among the sons of men. So many are the dangers of contamination which daily beset him in the ordinary pursuits of life that relief in the form of dispensations is granted him, so as to reduce the ceremonies and diminish the extreme burden of religious observance. This law of contact and pollution must weigh heavily upon any genuine Hindu of high caste. The relation of the Maharajah of Travancore to his Prime Minister, who is a Brahman, is an interesting illustration. The Rajah is not a born Brahman; he is by many of his people regarded as a manufactured Brahman. But His Highness himself does not regard himself as equal, in sacred manhood, to his Brahman Prime Minister; hence he will never be seated in his presence. Nor will the Brahman Dewan deign to sit in the presence of his royal master, the Maharajah. Hence all the business of State (sometimes requiring conferences of three hours a day) is transacted by them while standing in each other's presence. Occupational limitations are observed, as we have already seen, by many modern castes. Trade castes not only prescribe the one ancestral occupation to their members; they also, with equal distinctness and severity, prohibit to all within their ranks any other work or trade. So in all those legion castes not only has a man his social sphere and status assigned to him, he is also tied to the trade of his ancestors; yea, more, he is expected to confine himself to ancestral tools and methods of work in that narrow rut of life. One day the writer was accosted by a weaver who was in a famishing condition. He made a pathetic plea for charity. Manchester cloths were flooding the market; they therefore could not sell the products of their labour at living rates. It was suggested that they take up some other trade that could furnish them a decent living. He lifted up his hands in horror at the impious suggestion, that they abandon their caste-prescribed occupation! He felt that he and his were ground between the upper and nether millstones. To suggest to him that they even change the kind or style of article which they prepared upon their looms for the market would have been equally impossible. Out in the villages, where these people live, it would seem almost as absurd for the weaver to become a carpenter as for the weaver who uses only cotton thread to become a silk-weaver, or for those who weave coarse white cloths to produce the finer coloured cloths worn by the women. No; for generations their people have given themselves to the production of only one article. "It is the custom of our people" is the final word. And what has become customary is by caste enactment made obligatory. And woe be to him who defies caste. And thus the caste-prescribed trade becomes the be-all and the end-all of life.