For three days after being investited with the _poita_ the boy is enjoined to sleep either on a carpet or a deer's skin, without a mattress or a musquito curtain. His food consists of boiled rice, ghee, milk and sugar, etc., only once a day, without oil and salt. He is strictly prohibited to see the sun or the face of a soodra, and is constantly employed in learning the sacred _gayutree_ and the forms of the daily service which should be repeated thrice in a day. On the morning of the fourth day, he goes to the sacred stream of the Ganges, throws the two staves into the water, bathes, repeats his prayers, returns home, and again enters on the performance of his ordinary secular duties. During the day, a few Brahmins are fed according to the circumstances of the family. Thus the ceremony of investiture is closed, and the boy being purified and regenerated is elevated to the rank of a _Dwija_ or twice born. How easily does the Brahminical Shastra make a change for the better in a religious sense in a youth quite incapable of forming adequate conceptions of a spiritual regeneration by the mere administration of a single rite! Having endeavoured to give thus a short account of the ceremonies connected with the investiture of the sacred thread of a Brahmin, it remains to be seen how far his present position, character and conduct harmonise with the reputed sanctity of his regenerated nature. Great blame is laid at the door of the British Government, because it does not accord that high respect to the sacerdotal class which their own Rajahs had shewn them in the halcyon days of Hindooism. Before the advent of the British to India, the doctrines of the Brahminical creed, as indicated above, were in full force. Every Hindoo king used to enforce on all classes of the people high or low, a strict observance of the idolatrous ceremonies prescribed in the Hindoo Shastra. In the dark ages scarcely any nation in the world was hemmed in by such a close ring of religious ceremonials as the people of this country. Almost every commonplace occurrence had its peculiar rites which required the interposition of the sacerdotal class. On occasions of prosperity or adversity, of rejoicing or calamity, their ministration was alike needed. These formed their ordinary sources of gain, but the greatest means of support consisted in the grants of lands, including sometimes houses, tanks, gardens, etc., given in perpetuity to gods or the priests. These grants are called, as I have already stated, the _Debatras_ and _Brahmatras_. Among others, the Rajahs of Burdwan, Kishnaghur, and Tipperah made the greatest gifts, and their names are still remembered with gratitude by many a Brahmin in Bengal. But the Law authorizing the resumption of rent-free tenures has, as must naturally be expected, made the English Government obnoxious, and it is denounced in no measured terms for the sacrilegious act. If Manu were to visit