The Calcutta correspondent of the Times recently reported that, according
to the new Census of Bengal, the popular idea that village society in that province is immovable, is quite unfounded. There is a steady stream of people pouring from the densely peopled districts to the less-populated areas. This is true all over India, and especially in Bengal, where village institutions have lost much of their hold ; but the attachment of the people to the soil remains as strong as ever. It is the families which can get no land that move, and will ultimately fill up the two provinces which are at once empty and deltaic, the mighty valleys of the Burrampooter and of the Irrawaddy. It appears from the Census, also, that Mahommedanism still makes great numbers of converts in Bengal, the increase of Islam being 9 per cent. in the decade, while that of Hindooism is only. 5. The compilers attribute this mainly to the advan- tages which Mahommedanism confers on the lower castes, who on conversion are at once numbered among the respect- ables, and that is in the mass the true explanation ; but the creed, especially in its Wahabee, or Protestant, form, has also a strong attraction for thoughtful Hindoos, whole villages often. going over. They prefer the central Mussulman idea, the sovereignty of a divine being, to the central Hindoo idea, which is the endless circulation of the soul from the universal spirit back to him, or it, again. In the great Asiatic fight of monotheism and pantheism, pantheism is losing.
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