Domestic Life of the Natives of India. By James Kerr.
(W. H. Allen.)—Mr. Kerr, as head of a great native college, had unusual opportunities for studying native character, but no more of learning native customs than the majority of Europeans resident in India. He takes, however, the kindly view, which is always the more accurate, and has accumulated a considerable store of facts and anecdotes, some of which have perhaps been rather too repeatedly honoured with public approval. Nearly half his book is devoted to an account of the system of caste, which he decides to be on the whole a religious rather than a social system. It is the centre of the cult or scheme of ceremonial observance which constitutes Hindooism, and "I am unable to get any clearer view of the castes than this, that they are simply sects dis- tinguished from one another by a divervity in ceremonies, and not by a diversity in doctrines, as among us." From that view we most entirely dissent, believing that Hindooism is based on a philosophical scheme of which the ceremonies are mere symbols, and that caste is the result of an effort made in India alone to enlarge the family till it embraced the tribe, and thereby to obtain that social support and protection which the family confers in Arabia and some other countries, and of which the Englishman alone among mankind is entirely careless. But Mr. Kerr has thought out his theory, and collected in its support a body of facts which men unfamiliar with India may read with the greatest advan- tage.
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