PARIAHS. 
175 
hopeless existence, or to resort to those desperate 
modes of obtaining their daily bread which render 
them still more odious among the communities by 
whom they are denied the natural privileges of social 
beings. Thus abandoned, and smarting under the 
stigma of unmerited degradation, they frequently re- 
pair to the jungles, where they conceal themselves 
from the sight of those who behold them with such 
indignity, and live in a state of moral desuetude, 
prowling savagely for human prey, like the beasts of 
the forest. 
Their hand is against every man, and every man’s 
hand is against them. They often have recourse to 
dacoity, that system of lawless plunder which is carried 
to excess in India ; and when this is the case, they 
naturally become desperate and ferocious robbers. Is 
this to be wondered at ? Can we be surprised if in 
their social position they should hold it a law of equity 
to wage a war of general extermination? Is there 
not much to be said in extenuation of poor wretches 
driven, as they are, to the hopelessness of desperation ? 
They sometimes, it is true, wreak a terrible retalia- 
tion upon their oppressors, and think themselves 
justified in doing so. Will it be matter of wonder 
that the crushed adder should turn and sting ? But 
although they occasionally commit acts of great predal 
enormity, they nevertheless more commonly submit 
to dreadful privations with the greatest fortitude, fre- 
quently skulking from the jungles, where they have 
lived upon the fruits of the forest until these have 
ceased to supply the cravings of nature, and seeking 
the banks of the Ganges, when, under the cover of 
