kwar Rajpoot
clan, who came to me, in sorrow, to demand redress for grievous
wrongs, whether he did not think that all the evils they suffered
arose from murdering their female infants. "No, sir, I do not." "But
the greater part of the Rajpoot families do still murder them, do
they not?" "Yes, sir, they still destroy them; and we believe that
the father who preserves a daughter will never live to see her
suitably married, or that the family into which she does marry will
perish or be ruined." "Do you recollect any instances of this?" "Yes,
sir, my uncle, Dureeao, preserved a daughter, but died before he
could see her married; and my father was obliged to go to the cost of
getting her married into a Chouhan family at Mynpooree, in the
British territory. My grandfather, Nathoo, and his brother,
Rughonath, preserved each a daughter, and married them into the same
Chouhan families of Mynpooree. These families all became ruined; and
their lands were sold by auction; and the three women returned upon
us, one having two sons and a daughter, and another two sons. We
maintained them for some years with difficulty, but this year, seeing
the disorder that prevailed around us, they all went back to the
families of their husbands. It is the general belief among us, sir,
that those who preserve their daughters never prosper, and that the
families into which we marry them are equally unfortunate."

"Then you think that it is a duty imposed upon you from above to
destroy your infant daughters, and that the neglect and disregard of
that duty bring misfortunes upon you?" "We think it must be so, sir,
with regard to our own families or clan."

I am satisfied that these notions were honestly expressed, however
strange they may appear to others. Habit has brutalized them, or
rendered them worse than brutes in regard to their female offspring.
They derive profit, or save expense and some mortification, by
destroying them, and readily believe anything that can tend to excuse
the atrocity to themselves or to others. The facility with which men
and women persuade themselves of a religious sanction for what they
wish to do, however cruel and iniquitous, is not, unhappily, peculiar
to any class or to any creed. These Rajpoots know that the crime is
detestable, not only to the few Christians they meet, but to all
Mahommedans, and to every other class of Hindoos among whom they live
and move. But the Rajpoots, among whom alone this crime prevails