the event an astrologer casts its nativity, draws out its horoscope, and predicts its destiny. He also settles its name, taking the first letter from the particular planet under which it was born. These practices are said to be borrowed from the Hindus. They are quite as likely to have come from Persia; for a faith in astrology was as natural to the ancient Persians as it has always been to all the nations of the earth at early stages of their development. The wonder is that an intelligent and advancing people like the Pārsīs should still be under the dominion of such senseless superstitions. Surely the better educated among them can have no more faith in the family astrologer than an Englishman has in a gipsy fortune-teller.

As to the Pārsī funeral rites they have been fully described by me in previous essays. It is remarkable that in whatever points the Pārsīs have become imitators of Hindus, Muhammadans, and Christians, in one respect they still keep themselves quite distinct. Their method of exposing their dead to be devoured by vultures on open stone towers-called Towers of Silence-and the funeral ceremonies connected with this practice are unique, and without a parallel in any other country of the world.17.

It is generally believed that the spirits of deceased persons hover about in the neighbourhood of the Towers for three days after death. On the morning of the fourth day the soul is taken to the judgment seat of Mithra, and there judged according to its works done in the body. It has then to pass a narrow bridge called Chinvat-peretum, the bridge of decision,' the entrance to which is supposed to be guarded by a fierce dog. Sinful souls find themselves unable to pass this bridge, which, sharp as a razor-an idea borrowed from the Musalmāns—is the only passage over the gulf of hell to the gates of paradise. All their efforts are fruitless, and they ultimately fall into the chasm. The righteous alone are able to accomplish the feat, and are admitted to eternal bliss.

Before concluding this paper I must observe that in proportion to the greater intelligence and energy of the Pārsīs has been the beneficial effect of English education and civilisation on their character and customs. The change brought about and progress made are far more marked than in Hindus and Muhammadans. Old superstitious practices, many of which have been derived from the Hindus, are being rapidly abandoned, English manners adopted, early marriages discouraged, and female education promoted. A growing desire is also evinced to inquire intelligently into the principles of the Zoroastrian faith, to study the original text of the Avesta on which it is founded, and to sweep away the incrustations which conceal its purer doctrines. A large number of thoughtful Pārsīs are becoming earnest thinkers, and not a few are tending towards a form of simple Theism which, like that of the Brahma Theistic churches, may be gratefully

See my Modern India and the Indians. (Trübner and Co), third edition, p. 80.

accepted by those who are labouring for the spread of Christianity as a stepping-stone towards the wished-for goal.

At any rate it may be safely asserted that the Pārsīs are eagerly availing themselves of all the opportunities and advantages which the Government of Great Britain places at the disposal of every single individual among its millions of Indian subjects, irrespectively of race, rank, or creed. They are advancing steadily on the path of intellectual development; they have established schools for their young people of both sexes which are models of good management, and they are the only natives of India who encourage physical exercises with a right sense of their importance as a factor in the education of the whole man. It is common, indeed, to accuse the Parsis of too great fondness for sensual pleasure and good living, and it is quite true that fasting and abstinence form no part of their religion. But in fairness it must be admitted that they take as much care of their own poor as of themselves. Charity is an essential part of Pārsī religious duty. Not a beggar is to be found in the whole community.

In short, it is greatly to be desired that the Pārsīs may multiply more rapidly than they have hitherto done, and enlarge their coast beyond the limits of their present Western settlements. They are much wanted as an influence for good in all parts of India. They already constitute an important link between Hindus and Europeans, and, in their energy and industry, their desire for knowledge, their efforts at self-culture, their loyalty to authority and obedience to law, they set an invaluable example to all classes of the community, and not unfrequently put their English rulers to shame.

MONIER WILLIAMS.

OUR NEXT LEAP IN THE DARK.

THE practice of having a subject carefully inquired into either by a Parliamentary Committee or a Royal Commission previous to legislating upon it, is happily not quite given up, though of late somewhat fallen into abeyance. It is satisfactory to know that a Royal Commission is now engaged on a searching investigation into the working. of the different systems of land tenure in Ireland as a preparation for the measure which the Government have announced their intention of introducing on the subject. Indeed, the results of legislation thuspreceded by special public inquiries have in several conspicuousinstances, such as the Factories' Regulation Act of 1833, the New Poor Law Act of 1834, the Public Health Act of 1848, and the Act for regulating the Employment of Children in Mines, been so successful as to encourage further recourse to the same practice. On some questions the publication of the reports and evidence largely modified, on some actually reversed, the public opinion before prevalent, and on some created a public opinion where none had previously existed.. Many large and important measures have since been passed, and yet more proposed, by successive governments, but comparatively few based upon special previous inquiry.

