[79] The writer in his younger days remembers to have been once taken up on a Kali Poojah night by a gang of infamous drunkards in the very heart of Calcutta. When he was returning home about midnight in company with some of his friends after seeing the támáshá, he being the youngest of the lot had necessarily lagged behind, when to his utter dismay he was suddenly laid hold of by a man who smelt strongly of liquor and carried him hurriedly into an empty house on the roadside. The first shout at the very threshold was,—"here we have got a moori", i. e. a victim; the ruffians, who had their faces covered with clothes, jumped up at the announcement, and one of them accosted him in the following manner—"what money and pice have you got?" The writer replied a few an his pice only. No Rupees? asked another; whereupon they all fell to searching his person and stripped him of all his clothes, which consisted of a dhooty, a chádur and a jamá, and finally bade him go. As a matter of course he was obliged to return home almost in a state of nudity, one of his friends lending him a chádur on the occasion. In these days the introduction of gas light and the posting of constables on the highway have greatly checked such ruffianism.
[80] This idea is strengthened by the opinion of Native medical students, many of whom, it is a matter of regret, are not great advocates of temperance. Natives use liquor not for health but solely for intoxicating purposes. A very successful Native Practitioner to whom not only the writer but many of his respectable friends are under great obligation, not long ago fell a victim to the besetting vice of intemperance, and confessed his guilt like a penitent sinner in his dying moments. His reputation was so great at one time that it was said "patients felt half cured when he entered the room." In the beginning of his brilliant career, he was one of the most staunch advocates of temperance. How frail is human nature!
[81] For an account of the Bamacharee Sect, see note D.
[82] A gift once made to a Brahmin must be continued from year to year till the donor dies; in some cases it is tenable from one generation to another.
[83] Indeed, it has become a byword among the Natives in general that the compound word, "Ram-Rajya," or the empire of Ram is synonymous with a happy dynasty. There existed peace, union and harmony among the people in the infancy of society. Almost every family had its assigned plot of land which they cultivated, and the fruits of which they enjoyed without the incubus of a rack-renting system, because the virgin soil always afforded an abundant harvest. The wants of the people were few and those were easily supplied. In fact there was a complete identity of interests between the rulers and the ruled. The result was universal contentment and happiness. But unhappily the present advanced stage of social organisation has considerably impaired the relation.
[84] When the late Mr. Thomason, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, visited Benares, the far famed city of holy shrines and holy bulls, during this festival, he exclaimed in pious indignation, "what disgusting scenes are enacted and frightful crimes perpetrated in the name of religion by rational beings capable of purer and sublimer enjoyments. Surely the shameless ragamuffins are the fit subjects of a bedlam."
[85] Rajah Kissen Chunder Roy, in the latter end of the 18th century, used to restore persons and families who had forfeited their caste by their laches by recovering from them a heavy fine for which there used to be much higgling. This fine was in addition to the expenses incidental to the ceremony of Prayischittra. Many heads of Dalls or parties of our day follow the same practice.
[86] The non-performance of religious rites does not now, however, entail forfeiture of caste. Hindu society is getting lax in our days.
[87] I am inclined to believe that what the late Nuddea Raja did was his individual act; as the head of the Hindus of Bengal, the Rajah of Nuddea would strictly follow the practices of his great ancestor even to this day.
[88] To one friend alone he gave two lacs of Rupees without any security, showing a degree of magnanimity seldom to be met with among the millionaires of the present day.