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years of age, nor youths below twenty, nor mandarins, nor the literati, nor the priests, still less the women, according to the observations of those who have calculated with most exactness, the populations of countries.

From this calculation it appears that there cannot be less than 150 millions of inhabitants in China: Europe does not contain more than 100 millions, reckoning 20 millions for France, 22 for Germany, 4 for Hungary, 10 in Italy and Dalmatia, 8 in Great Britain and Ireland, 8 in Spain and Portugal, 10, or 12 in Russia in Europe, 5 in Poland, 5 in Turkey in Europe, 5 in Greece and the Isles, 4 in Sweden, 3 in Denmark and Norway, nearly 4 in Holland and the Netherlands. ("It will be interesting to compare the present population of these countries, with that in the days of Voltaire.") We ought not then to be astonished at the extent of the cities of China; if Pekin, the modern capital of the empire, nearly six of our leagues in circumference, contains about 3 millions of citizens, if Nankin, the ancient metropolis was of a still greater magnitude, or whether the simple town called Quientzieng, which boasts a porcelain manufactory, of itself contains a million of inhabitants.

Tuesday, March 26, 1844.

POLYPHILUS.

No. 37.

A Sketch of the Society of the Natives of India, with General Remarks on Castes.

(Translated from the French of M. L'Abbé J. A. Dubois.)

"The manuscript of the Abbé Dubois on Indian castes contains the most correct, comprehensive and minute account extant in any European language of the customs and manners of the Hindoos."

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Major Wilks.

We designate in Europe by the denomination of castes, a word borrowed from the Portuguese, the various tribes into which the people of India are divided; the most general division, and at the same time the most ancient, is that which divides them into four principal tribes. The first and most distinguished of those tribes is that of the Brahmanahs or Brahmins: next to this the Kchatrias or Rajahs, then the Veessiahs or managers of commerce and agriculture, and lastly the Sudras or labourers and slaves. The different functions attributed to each of those tribes, are as follows; for the Brahmins the priesthood with its sacred duties; for the Kchatrias, the military profession in all its branches ; for the Veessiahs, agriculture, commerce and the rearing of flocks; for the Sudras, a kind of slavery. Each of those four castes is subdivided

into many others, the number of which cannot be known, because that subdivision varies according to locality, and one caste is found in one spot, which does not exist in another. Among the Brahmins, for example, they distinguish in the south of the Peninsula of Hindostan three or four principal castes, which they themselves reckon as being equal to eighty lesser castes; each of the principals being divided into twenty. The lines drawn between them are in such a manner, that they are opposed to every kind of mixture of one caste with another, especially where marriage is concerned. The tribe of the Kchatrias and that of the Veessiahs, have also many divisions and subdivisions. Both are rather numerous in the south of the Peninsula ; but the first is most considerable in the north of India, although the Brahmins affirm that the real tribe of the Kchatrias exists no more, and that those who pass as belonging to it are only a degenerate race. But the tribe in which most classes are found is that of the Sudras. No one in any of the parts where I have travelled, has ever been able to discover the exact number, and species; only, it is conjectured there are eighteen principals, divided into eight hundred others. The Sudras is the most numerous of

the four grand castes, of itself it is a numerous. population, and joined to the Pariah caste equals nine-tenth of the inhabitants of India. Since it is on the Sudras, that the greater part of the mechanical professions, and almost all manual labour devolves, and as, according to the prejudices of the country no Indian can exercise two professions at the same time, it will not appear surprising that the numerous individuals which compose this tribe may be divided into so many distinct branches. However several of the Sudras castes exist only in particular parts.

In those which I have inhabited, the country of Dravida is that, where the branches are the most numerous, they are not in such a great quantity in Mysore or in the Deccan. I have never seen anywhere in these last countries, castes which correspond with those known in Dravida under the title of moudely, agambady, naltaman, tottien, ventouven, valeyen, oupilien, pallen, and several others. It is necessary nevertheless to remark that the Sudras castes, which are exclusively occupied in making articles indispensable in civilized society, appear under various names according to the variety of idioms. In this number among others we find gardeners, shepherds, weavers; the pantchalas or the five castes

of artisans, which consist of carpenters, gold and silversmiths, blacksmiths, founders, and all those who work in metals; distillers and oil merchants, fishermen, potters, washermen, barbers and some others. All those belong to the great Sudras tribe; however the different castes of landholders keep the first rank, and regard with disdain, and look on greatly as their inferiors, those to whose lots have fallen those professions we have just mentioned; they never will even eat with those who practise the said professions. The caste of the callars, that is to say of the thieves, which they exercise as an hereditary profession, is found only in the (Marawa), a neighbouring country.

The princes who reign there are of this tribe, and the profession of thieving among them carries nothing of infamy along with it, in stealing they imagine they act right, since it is done "by the law of liberty and the right of arms." In the province of Madura, there is another caste known under the name of (tottiers,) whether brothers, uncles, nephews, or other relations, all have the right of enjoying the most barbarous licences. To the west of Mysore there exists a tribe known under the name of morsahokeula-makulou, in which, when a

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