but he is not allowed within the
precincts of their sanctuaries and has to worship from afar. Nor are the
disabilities of the Panchama merely spiritual. In many villages he has
to live entirely apart. He is not even allowed to draw water from the
village well, lest he should "pollute" it by his touch, and where there
is no second well for the "untouchables," the hardship is cruel,
especially in seasons of drought when casual water dries up. In every
circumstance of his life the vileness of his lot is brought home to the
wretched pariah by an elaborate and relentless system of social
oppression. I will only quote one or two instances which have come
within my own observation. The respective distances beyond which
Panchamas must not approach a Brahman lest they "pollute" him differ
according to their degree of uncleanness. Though they have been laid
down with great precision, it is growing more and more difficult to
enforce them with the increasing promiscuity of railway and street-car
intercourse, but in more remote parts of India, and especially in the
south, the old rules are still often observed. In Cochin a few years ago
I was crossing a bridge, and just in front of me walked a
respectable-looking native. He suddenly turned tail, and running back to
the end of the bridge from which we had both come, plunged out of sight
into the jungle on the side of the road. He had seen a Brahman entering
on to the bridge from the other end, and he had fled incontinently
rather than incur the resentment of that high-caste gentleman by
inflicting upon him the "pollution" of forbidden proximity as the
bridge, though a fairly broad one, was not wide enough for them to pass
each other at the prescribed distance. In the native State of Travancore
it is not uncommon to see a Panchama witness in a lawsuit standing about
a hundred yards from the Court so as not to defile the Brahman Judge and
pleaders, whilst a row of _peons_, or messengers, stationed between him
and the Court, hand on its questions to him and pass back his replies.

No doubt the abject ignorance and squalor and the repulsive habits of
many of these unfortunate castes help to explain and to perpetuate their
ostracism, but they do not exculpate a social system which prescribes
or tolerates such a state of things. That if a kindly hand is extended
to them, even the lowest of these depressed can be speedily raised to a
higher plane has been abundantly shown by the efforts of