes “a drudge and slave in her husband’s home.”  One of her tasks is to grind wheat between two great stones.  “This is very arduous labor, and the slight little women sometimes faint away while engaged in the task”, yet by a satanic refinement of cruelty they are compelled to sing a grinding song while the work lasts and never stop, on penalty of being beaten.  And though they prepare all the food for the family and serve the others, they get only what is left—­which often is nothing at all, and many literally starve to death.  No wonder these poor creatures—­be they little girls or women—­all wear “the same look of hopeless despair and wretchedness,” making an impression on the mind more pitiable than any disease.  The writer had among her patients some who tried by the most agonizing of deaths—­voluntary starvation—­to escape their misery.

CONTEMPT IN PLACE OF LOVE

No one can read these revelations without agreeing with the writer that “the Hindu is of all people the most cowardly and the most cruel,” and that he cannot know what real love of any kind is.  The Abbe Dubois, who lived many years among the Hindoos, wearing their clothes and adopting their customs so far as they did not conflict with his Christian conscience, wrote (I., 51) that

“the affection and attachment between brothers and sisters, never very ardent, almost entirely disappears as soon as they are married.  After that event, they scarcely ever meet, unless it be to quarrel.”

Ramabai Sarasvati thinks that loving couples can be found in India, but Dubois, applying the European standard, declared (I., 21, 302-303):