BEN 



233 



BEN 



with flat roofs, and mostly two stories high. The dwellings 

 of the poorer classes are mere huts, or rather each family 

 occupies a set of huts, each one of which is appropriated to 

 its own particular use, and the whole are surrounded and 

 divided from other dwellings by a fence. Except in tlie 

 large towns, there are no ;nns, but travellers can always find 

 an empty hut of which they may take possession. '" 



Bengal is inhabited by various races, among which the 

 Hindus maybe estimated at four-fifths of the population. 

 They are the aborigines of the country. Early in the 

 thirteenth century, the conquest of India by the followers 

 of Mohammed brought a considerable number of that sect 

 into the province. The hilly country,, which forms the 

 northern and eastern boundary of Bengal is inhabited by a 

 race whose features prove them to have been of Tartar ori- 

 gin. Towards the west there is a mixed population, made 

 up of various races, among whom Mohammedans and 

 Afghans are the most numerous. 



The Bengalese are in general men of handsome features 

 and lively dispositions, but wanting in bodily strength, and 

 of weak constitutions. Their manners towards superiors 

 are mild, and their general character is that of pusillanimity. 

 They are, notwithstanding, insolent and overbearing to their 

 inferiors, and all authorities concur in assigning them a 

 very low rank in the scale of moral character. In this re- 

 spect they are among tfie most degraded of the native races 

 of India ; they are wanting in truth, honesty, and good faith 

 to an extreme of which Europearusociety furnishes no ex- 

 ample. ' The practice of cheating, pilfering, tricking, and 

 imposing, are,' according to Mr. Charles Grant, ' so common, 

 that the Hindus seem to consider them as they do natural 

 evils. Menial servants who have been long in place, and 

 have even evinced a real attachment to their masters, are, 

 nevertheless, in the habitual practice of pilfering IVoui them. 

 Selfishness, in a word, unrestrained by principle, operates 

 universally ; and money, the grand instrument of selfish 

 gratifications, maybe called the supreme idol of the Hindus. 

 The tendency of that abandoned selfishness is to set every 

 man's hand against every man.' Speaking of the lowest 

 class, Mr. Grant says, ' Discord, hatred, abuse, slanders, 

 complaints and litigations, prevail to a surprising degree. 

 No stranger can sit down among them without being struck 

 with the temper of malevolent contention and animosity as 

 a prominent feature in the character of the society, it is 

 seen in every village. The inhabitants live among each 

 other in a sort of repulsive state; nay, it enters into almost 

 every family. Seldom is there a household without its in- 

 ternal divisions, and lasting enmities, most commonly, too, 

 on the score of interest. The women partake of this spirit 

 of discord. Held in slavish subjection by the men, they rise 

 in furious passions against each other, which vent them- 

 selves in such loud, virulent, and indecent railings, as are 

 hardly to be heard in any other part of the world. Though 

 the Bengalese have not sufficient resolution to vent their 

 resentments against each othsr in open combat, yet rob- 

 beries, thefts, burglaries, river piracies, and all sorts of de- 

 predations where darkness, secresy, or surprise can give 

 advantage, are exceedingly common, and have been so in 

 every past period of which any account is extant. Bene- 

 volence has been represented as a leading principle in the 

 minds of the Hindus, but those who make this assertion 

 know little of their character. Though, a Hindu would 

 shrink with horror from the idea of directly slaying a cow, 

 which is u sacred animal among them, yet he who drives 

 one in his cart, galled and excoriated as she often is by the 

 yoke, beats her unmercifully from hour to hour without any 

 care or consideration of tho consequence. Filial and pa- 

 rental affection appear equally deficient among them, and 

 in the conjugal relation the characteristic indifference of the 

 people is also discernible among those who come most within 

 the sphere of European observation, namely, the lower orders.' 



The picture here given is sufficiently unfavourable, but as 

 it was drawn by one who passed a great part of his life 

 ani'itig the people he has described, and attained a high 

 rank among those intrusted with the management of the 

 Company's affairs, and as, in all its main points, it has been 

 abundantly confirmed by other writers of unquestionable 

 authority, there is unhappily no reason for believing that it 

 or r.vcrcliarged. 



A great part of the criuiiivil jurisprudence of Bengal was. 

 fora lunu r scrips of years, occupied with the suppression of 

 'dcroity, M- ;i ivttera of robbing in trails, and it is only 

 within the last few years that any material check has been 



given to this practice. Decoity has been followed so com 

 pletcly as a profession, that instances have occurred where 

 whole families have practised it from generation to genera- 

 tion. No obloquy is attached to the name of Decoit, 

 which, on the contrary, has been considered to give the 

 possessor a higher rank than that of a mere ryot or cul- 

 tivator. The deceits of Bengal, unlike the professional rob- 

 bers of .other countries, have often settled homes, possess 

 land, .and associate freely with men of the most influence in 

 their villages, to whom their profession is no secret. Deceits 

 are found among Mohammedans as well as Hindus. When 

 at len'gth their guilt is established, they nie?t death with an 

 indifference which, but for the little value that is attached 

 to life in India by the lower classes, would pass for fortitude, 

 a virtue the possession of which is at variance with the 

 general features of their character ; its substitute, indif- 

 ference, which is exhibited by the detected robber, doubtless 

 proceeds from the privations of various kinds under which 

 their lives are passed, and the absence of all rational hope 

 of ameliorating their lot in this life. 



Out of 1649 cases of heinous crimes committed in the 

 lower provinces of Bengal in 1828, as reported by the su- 

 perintendents of police, 1260 were thefts and robberies com- 

 mitted without violence ; of the remaining 389 the large 

 proportion of 282 were attended with loss of life, 144 being 

 classed as wilful murders, 122 as homicides, and 16 as having 

 occurred in violent affrays. 



Education. There are few countries/in which the bulk 

 of the population is at once poor and well instructed, and 

 the province of Bengal does not furnish an exception to 

 this remark. The great schools or colleges in the cities 

 and towns are mostly of recent establishment, and owe 

 their existence to Europeans. These colleges, which will 

 be noticed farther on, arc undoubtedly useful establish- 

 ments, but they are necessarily limited in their sphere, and 

 however zealously promoted could, of themselves, effect but 

 little towards educating the children of the native popula- 

 tion. It is to schools in the villages, where niiietL-en- 

 twenlieths of the people li've, that we must look for the chief 

 good to follow from instruction. These schools are very 

 numerous, indeed it is a rare case to find a \ illuge in Bengal 

 unprovided with one, but it is still more rare to find one 

 whose means are commensurate with the wants of the 

 people. The instructois are, for the most part, incompetent, 

 and if even this were not the case, the poverty of the people 

 is such, that few among the villagers can spare from their 

 scanty earnings the trilling sum requisite to pay for the effec- 

 tual instruction of their children. It is customary for parents 

 to send their hoys to these schools at a very early age, when 

 the charge made for their instruction is exceedingly low, but 

 quite high enough in comparison with the benefit to be de- 

 rived. The education of Hindu children generally begins 

 when they are five years old, and the cases are rare in 

 which.pupils are continued in the schools after they are ten 

 years of age. The reasons for this early removal are, the 

 necessity under which the parents are placed to put their 

 children as early as possible in the way of earning their own 

 subsistence, and the fact that although the payments de- 

 manded by the instructors are at first so moderate as to be 

 within the means of the greater number of parents, yet as 

 their pupils make progress the fees required are increased 

 out of all proportion, and to a degree which compels the 

 greater part of parents to withdraw their children before 

 they attain the age at which they could make most pro- 

 gress. Even when this cause is not allowed to operate, the 

 amount of knowledge acquired is very limited, and com- 

 prises only reading, writing, and the elementary rules of 

 arithmetic. Through an absurdity for which it is dillicult 

 to account, the reading which is taught is nearly useless to 

 the pupils in after-life. The books most commonly used are 

 composed in a language or dialect quite different from that 

 in common use, so that the pupil learns to repeat a vast num- 

 ber of verses and phrases without knowing what they mean. 



A few learned Brahmins are accustomed to give lectures 

 in theology, astronomy, law, and logic, to all who choose to 

 attend them, and without making any charge for their in- 

 structions, since they do not wish to compromise the dignity 

 of science by bartering it for money. The number of their 

 pupils is nevertheless small, very few youths being qualified 

 by previous study for profiting by lectures upon such abstruse 

 subjects. The only effectual means at present in operation 

 for instructing the native population of the province are fur- 

 nished by the government of the East India Company, and 



NO. 234. 



[THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA.] 



Vol. 1V.-2 H 



