The Pall Mall Gazette says the abolition of suttee among
Hindoos was due to Sir Charles Napier. Sir Charles did forbid it in Scinde, but in so doing he only obeyed a general Act passed in the reign of Lord William Bentinck, which forbade the practice within all British dominions present or future. It is a remarkable fact that suttee—unlike the practice of drowning infants as sacrifices to the Sea, which was similarly forbidden—revives the instant our rule is withdrawn, and we believe the true explanation to be this. The permanent terror of a Hindoo's life is poison, his beat guarantee against it, his certainty that his wife, who cooks for him even in the highest houses, will not risk the horrible life imposed on a widow in order to be rid of him. We have heard this distinctly assigned by Brahmins of the highest rank as a final argument against the remarriage of widows, arid, a fortiori, it is an argument for suttee.
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