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