4. S. SUBRAMANIA AIYAR, VAKIL, HIGH COURT.-It is not desirable that the peculiar circumstances of this community should be lost sight of, and popular opinion, however unreasonable it may be considered to be by the go-ahead reformers, rejected in a consideration of these questions, and that changes entirely out of harmony with the feeling and even with the prejudices of the people should be suddenly introduced.

5. P. CHENTSAL RAO.-I do feel that infant marriage and enforced widowhood are evils and serious evils too, but I do not see my way to advising the Government to interfere in the matter directly or indirectly. While any such interferencə can be productive of no beneficial results, it is sure to shake the confidence of the people in the neutrality of Government in religious matters, and create a reaction in favour of the very evils which it is our wish to repress.....

It would be contrary to all principle for Government to tell the priest that he ought not to advise his followers to do what he himself thinks to be right for his spiritual welfare.

6. M. TILLAINAYAGAM PILLAI, DEPUTY COLLECTOR, MADURA.-The best course for effecting the reform is to create a sufficiently strong public opinion in favour of it and all that Government can render is indirect aid.

What we want is, men to set examples, more Rajagopala Charlus and Seshayengars.

7. R. RUGHUNATH RAO.-The priest's excommunication is nothing more than the exercise of his private undoubted right, and to interfere with it would be illegal. The best remedy against excommunication of the priest is to show contempt of it openly and neglect it. If men of common sense and education would do this, there would be an end to the priest's tyranny.

8. T. PATTABHIRAM, HEAD SERASHTADAR TRICHINOPOLY CLLECTORATE.-I, for one do not much believe in young men or young women being always happy in their choice. Choice

after all is a blind guess, and is always more tempted or governed by symmetrical make and personal grace than by any insight into the quality of the mind and attachment of the heart.........If men of so much above the usual average run of mankind as Lord Byron &c, fail in their choice, and in a society which allows free scope for many a private talk and personal intercourse between the young lovers, can there be any meaning in the high-sounding phrase 'liberty of choice.'?

SECTION II. BOMBAY PRESIDENCY.

9. LALLUBHAI NANDLAL, NATIVE ASSISTANT TO THE COMMISSIONER, NORTH DIVISION.-The chief point, therefore, that is left for consideration is whether the general marriageable standard of the age of girls from 7 to 10 is objectionable.......................The climate of India makes it desirable that girls should be married at this age, and though at the same time it would be very much desirable that the consummation should begin a little later, I think, to provide for this a remedy in checking marriage at the age abovementioned is rather fighting against nature itself.

10. VENAYEK WASSUDEV.-In my humble opinion education alone will bring about these changes in the social fabric so highly desirable, nay necessary, and any interference on the part of the State may provoke opposition to the reform which is at present slowly but surely in progress. Act XV of 1856 is quite sufficient to protect widows inclined to marry. When female education is better developed the progress of social reform will be rapid and remarkable.

11. MAHADEO MORESHWAR KUNTE.-My belief is that no legal enactment is necessary, and that reformers, as opposed to the orthodox, should work out the called-for reforms without any aid from the State, which cannot assist a small minority, however intelligent and well-informed.

12. HARI PARSAD SANTOKRAM.--My own opinion is that the subjects of infant marriage and what Mr. Malabari calls "enforced widowhood" are important, and should be kept before the public by discussion, lectures &c., but strictly in a private and unofficial way.

13. NANABHAI HARIDAS.-Government cannot, consistently with its avowed policy, and ought not to, interfere in purely social and religious matters. However unreasonable certain usages and customs in India may appear to foreigners, it must not be forgotton that to the people at large, among whom they obtain, they appear in another light, and that the fact of their having existed for centuries is in itself some evidence of their being adapted to the circumstances of the people. Notwithstanding all that one hears now and then of "ill-assorted" marriages entailing "life-long misery," I am disposed to think that our conjugal relations are on the whole more satisfactory than those among other people. Our domestic differences are certainly fewer, and when they arise we arrange them without having recourse to matrimonial or other tribunals

Until the views of the people generally change, no action on the part of Government will have any appreciable effect in preventing infant marriage or promoting widow remarriage. Social reform associations exist, and have existed for years in almost all the large towns in the Presidency; but the reformers are a mere drop in the ocean, and up to this time they have not met with much success in their efforts. But they are gradually increasing both in numbers and influence, and as education advances they will be able to accomplish much which at present may seem almost impossible.

14. SAKHARAM ARJUN.-The growing spread of primary education among the masses, the extension of higher education, the progress of railways, the closer contact with western thought and culture, the increasing facilities afforded and largely availed of of, a travel to Europe and England, all these

together and every one of them singly, is a nail in the coffin of blind prejudice and settled ignorance.

15. S. H. CHIPLONKAR.-Individually I desire to see complete equality between the two sexes, that is to say, if a widow of 40 chooses to remarry, I see no reason why she should be prevented from doing so, when a widower of over 50 can with impunity do so. But this consummation is a work of time, and no law can, as it were, create such a state of things to order ...

According to the English law, both civil and religious, a marriage with a deceased wife's sister is illegal, and though an advanced body of social and religious reformers in the United Kingdom have been making a strong effort for the last 30 years and more to legalize such marriages, and it is even stated that some members of the Royal family are strongly and actively in favour of the movement, the religious sentiment against legalizing such marriages is so strong that the effort of the minority has been hitherto altogether unavailing.

16. NARMADASHANKAR LALSHANKAR.-If we let these matters alone now, education would gradually but surely open the eyes of the people, and lead them to adopt a compromise between the venerable old and the dazzling new customs which will be both more consonant with the ideas, habits and traditions of the people because brought about by themselves, and more permanent because of its being based on popular convictions.

17. GANPATRAM G. SASTRI.-It is not unlikely that interference on the part of the State in this matter (widowhood) might create unforeseen difficulties in other directions which may tend as in the case of the abolition of the Sattee system, to aggrevate some evils undreamt of at present.

18. GAVARISHANKAR UDEYSHANKAR.-No observer of Hindu life can afford to ignore the fact that religion is the basis upon which the whole fabric of Hindu Society is built, and the reformer who chooses to pull out one brick from

here and another brick from there, with perhaps the best intentions in the world, to improve the shape of the structure, is bound to pause and consider whether his attempt, instead of mending matters, will not cause the whole structure to tumble down.

19. PANDURUNG BALIBHADRA.-I am of opinion that there is no necessity for appealing to Government on social matters..... .... Constitutions' it is said 'are not made but grow.' This is as true of social as it is of political development. True growth comes from within; not from without. Reform to be real, thorough, and productive of lasting good, must spring and emanate from the people themselves. It should never be forced upon them.

20. RAM SHASTRI DIKSHIT APTE OF POONA.-Infanticide is not ordained by the Shastras but is considered a sin, and Government were therefore right in suppressing it, and it in no way interfered with the religion of the people. Killing one-self under the car of Jagannath was not also a religious practice. It is true that Government interfered with the religion of the people when they suppressed Sati............but this was before the 1857 (or 1858) Proclamation which publicly declared the Government policy of non-interference. Moreover there was the alternative of widows leading a life of abstinence, and Satis were rare being one in a lakh or even a crore, in every year. This was again not a deliberate action of the widow, but an impulse of the moment and gave much pain to the relations.

21. AMBALAL S. DESAI.-To enforce any law that may be made, very wide powers must be given to the Police which will lead to certain corruption and oppression towards the weak, and inquisitorial proceedings will be often resorted to. No enquiry could be efficiently made without making a rude intrusion into the sacred domains of private life and disturbing the peace of families. Further there are mothers and fathers who