Then as to the Hindu College. The boys are educated, as you say, by the Government, at least under its active patronage, and they are “British subjects,” inasmuch as Britain has taken India, and in many respects they may be called well-educated young men; but still I cannot tell you what the wide difference is between a European and a Native. An elephant and Chance, St. Paul’s and a Baby-Home, the Jerseys and Pembrokes, a diamond and a bad flint, Queen Adelaide and O’Connell, London and Calcutta, are not further apart, and more antipathetic than those two classes. I do not see how the prejudices ever can wear out, nor do I see that it is very desirable. I do not see that any degree of education, or any length of time, could bring natives to the pitch of allowing any liberty to their wives. Their Mussulman creed makes it impossible, and as girls are married at 7 or 8 years old, and after that are never seen by any human being but their husbands, there is no possibility of educating them, and in fact education could only make them miserable. Even our lowest servants of any respectability would not let their wives be seen on any account. They live in mud huts, something like Irish cabins, and in half of that hut these women pass their lives. Wright[446] has tried hard to persuade my Jemadar (a sort of groom of the chambers), who is a superior man of his class, speaks and reads English, and is intelligent, to let her see his wife, but he will not hear of it. The Ayahs who wait on us are not at all considered, though I have never made out to my satisfaction how bad they are. There is an excellent Mrs. Wilson here, who for 20 years has been trying to educate the lower orders of native females, but she told me the other day, that she has never been able to keep a day-scholar after she was 6 or 7 years old, and she has now removed her whole establishment 7 miles from Calcutta. She has collected 160 orphans, who were left utterly destitute after a great inundation in 1833. They were picked up on the banks of rivers, some even taken from the Pariah dogs! Mrs. Wilson took any that were sent to her, a great many died out of whole cargoes that were sent down. It is the prettiest thing possible to see her amongst her black children, she looks so pleased and happy; she is in her widow’s dress without another European near her, and as she told me the other day, with no more _certainty_ of funds than would supply her for her next six weeks. In short, in a position which would justify a weaker person in sitting down and taking a good cry, but she was as cheerful and as happy as if she had not a care on her mind.