I cannot close this chapter without drawing the attention of my readers to the gross inconsistency of the conduct of the caste apologists. Thousands and tens of thousands of the most orthodox Hindoos daily violate the rules of caste by using the _shidho chall_, (rice produced from boiled paddy) which is often prepared by Mussulmans and other low caste husbandmen, whose very touch is pollution to the food of the Hindoo. It is a notorious fact that nine-tenths of the Hindoos of Bengal, including the Brahmin class, are in the habit of eating _shidho chall_, which is the prime staff of their lives, simply because the other kind of rice, _atab chall_(rice produced from sun-dried paddy), contains too much starch or nutritive property and is difficult of digestion by _bhayto_ or rice-fed Bengallees who are, with a few exceptions, constitutionally weak from a variety of causes enumerated before. In the North-West Provinces, people never use _shidho_ rice owing to its being boiled in an unhusked state. The Hindoos of our day often consume sugar refined with the dust of charcoal bones. The universal use of _shidho_ rice and sweetmeats which contain refined sugar leads the Hindoos to break the rules of caste almost every hour of their lives. Besides these two chief articles of food, there are several other things made by Mussulmans, such as rose-water, _kaywra arauk_, and the like, the general use of which is a direct violation of the rules of caste. A Hindoo female, when she becomes a widow at an advanced period of life, sometimes takes to _atab_ rice because it is not produced from boiled paddy which makes it impure, but from sun-dried paddy, and here the members of the Tagore family are more strict in their _regime_ than any other class of Hindoos in Bengal. There are, however, yet a few orthodox Hindoos, who, though they eat _shidho_ rice, nevertheless abstain from using bazar-made sweetmeats and Municipal pipe water because the engines of the latter are said to be greased and worked by Mussulman and Christian hands. Such men make their own sweetmeats at home with Benares sugar and drink Ganges water, but the younger members of their family, if not without their approval at least with their partial cognisance, daily make the greatest inroads on this institution without having the moral courage to avow their acts. They eat and drink in the European fashion, and preserve their castes intact by a positive and emphatic disclaimer. So much for the consistency of their character. When the orthodox heads of Hindoo families are gathered unto their fathers, the key-note of the present or rising generation will be--"perish caste with all its monstrous evils." FOOTNOTES: