1834 ] On Slavery m Southern India. 244 



exceedingly rare. Individuals generally become domestic slaves by 

 being sold when children by their parents, in years of scarcity 

 approaching to famine; for famine itself, in the British territories, is 

 happily now nearly unknown, A Hindoo, however, who buys a child 

 on such an occasion, treats it as a Briton would ; not as a slave, but 

 rather as a servant to whom food and raiment are due, and whose 

 wages have been advanced to maintain the existence of the authors 

 of its being, authorized by nature to contract for its service until 

 it is old enough to confirm or cancel such compact. The text of 

 the Hindoo law, <\s well as its pra-ctice, clearly maintains such 

 compacts to be temporary only, for it expressly mentions the gift of 

 two head of cattle as annulling them, and entitling the child to 

 legal emancipation ; but such fine is entirely nominal ; it is never 

 practically exacted; and on the child attaining maturity it is, in 

 practice, as free amongst the Hindoos as amongst Britons, unless 

 long habit or attachment induces it voluntarily to acquiesce in a 

 continuation of its service. The Mussulman law acknowledges the 

 legality of treating as slaves all infidels conquered by the faithful • 

 but its text is entirely opposed to the purchase of free children for 

 the purpose of reducing them to a state of bondage ; yet, in prac= 

 tice, compacts such as are described above, confer permanent rights 

 on the Mahomedan purchaser; for, under the spirit of proselytism 

 which characterizes the Mussulman faith, a male infant is no sooner 

 purchased than it is circumcised; and, whether male or female, it 

 is invariably brought up in the Mahomedan creed, which, if it be a 

 Hindoo (as is usually the case) irrevocably excludes it from all 

 return to its parents or relations. Besides the purchase of children in 

 years of scarcity, I have heard of natives, to cancel a debt, voluntari- 

 ly selling themselves as domestic slaves for a certain number of years, 

 but this is unusual ; and though classed as a species of servitude, 

 it more resembles that of persons serving under written articles in 

 Europe, than slavery of even the most qualified description. There 

 can also be no doubt that children are sometimes kidnapped and 

 sold as slaves, without the knowledge of their parents. As super- 

 intendent of Police at Madras, I succeeded in 1818 in restoring 

 several such children to their parents, amongst the lowest and 

 poorest of the Hindoos; and their anxiety to recover infants, whom 

 they in all probability found it very difficult to support, would have 

 done honor to the highest classes of European Society. I may add, 

 that from Malabar, a province on the western coast of the penin- 

 sula, where the ancient institutions of the Hindoo government have 



