to employ all their care in suppressing that abuse as much as lies in their power, it requires at present great solicitations and considerable presents for obtaining the permission of being burnt."
Lord W. Bentinck therefore, in prohibiting suttee, was only carrying out a reform which had previously been attempted by the Moghul Emperors. Yet, strange as it may appear, there were many people at the time (and some good and wise men among them) who held that, inasmuch as it was a religious rite, maintained and inculcated by the Brahmans, even although not sanctioned by their Scriptures, that the Government had no right to put a stop to it, the practice being on the same footing as others, less revolting though scarcely less mischievous, which were by common consent regarded as beyond the scope of Government interference. They even predicted that the new law would be resisted by force, and that it would lead to mutiny and rebellion. Happily, however, these timid counsels were over-ruled, and though it was long before the rite of suttee absolutely disappeared, still its downfall dates from that time, and no one would now dare openly to vindicate the practice, or even to maintain that it was inculcated by the Hindu religion.
Whether the lot of the Indian widow has been much improved by the reform, may at first sight
