the Indians learning as much from us as they otherwise might, and that it has impeded the mainspring of all advancement—­education.  Here, I apprehend, the argument against caste, as far as rural populations are concerned, utterly fails, and, in a province contiguous to my own, a most signal instance to the contrary can be pointed to.  Few people have more proudly segregated themselves than the Coorgs; nowhere is the chastity of women more jealously guarded; and yet they were the first people in India who desired and petitioned for female education.  And how, then, can it be for one moment asserted that the tendency of caste is to check the progress of the people?

Having thus glanced at some of the effects of caste institutions as they affect the rural population, we will now consider caste as it affects the people of the towns.  Following, then, the same order, and directing our attention to the same points selected for consideration when treating of the rural classes, let us ask how far caste has operated with the townspeople as regards the connection of the sexes and the use of alcohol.  And here we shall find that the subject may be dismissed in almost a single sentence; for caste laws, as regards these points, can never act as a moral restraint, because the possibility of enforcing them cannot and does not exist.  Nor need I waste time in proving that people in towns, whether in India, or any other part of the world, may readily do things which could never escape the prying eyes of a country society.

Then, as regards the segregation from foreigners, it is evident that we need employ little time, for such of the town populations as have maintained a fair state of morality amid the evils of large cities, are not likely to be materially affected by the bad habits and customs of the white races; and as for those who have never led a steady life, it would not much matter with whom they mixed.  But caste not only brings with it no good as far as the town population is concerned, but its continuance is fraught with a multitude of painful and vexatious evils, which meet us at every turn, for it hampers the actions, and clogs those efforts at progress which are the natural result of intellectual advancement.  And here I cannot do better than quote the words of a Parsee gentleman, whose unceasing efforts to aid the progress of India entitle him to be placed in the very highest rank of those who spend much time and labour to produce effects which they can never live to see the fruits of.  These remarks of his, which I am now about to quote, were made at the close of a paper on caste, which I read at a meeting of the East India Association, and are quoted from the report published in the journal of the Association.  After fully granting that, in the condition of society existing at the time the system of caste was established, it may have done a great deal of good, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji proceeded to remark on the way the present system of caste interferes