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min sitting in dherna, to perish by hunger, the sin would for ever 

 he upon his head. This practice has been less frequent of late 

 years, since the institution of the court of justice at Benares in 

 1783; but the interference of that court, and even that of the 

 resident there, has occasionally proved insufficient to check it; as 

 it has been deemed in general most prudent to avoid for this pur- 

 pose the use of coercion, from an apprehension that the first ap- 

 pearance of it might drive the sitter in dherna to suicide. The 

 discredit of the act would not only fall upon the officers of jus- 

 lice, but upon the government itself. The practice of sitting in 

 dherna is not confined to male brahmins only; as is proved and 

 exemplified in the conduct of Beenoo Bhai, the widow of a man of 

 the brahminical tribe." 



The same intelligent writer mentions another singular and cruel 

 custom called the koor. This term is explained to mean a circular 

 pile of wood, which is prepared ready for conflagration; upon 

 this, sometimes a cow, and sometimes an old woman, is placed by 

 the constructors of the pile; and the whole is consumed together. 

 The object of this practice is to intimidate the officers of govern- 

 ment, or others, from importunate demands; as the effect of the 

 sacrifice is supposed to involve in great sin the person whose 

 conduct forces the constructor of the koor to this expedient. A 

 woman who had been placed upon the Khoor in a dispute be- 

 tween three brahmins in the province of Benares, was saved by 

 the timely interposition of authority, and the attainment of the ob- 

 ject by the temporary intimidation. She was summoned to ap- 

 pear before the English superintendant of the province, but abso- 

 lutely refused to attend him; declaring that she would throw her- 



