382 



INDIA. 



meant to mitigate the sufferings of starvation 

 in India, was denounced by the vernacular 

 press from the beginning, and sympathy was 

 expressed for the " brave and unhappy people 

 vainly struggling for their birthright." The 

 appropriation of the hoarded treasurer of the 

 late Maharajah Scindia was denounced by the 

 natives. The Gwalior regency was induced to 

 invest 3 crores of rupees, or 3,500,000 in 

 the securities of the Indian Government, form- 

 ing part of the public-works loan of 5 crores 

 to be raised in India in 1887-'88, while no ad- 

 ditional loan was raised in England. 



In the provisional estimates for 1887-'88 the 

 provincial revenues are again made to contrib- 

 ute 400,000 under the title of a revision of 

 provincial contracts, and the famine insurance 

 fund is suspended more completely than in 

 1886-'87, indicating its definite suppression. 

 This fund is represented by 6,000,000 which 

 have been expended on the construction of 

 railroads. 



The policy of affording facilities for drink- 

 ing in order to obtain revenue has long been 

 denounced by the natives, and spread of drunk- 

 enness has recently attracted attention in Eng- 

 land. During the three years ending with 

 1887, as compared with the ten preceding 

 years, there was an increase in the excise re- 

 ceipts of 16 per cent, in Bengal, 55 per cent, 

 in Bombay, 13 per cent, in Madras, and 74 per 

 cent, in Burmah. Until recently, in Bengal, 

 the right of manufacturing and selling spirits 

 over a tract of country was sold to the highest 

 bidder. Drinking-shops were planted where 

 there were previously none, and the vice was 

 cultivated among the people by the gratuitous 

 distribution of liquor, a practice which is still 

 followed in Ceylon. There is a general de- 

 mand among the natives for a local control of 

 the liquor-traffic. The Burmese embrace the 

 drinking customs of their conquerors with un- 

 usual avidity, and since the annexation of Up- 

 per Burmah drunkenness has spread in that 

 country like a pestilence. 



Establishment of a Roman Catholic Hierarchy. 

 India was formally annexed to the spiritual 

 dominions of the papacy by a proclamation 

 read at Bangalore on January 26. 



Indian Women. Reforms in the laws and cus- 

 toms affecting the status of Hindu women have 

 always attracted sympathy among the English, 

 though in India such- movements attract little 

 attention or approval except from female re- 

 formers of the native race. Lady Dufferin has 

 interested herself in the question of the medi- 

 cal education of Indian women. Female doc- 

 tors are more necessary in India than else- 

 where, because without them persons of their 

 sex are entirely deprived of medical atten- 

 dance. There are as yet very few of them, 

 and Lady Dufferin headed a subscription for 

 the purpose of establishing a female medical 

 college in the year of the Queen's Jubilee, for 

 which five lakhs was considered necessary, and 

 ten times that sum was desired. 



A legal case arising from the custom of early 

 marriages excited much discussion among the 

 English in 1887. A girl named Rukhmabai 

 had been contracted at the age of eleven to a 

 young man of double her years. When he 

 asked her to live with him, some years later, 

 she refused, with the consent of her relatives. 

 He finally brought suit, under a law that had 

 been repealed in England, as far as the enforce- 

 ment of a judicial decree by imprisonment fur- 

 nishes it with a sanction, but was still opera^ 

 tive in India, for the restitution of conjugal 

 rights. She objected that he was poor, igno- 

 rant, indolent, vicious in his habits, and afflict- 

 ed with an incurable disease, and although he 

 won his case, she still refused to live with him, 

 and appealed the case to the Privy Council, 

 meanwhile publishing her side of the case in 

 the newspapers. He replied in a pamphlet 

 that the quarrel was between himself and her 

 relatives, and had relation to the management 

 of her property, but she declared that the 

 property referred to was not hers, but belonged 

 to her mother. The first judge who heard the 

 case dismissed the suit of Dadaji, the husband, 

 finding no English precedent for compelling a 

 virgin wife to fulfill the marriage contract. He 

 was overruled on the ground that the law of 

 caste governed, while the procedure and pen- 

 alties were English, although under Hindoo 

 law the decision of the caste could only be en- 

 forced by ecclesiastical penalties, such as ex- 

 communication. This decision of Justice Far- 

 ran was regarded with satisfaction by nearly 

 all Hindoos. Rukhmabai, who was well edu- 

 cated in the English language and in Hindoo 

 learning, and was devoted to the reform of 

 the marriage-laws of her people, gained many 

 friends in England by her strong controversial 

 appeals. 



Hyderabad. "When the young Nizam was in- 

 stalled at Hyderabad, in 1884, Sir Salar Jung, 

 son of the illustrious statesman who long pre- 

 sided over the government of the state, was 

 made Prime Minister. The relations between 

 the Nizam and the minister became strained, 

 and in April, 1887, the latter was retired with 

 a pension, and on the recommendation of Col. 

 Marshall, who was sent to act as confidential 

 adviser to the Nizam, Nawab-Asman Jah, was 

 selected as his successor. In 1853 the British 

 compelled the then Nizam to hand over the 

 districts in the south of Hyderabad called the 

 Berars to be administered by the Indian Gov- 

 ernment, on the ground that he was insolvent, 

 and unable to maintain the troops that he was 

 bound to furnish in time of war to aid the 

 British arms. This condition has long ceased 

 to exist, owing to the efficient administration 

 of the late Sir Salar Jung, and for many years 

 the Nizam's Government has been urging the 

 Indian Viceroys to restore those fertile dis- 

 tricts, which are still retained in violation of 

 the compact by the British. On August 26 tho 

 Nizam sent a letter to the Viceroy, in which 

 he offered a free gift of twenty lakhs a year 



