REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD. The school's lone porch with reverend mosses grey, Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay. Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn, Quickening my truant feet across the lawn : Up springs at every step to claim a tear Some little friendship formed and cherished here; ROGERS. Few things excite in my mind stronger sensations of pleasure, not unmixed with pain, than the recollection of those days which were spent at school. In order to revel in all the luxury of that melancholy which arises from such a mixture of conflicting feelings, I walked over, about a week ago, to the village, where I was first introduced to the muses. Although it is situated within a very few miles of the metropolis, it is but little frequented by strangers; and is as retired, and in fact as dull, as any spot two hundred miles in the country. It is now twenty years' since my last breaking up day' there; a period sufficient for affecting considerable change in my circle of acquaintance, without bringing me to that advanced stage of life in which a kind Providence, preparing us for a departure to another world, blunts our feelings to the joys and sorrows of this. I struck from the high road as directly as possible across some luxuriant meadows, which brought me to a full view at once of the old house, schoolroom, and play-ground. At one time there was not a crab-tree or blackberry-bush in any of the hedges surrounding these meadows, to which I could not have found my way in the dark; but twenty years' will lessen the value of crab-apples and blackberries, and perhaps teach us to toil after things of no greater value. In one corner of the ground, a boy of my own age and myself had 'twenty years' ago formed a garden, in size nearly twenty feet square. It was tastefully laid out, and well stocked with London-pride, sun-flowers, double daisies, thrift, and such gay plants; part of it was devoted to the cultivation of lettuces, onions, radishes, and mustard and cress. The whole was fenced with green pales, furnished with a well-fitting gate, bearing a stout padlock, for the exclusion of the οἱ πολλοι. And from this may be inferred that my partner and myself were persons of no small consideration' in the school. Our joint stock of money and ingenuity enabled us moreover to provide a rural table and benches; about these we planted four young fruit trees, which, when interwoven at the top, formed a kind of arbour. We also con trived to have what we called a fish-pond, and on either side of our garden gate we planted a young and slender poplar. To our arbour on half-holidays we retired, to treat our friends with bread and butter, and sallad of our own growing. In order to do things handsomely, we occasionally added a little ale, smuggled into our magisterial territory from our neighbour's of the Bear,'-ale bad enough, in fact, but to us nectar, perhaps because contraband. There we played flute duets: our instruments, to be sure, were not always exactly in tune, and we cared almost as little for time in music as in other things; but we were the Nicholsons of the school. How sweetly were our afternoons thus passed! without care, and full of health, our pleasures were perfectly unalloyed. The first object that struck me at this end of the twenty years,' was my group of fruit-trees, ragged, deformed, and so increased in dimensions, that were my table and benches still in existence, they could not occupy their ancient place. My poplars (for I cannot help calling them mine even now) are, as my good grandmamma used, at each succeeding vacation, to say of me, grown out of all knowledge.' My palisades, gate, parterres, and fish-pond, have ceased to be; and I was half inclined to quarrel with one or two urchins who were playing within my bounds. On casting round my eye, I saw every where something to revive the recollection of some formerly important occurrence. There was the window, for jumping out of which, I received my last caning ;—there were the yew trees, into which I have often climbed for their berries, (sweet, because forbidden fruit);—there, the paling beneath them, on which I once suspended myself, through too much hurry in descending, to avoid the birchthreatening eye of our pedagogue ;-there was the furrow worn in the turf by our cricket matches;-there the ditch which afforded us in winter a good slide, and, indeed, many a tumble too;-there was the narrow pass, (named by us Thermopyla) between the house and the school-room, which I have often defended with a handful of Greeks against all the rest of the school under a mimic Xerxes;-there was the garden, where I used to assist, in his horticultural labours, the good Emigré, who, at the same time, taught us French, and afforded us a bright example of patience and kindly feeling. In that school-room I first made pot-hooks and hangers; and I yet remember (as I presume was intended) the strapping which was bestowed on me for laughing at my master's (to me novel) observation, that I had dog's-eared my book. In one corner we made our Guy Fawkes' fire ;and behind the hedge we settled our differences by single combat, but, Heaven be praised! with less mischievous weapons than those employed by persons of maturer years. If I could but have forgotten what I have lost since those halcyon days, my musings would have been indeed delicious, but it has been my lot to become the survivor of almost all my youthful friends. My brother gardener, my chief antagonist in war, my solitary class-fellow in Greek, my bedfellow,- -all are gone. The school-room is now set to the parish-officers, for the use of paupers ;-the great garden is a waste; and the house scarcely habitable. Never, without necessity, will I again revisit that spot! It was impossible for me, however, though with a swelling heart, to avoid taking a farewell of the village church. I have seen its gray tower I hope for the last time. The first grave-board on which my eyes rested bore the name of the old one-eyed parish-clerk, whose blind side bore the brunt of many a harmless prank from us. A little farther on lie the iron-fenced remains of the squire of the parish, who always took the curate home to dine with him, on Sundays, in his carriage, and who often showered gingerbread-nuts among us. Close by lies farmer Jones; and honoured be his memory! for he once bestowed on us twelve large faggots to add to our bonfire, beside a famous pole for the more signal suspension of the great incendiary. Near farmer Jones lies Gabriel, the barber; I remember him 'from having slipped a lighted squib into his gaping boot on the same occasion. And there lies Mr. Dickenson, the half-cracked surgeon, who, to our unvarying question- what's the best thing for the stomach-ache, doctor?' as invariably answered-'a slice of hot plumb-pudding applied inwardly, you young rogue !' A little chat with the present sexton enabled me to take my old place in the gallery, where I recognised my own initials, which I had carved during divine service, and for which offence I was compelled to learn the 119th Psalm, every word of which I can now repeat. In my mind's eye I saw once more the pretty Miss S.; and I again turned from the pew she used to occupy, in the eager expectation of seeing my father enter the door-way, on his Sunday visit to me, with news from dulce domum. I could not proceed with my recollections; I could not forget the sum of the griefs, the deprivations, and the errors of twenty years.' On such occasions they appear as foreground objects, while the gratifications which rendered them tolerable are lost in the distance. But whilst we deplore the mistakes and errors of the years that are past, should we not reflect that those who have yet twenty years' to live, are, with respect to the future, young? Ought we not, with our experience of the past, to begin, as we are permitted to do, to live afresh? Is it not our duty to remember, that if we seriously endeavour to rectify what has been wrong in our conduct, we are as one of those little ones,' and that our course is yet before us? With such considerations, a review of our early years, and of subsequent occurrences, cannot fail of being useful; and with these sentiments I will conclude my Reminiscences of Childhood!' Or is the wreath-enwoven bay Above the grave of Genius hung? And minstrel's name who sung? The strain may live on Fame's bright page, Her greenest garlands bloom! Then vainly was this longing given To eyes that sleep in darkness drear What 'vails the blessed light of day? Or music warbled on the ear That cannot list the lay. R Z. ON THE BURNING OF HINDOO WIDOWS. A late number of the Oriental Herald contains an extremely interesting article upon this subject, the object of which is to shew that these horrible sacrifices are not, as they have so frequently been represented, purely voluntary; although the latest returns of the average number of women who are burned on the funeral piles of their husbands are two per diem. The last parliamentary report upon this subject is, it states, false and deceptive. It asserts that the sacrifices which it enumerates were 'voluntary,'-that the widow was burnt of her own free accord;' or to make it stronger, of her own free will and accord;'-and this falsehood is repeated over and over again more than a dozen times. Now what is the fact? The widow is built into, or fastened down upon the pile by means of weights, ropes, and levers, so as to be cut off from that retreat which her own superstition, dark and bloody as it is, has mercifully left open to her. The shasters have prescribed the rites by which, if she choose to draw back, she may be restored to her family and caste, and her broken vow expiated. But this door of escape, strange to say, the British government has now suffered to be closed against her. Among the numerous cases detailed in the Indian newspapers, the most horrible was one which occured at Poonah in September. The woman, on feeling the torture of the fire, threw herself from the flames, and the European gentlemen present extinguished her burning clothes by plunging her in the water. She complained that the pile, from being badly constructed, consumed her so slowly that she could not endure the pain. When her inhuman relations saw her shrinking back from it, they laid hold of her and placed her upon it by force, and held her there, striking her with logs of wood, till they were driven away by the flames. She then escaped a second time, burst through her murderers, and, to assuage her torture, plunged herself into the water, her skin being by this time almost entirely scorched off her body. On this, the miscreants tried to drown her, but were prevented, and the wretched woman, having lingered till next day, died in the hospital! But for the accidental presence of several English gentleman, (Major Taylor, Lieuts. Morley, Apthorpe, Cooke, Swanson, Mr. Lloyd, and others,) who made it known through the newspapers, and attested the facts beyond dispute, this also would have been set down as a voluntary suttee, or perhaps never have been heard of at all. As it was, the evidence of the native officers, who were present officially, went to prove, in contradiction to these six gentlemen, that the woman's continuance in the fire was perfectly spontaneous, and that she was saved from it against her will! After such a glaring fact, what reliance can be placed on these reports? Who can doubt that the native officers of our government are bribed to countenance, and justify by perjury, if necessary, these diabolical scenes? According to the evidence of Major Taylor, and the other gentlemen above-named, these native officers were the very persons who encouraged the murderers to proceed, otherwise the deed would not have been accomplished. When the gentlemen would have prevented it, they said 'it was the custom to burn women when they attempted to escape;' and that the Brahmins had permission from the collector, Sahib, to carry on the suttee.' No one could venture to interrupt a murder committed under the sanction of such high authorities. Thus the presence of the police has a pernicious rather than a beneficial tendency, and the present mode of interference by licensing regular suttees, instead of preventing even irregular ones, is supposed to justify them all. In another case, were a sister was sacrificed with the body of the deceased instead of a wife, the father was prosecuted for preparing and setting fire to the pile, and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment; but the highest judicial authorities in Bengal, to whom the case was ultimately referred, decided that there was nothing in the act to bring it within the charge of murder. What, then, is murder, if any female whatever whether wife, or sister, or daughter, may be burnt to death innocently? In other cases, children of twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years of age, have frequently been sacrificed, although sixteen is declared to be the legal age; but still the murderers escape entirely, or are subjected merely to some slight punishment, as, a trifling fine, or a few months' imprisonment, just enough to give them the merit of suffering for religion's sake. In many cases the police officers know nothing of the matter until it is and as the perpetrators are under no obligation to give previous intimation of their intentions, they only do so when they wish to have the formal license and sanction of government for their barbarity. over ; The returns of the number of women sacrificed during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, and 1823, in the different districts of India are as follow: There is one light more under which this question ought to be viewed. The miserable situation of Hindoo females, after the death of their husbands, is, in reality, the strongest inducement to commit suicide. From being the female head of the family, they fall at once into a state of wretched dependence on their sons and daughters-in-law, of whom they become drudges or slaves, and are treated with the utmost contumely. The government may remedy this crying evil, without interfering with any religious practice. It may make a law, assigning every widow a sufficient maintenance proportionate to the means of the family, and independent of those who keep her now in a state of abject servility. Shall we be told here again, that government cannot interfere with the rights of property, or the laws of succession?—although it has appropriated to itself ninetenths of the net produce of the soil, and, in a few years, made a complete revolution of almost all the property throughout the country. While such is the miserable fate of Indian females, of even the highest rank, when they have the misfortune to survive their husbands, with what feelings of dismay must women of humbler circumstances look forward to |