THEIR VICE AND UNCLEANLINESS
lose or gain in public estimation, abandon themselves without shame or restraint to vice of all kinds, and the
greatest lawlessness prevails amongst them, for which they do not feel the least shame. One might almost say that, in the matter of vice, they outstrip all others in brutality, as the Brahmins do in malice. Their habits of uncleanliness are disgusting. Their huts, a mass of filth and alive with insects and vermin, are, if possible, even more loathsome than their persons. Their harsh and forbidding features clearly reveal their character, but even these are an insufficient indication of the coarseness of their minds and manners. They are much addicted to drunkenness, a vice peculiarly abhorrent to other Hindus. They intoxicate themselves usually with the juice of the palmtree, called toddy, which they drink after it has fermented,
and it is then more spirituous. In spite of its horrible stench they imbibe it as if the nauseous liquid were nectar.
Drunken quarrels are of frequent occurrence amongst them, and their wives are often sufferers, the unhappy creatures being nearly beaten to death, even when in a state of pregnancy. It is to this brutality and violence
of their husbands that I attribute the frequent miscarriages
to which Pariah wives are subject, and which are much more common amongst them than amongst women of any
other caste.
What chiefly disgusts other natives is the revolting nature of the food which the Pariahs eat. Attracted by
the smell, they will collect in crowds round any carrion, and contend for the spoil with dogs, jackals, crows, and
other carnivorous animals. They then divide the semiputrid flesh, and carry it away to their huts, where they
devour it, often without rice or anything else to disguise the flavour. That the animal should have died of disease is of no consequence to them, and they sometimes secretly poison cows or buffaloes that they may subsequently feast on the foul, putrefying remains. The carcases of animals that die in a village belong by right to the toti or scavenger,
who sells the flesh at a very low price to the other Pariahs in the neighbourhood. When it is impossible to consume in one day the stock of meat thus obtained, they dry the remainder in the sun, and keep it in their huts until they