260 
The Candiam. 
neglect of superstitious rites have, according to the <lecree of the 
priests, forfeited their cast, are not only condemned to infamy 
themselves, but their children and childrens’ children to all se- 
o 
nerations are supposed to share in the guilt and contamina- 
tion. No one of another cast will intermarry with them ; they 
are allowed to exercise no trade or profession, nor to approach 
any of the human race but the partners of their misery ; nay 
if they even by accident touch any thing, it is reckoned polluted 
and accursed. As they are not allowed to work, they are 
o!:f]iged to beg continually for sustenance, and thus from genera- 
tion to generation become a dead weight on society. As these 
wretched people are by the iron sceptre of superstition already 
degraded to a state which cannot be exceeded in vileness and in- 
famy, and cannot by any good conduct ever retrieve their con- 
dition, so they have no restraint to prevent them from being 
guilty of the most detestable crimes. It would certainly be an 
object worthy the attention of any government to attempt con- 
verting this lost body of men to some useful purpose ; and it is 
plain that the dispelling their superstitious notions, by the intro- 
duction of another system of religion, must be the first step 
towards effecting this salutary improvement. 
These people of no cast are obliged to pay the lowest of the 
other Candians as much respect and reverence as eastern servi- 
lity ordains the latter to pay to the king. As tradition among 
barbarous nations nev^er wants a legend to account for the 
origin of every institution, the cruelty exercised towards the 
outcasts is justified by the recital of a crime said to have been an- 
ciently committed by them. It is told that this race of people 
once formed a particular cast, who were employed as the king’s 
hunters ; that upon some provocation they supplied his table 
