t be
desirable to see a little more intercourse between class and class than
exists at the present. But between all the better classes there is a much
greater degree of intercourse than our missionaries would have us believe;
and it is not true that one caste will eat only the food prepared by a
person of his own caste. I cannot, of course, say what may be the case as
regards other parts of India; but, as regards my own district, each caste
will eat of the food prepared by any of the castes higher, or at least
purer, than its own. For instance, a Gouda, who will not allow that the
Lingayet caste is better than his own, will eat of food prepared by a
Lingayet, while a Lingayet will not eat of food prepared by a Gouda. And
the explanation of this is, that the Lingayet is a vegetarian, and meat
might have been boiled in the Gouda's pots, while there would be nothing
to offend the Gouda customs in the pots of a vegetarian host. But in these
matters I entirely agree with the good Bishop Heber, who said that we had
no right to interfere in their private life, or to meddle in any way with
their social customs, as long as there was no idolatry in them.

Turning now to the third point I proposed to consider, I have a few
remarks to make regarding the only (from a Christian point of view) solid
objection that can, I conceive, be made to the institution of separate
orders of men; namely, that the tendency of caste is to shut up the
bowels of compassion towards all the world outside of a man's particular
class. And here I confess that I am very much in want of information, and
can think of no unprejudiced individuals to whom to apply for the facts as
really existing in other parts of India. As for books, when I look into
them for any information, I am at once met by quantities of unlimited
condemnations, or a host of contradictory statements. And, as an instance
of the latter, I may mention that in Kerr's "Domestic Life of the Natives
of India" we are informed, at page 31, that "alms are given to the poor
without distinction of caste," while at page 343 of the same volume we are
told that "to extend kindness and hospitality to one of a different caste
is regarded as sinful." But in matters of this sort we want the experience
of individuals who have actually lived amongst the people, as much as
anyone can who is not actually one of them. As for my own part of the
country, I can answer for it that caste has no such effect as has been