The laws of caste, as explained by Mr. Shoshee Chunder Dutt, the Hindu writer referred to above, provide: 1. That individuals cannot be married who do not belong to the same caste. 2. That a man may not sit down to eat with another who is not of his own caste. 3. That his meals must be cooked either by persons of his own caste or a Brahmin. 4. That no man of an inferior caste is to touch his cooked rations, or the dishes in which they are served, or even to enter his cook room. 5. That no water or other liquid contaminated by the touch of a man of inferior caste can be made use of--rivers, tanks and other large sheets of water being, however, held to be incapable of defilement. 6. That articles of dry food, excepting rice, wheat, etc., do not become impure by passing through the hands of a man of inferior caste so long as they remain dry, but cannot be taken if they get wet or greased. 7. That certain prohibited articles, such as cows' flesh, pork, fowls, etc., are not to be taken. 8. That the ocean or any other of the boundaries of India cannot be crossed over. The only acts which now lead to exclusion from castes are the following: 1. Embracing Christianity or Mohammedanism. 2. Going to Europe, America or any other foreign country. 3. Marrying a widow. 4. Throwing away the sacred thread. 5. Eating beef, pork or fowl. 6. Eating food cooked by a Mohammedan, Christian or low caste Hindu. 7. Officiating as priest in the house of a low caste Sudra. 8. By a female going away from home for an immoral purpose. 9. By a widow becoming pregnant. When a Hindu is excluded from caste his friends, relatives and fellow townsmen refuse to partake of his hospitality; he is not invited to entertainments in their houses; he cannot obtain wives or husbands for his children; even his own married daughters cannot visit him without running the risk of being excluded from caste; his priest and even his barber and washerman refuse to serve him; his fellow caste men ostracize him so completely that they refuse to assist him even in sickness or at the funeral of a member of his household. In some cases the man excluded from caste is debarred from the public temples. To deprive a man of the services of his barber and his washerman is becoming more difficult these days, but the other penalties are enforced with more or less rigor.