Having thus briefly glanced at caste law, as controlling the connection of the sexes, let us now look at it from another point of view, which I venture to think is, as regards its ultimate consequences, of even still more importance.  If there is one vice more than another which is productive of serious crime, it is the abuse of alcohol; and there is no doubt that, to use the words of an eminent statesman, “if we could subtract from the ignorance, the poverty, the suffering, the sickness, and the crime now witnessed among us, the ignorance, the poverty, the sickness, and the crime caused by the single vice of drinking, this country would be so changed for the better that we should hardly know it again.”  Regarding it, then, in all its consequences, whether physical or mental (and how many madmen and idiots are there not bred by drinking?[33]), it is difficult to estimate too highly the value of caste laws that utterly prohibit the use of those strong drinks that are injurious in any country, but are a thousand times more so under the rays of a tropical sun.  And when we come to consider that a large proportion of the population of India are absolutely compelled to abstain from the use of alcohol, and that these being the very best, or at least equal to the very best, of the community, must always have exercised a large influence in discouraging the excessive use of intoxicating drinks, it is impossible to refrain from coming to the conclusion that this single fact is more than sufficient to counterbalance all the evils that have ever been said to arise from caste.

On two very important points, then—­the connection of the sexes and the use of alcohol—­it is evident that caste laws have produced some very favourable and valuable results; but I do not think we can accurately gauge their value unless we compare the state of morality existing in Manjarabad with the state of morality existing in one of our home counties; and the comparison I have to make, if not very soothing, is, I am sure, very interesting.  Take any one of our counties in Great Britain, for instance, and compare it with Manjarabad as regards the points I have particularly referred to, and it will be found that Manjarabad has an immense superiority.  The crimes and misery arising from drinking are hardly to be found at all in Manjarabad, while the morality of the sexes, I should think, could hardly be surpassed.  Now, there is nothing very surprising, considering that the people in this country are so heavily weighted, that this should be the case; on the contrary, it is the natural result of the circumstances of their worldly situation.  But, supposing that the worldly situation as to the means of support and the opportunities of marrying were equal, it seems to me perfectly plain that the people who have a large proportion of the better classes total abstainers, and who have their society so controlled that the rich cannot gratify their passions at the expense of the poor, must be in the possession of a superior morality.