A story comes to England from Delhi about the flak
of an English girl of fourteen to the chief of Bhatwa, a State in Katty- war. The girl, it is said, was purchased from her parents for 3001., married to the chief, a man of seventy, and converted to Mohammedanism. We presume the truth is that the girl con- sented to go, that the parents' consent was purchased, and that the conversion was the ceremony necessary to ensure her position as a wife, instead of a concubine. If so there is nothing to be said, except that the incident is discreditable to the European family. There is nothing in Indian law to prevent a native marry- ing a white woman, or a Christian turning Mussulman, or a woman's parents receiving a present from their son-in-law. We may suspect that the girl was coerced in some way or other, but at the Cape numbers of Englishwomen have married Moham- medans, and in India, where women are mothers at thirteen, it would be impossible to legalize English ideas as to age. So strong is Indian feeling against such transactions, that on one occasion an English girl who proposed to marry a native was arrested by the magistrate, andsent under escort to Calcutta, but there is no law to prevent such unions.
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