We are very sorry to hear from eye-witnesses that the
Indian Government has sanctioned in Afghanistan the expedient adopted by General Avitabile and Lord Dalhousie for put- ting down fanatic murderers. The men are shot, their bodies burned, and their ashes scattered. The notion is that this pro- cess destroys the soul, Mussulmans holding that when Azrael summons the Faithful to meet the Judgment Day, he will not be at the trouble to find bodies thus scattered to the elements. We cannot hope to defeat the evidence of an expert in cruelty like Avitabile, but we believe both he and Lord Dalhousie's advisers laboured under a delusion. A Ghazee who dies slay- ing infidels, or through slaying infidels, mounts, according to the beat Doctors, to heaven at once, without waiting for the Judgment Day, and cremation does his soul no harm. Even if that is not so, the penalty is one we have no right to inflict, and one which compels every Mussulman to regard the Government that inflicts it as actively oppressive to the Faith. Is that common-sense, to say nothing of Christianity P We might just as well refuse extreme unction to every Catholic prisoner who dies in jail under sentence for treason.
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