Sir Thomas Strange, many years ago Chief Justice of Madras, wrote very fully concerning the Hindu law of inheritance and adoption, and we learn from this great authority that marriage failing in this, its most important object (that is to say securing male issue), in order that obsequies in particular might not go unperformed, and celestial bliss be thereby forfeited, as well for ancestors as for the deceased, dying without leaving legitimate issue begotten, the old law was provident to excess, whence the different sorts of sons enumerated by different authorities, all resolving themselves, with Manu, into twelve, that is the legally begotten, and therefore not to be separately accounted:--all formerly, in their turn and order, capable of succession, for the double purpose of obsequies, and of inheritance. Failing a son, a Hindu's obsequies may be performed by his widow; or in default of her, by a whole brother or other heirs; but according to the conception belonging to the subject, not with the same benefit as by a son. That a son, therefore, of some description is, with him, in a spiritual sense, next to indispensable is abundantly certain. As for obtaining one in a natural way, there is an express ceremony that takes place at the expiration of the third month of pregnancy, marking distinctly the importance of a son born, so is the adopting of one as anxiously inculcated where prayers and ceremonies for the desired issue have failed in their effect. The extreme importance to the Hindu of having male offspring, and the desire to get such children as the result of marriage rather than by adoption--a practice allowed and inculcated as a last resort, has led to that extensive prevalence of Lingam worship which is such a conspicuous feature in India. In nearly every part of that vast empire are to be seen reproductions of the emblem in an infinite variety of form, and so totally free from the most remotely indecent character are they, that strangers are as a rule totally ignorant of their meaning. We have even known, within the last few years, specimens of the smaller emblems being put up for sale in this country, of whose meaning the auctioneer professes himself for the most part ignorant, volunteering no other statement than that they were charms in some way connected with Hindu customs and worship.