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Listen to them, father two suttees, side by side I've seen the pyres and the scaffolds do they jump into the flames, father, from the scaffolds? tell me! No-don't tell me I won't listen! Take me away from here away away away take me away, d'you hear!"
In India, and indeed throughout the East, there exists a like connection between the pitiless tyranny of rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial creeds, and the rigid restraint of unchangeable customs: the caste regulations continue still unalterable; the fashions of clothes and furniture have remained the same for ages; suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus; justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old; in short, "every usage is a precept of religion and a maxim of jurisprudence."
Even quartoes, if tolerably well-seasoned with suttees and sandalwood, went down; now, every genteel family has its "own correspondent," per favour of the Red Sea; and the best printed account of Cabul would fall stillborn from the press.
Jeremy had a lively sense of guilt; he had been betrayed by Camilla's confounded airs and pretensions. He ought to be ashamed of himself, telling the girl such things. "The British Government is putting a stop to that," he added hastily, "and to suttees " "What are they?" she inquired. "Never mind, Camilla," her father interposed; "go up with your mother and sisters.
"She is a half-caste?" asked Geoffrey. "Bad word, bad word. She isn't half-anything; and caste suggests India and suttees. She is a Eurasian, a denizen of a dream country which has a melodious name and no geographical existence. Have you ever heard anybody ask where Eurasia was? I have. A traveling Member of Parliament's wife at the Embassy here only a few months ago.
The divisional police-offices were filled each morning with small “suttees” whose researches after handkerchiefs and snuff-boxes were of the most active kind; while their full-grown brethren, first impacted in a funnel of ten inches by eight, were cursing the Commons, and consigning to all manner of misfortune the benevolent framer of the bill.
This rite of self-immolation was known as suttee, and it is said that in Bengal alone a century ago the suttees numbered one hundred a month. It was an old custom to set up a stone with carved figures of a man and a woman to mark the spot where a widow had performed suttee, and travellers to-day still find these gruesome and barbaric memorials here and there along the Indian roadsides.
However, as it is held, improperly, to be the first day of the sitting of Parliament, the return of the Scotch peers is laid on the table. All this is sanctioned by precedent, but contrary to reason. September 20, 1830. The latter to Vent the junction of the Whig aristocracy with the Radicals. Received from Sir J. Malcolm a letter with some enclosures about suttees.
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