her than _in esse_. The history of caste has
been one of evil, and it is no wonder that such a fair-minded writer
as Mr. Sherring, who has probably made a more thorough study of the
subject than any other man, should call the organization "a monstrous
engine of pride, dissension, and shame" (see Preface to his "Hindu
Tribes and Castes"). Considering the subject, therefore, in its
bearing upon the life of India to-day, and studying its results as we
now find them among all classes of the people and in their definite
bearing upon the future of the land, we are compelled to pronounce
against it at all points.

It is, in the first place, the source of interminable discord and
dissension all over the land. It not only arrays caste against caste;
but bitter animosity is the order of the day among the subdivisions of
castes. In every one of the numberless castes in the land there are
divisions and subdivisions galore. And while the Sudras acknowledge
the supremacy of the "twice born," among the myriad clans of the
Sudras themselves there is endless assumption and contention, every
one, fomented by pride, claiming primacy and distinction above the
others. Recently, in South India, this feeling led to a serious riot,
in which not a few lives were lost and villages devastated.

It also narrows the sympathies of the people in a most lamentable way.
Among the common people of India it is held that a man's duties to his
caste embrace his whole obligation. When a fellow-being is in
difficulty and his condition strongly appeals for sympathy, the first,
and often the last, question asked is, "Is he a member of my caste?"
If not, like the priest and the Levite of old, his conscience allows
him to "pass by on the other side." Recently a woman perished in the
streets of a town near Madura. She was a resident of a village some
twenty-five miles away, and was, therefore, a stranger in this town,
where she sickened and was carried to a public rest-house. But when
her condition became serious and no relatives or caste friends came to
her support, she was put out into the street, where she lay helpless
for three days in the rain and sunshine. Hundreds of people saw her
dying agonies as they passed by during those days; but no heart of
sympathy went out to her; for was she not a stranger? And it was left
to an American, who happened to pass that way on the third day, to
demand of the town officer that she be put back in the rest-house,
where