Among these few cannot be reckoned any one of a series of Reform Bills brought in from time to time, culminating in the only one carried, viz. the Reform Act of 1867, most of the provisions of which are still in force; nor can the Ballot Act which followed it in 1872. The first of these two Acts, the outcome of a kind of Dutch auction between the two political parties, and therefore at the time deprecated by but few of us, was truly described in the House of Lords by one of its authors as a leap in the dark.' The second, the Ballot Act, might have been described as a leap into the dark, not indeed from the light, but from another variety of darkness.

We had had no experience up to 1867 of any quite satisfactory parliamentary franchise-satisfactory, I mean, not only as to the general character of the representatives elected under it, but also as to the general feelings of the people, electors and non-electors. Parliament, however, set to work in 1867 to amend it, on a plan which seemed rather the result of deduction from abstract reasoning, as

the principles propounded were applied chiefly with the aid of registration lists and census tables, than the result of induction from ascertained facts as to the actual working of our electoral system, parliamentary and municipal. These are facts not to be found in statistical tables, but only to be learnt from experienced electioneerers, familiar not with parliamentary contests alone, but also with the manipulation of municipal, with a view to parliamentary, .elections.

It is asserted by experienced conductors of similar or analogous investigations that if the preparation of the scheme for the Reform Bill of 1867 had not been confined to the Cabinet-if officers of practical experience, in the habit of sounding and exploring, with a view to electoral action, the depths into which the leap was to be taken, had been previously consulted-if such officers had been consulted as clerks of guardians who had been in the habit of acting as election agents in parliamentary contests, or town clerks used to dealing with municipal electors, among whom corruption has long been rife-they would have thrown much light on the whole subject. 'They would have pointed out, as morally certain to happen under such legislation, exactly what has been shown by the recent inquiries of the commissioners to have really happened under that Act, and would have confidently predicted the consequences which have excited so much surprise in the unsuspecting general public.

Then as to the other leap in the dark, the Ballot Act, the Conservatives were all in dismay about it, convinced that it would be their destruction as a party; the Liberals all in exultation, rejoicing in the identically same prospect. But the official witnesses above indicated, with their knowledge of the electoral masses, were confident that both parties were mistaken, and that the Ballot would only do just what it has done, viz. very little for either party.

It is under that Reform Act and the Ballot Act that those numerous instances of extensive electoral corruption have last year taken place, which have attracted so much attention abroad as well as at home, and have done so much to discredit the constitution under which we live.

Foreigners, unaccustomed to costly elections, cannot be persuaded that candidates would spend such large sums to get into the House of Commons unless they expected to obtain some pecuniary or other personal advantages in return. And must not the wage class draw much the same inference from this excessive expenditure, and the increased proportion of lawyers and directors of companies among the candidates? And do not many of them say, 'Why should I not only give the candidate my vote for nothing, but sacrifice some of my working time for him besides, when he expects to gain something worth having for himself by winning the seat? Why should I help a rich director or pushing lawyer gratis to gain what he wants,

when he gets highly paid for all his own time and work in his own business?'

We are led very soon to expect a further Reform Bill from the present Government. But it is to be feared that they, like their predecessors, will take no steps to acquire the information requisite for the due preparation of a measure that must so seriously influence for good or ill the future destinies of the British Empire, and that it is more likely to be based upon flesh and blood' or such like theories than upon the well-considered results of carefully ascertained facts and recorded experience. There are as yet no indications that with regard to the causes, as distinguished from the fact, of the existence. of such extensive electoral corruption, the Government have formed any plan for either instituting any special inquiries to ascertain those causes, or even for turning to account for that purpose, as far as they would be available, the commissions already engaged in the investigation of the corrupt practices themselves. It should be remembered, however, that these investigations are limited to certain constituencies, and are only held in consequence of the special reports of the prevalence of corruption there from the judges who tried the election petitions in them. Yet those causes are surely well worth investigating, and any moderate delay in consequence would be well worth incurring. Certainly the partial light thrown incidentally by the commissions last year upon the results of the leap in the dark is lurid enough. Indeed, judging from information reaching me from several quarters, with regard to the very extensive corruption practised at the last election in one borough, long notoriously corrupt, where, in the interest of both parties, a threatened petition was by agreement given up, it is to be feared that the disgraceful disclosures already made respecting several constituencies last year have been but as it were the lifting up of a corner of the curtain, which still veils a multitude of at least equally disgraceful instances of extensively corrupt constituencies.

In the four contests which I fought at Plymouth, I never remember so much as a rumour of more than a very few isolated and admittedly exceptional instances even of treating on either side; and I was at the time assured that there had been no more than that since the Reform Act of 1831. But of late years I have been pained to hear a very different account of my old constituency, and I must add of several others generally reputed to have been formerly pure. In fact there seems reason for apprehending that too many victories on both sides last year, triumphantly appealed to since by each respectively as conclusive evidence of genuine political feeling, really proved no more than that one party or the other in the particular place had the longer purse, or superior dexterity in organising systematic corruption.

As I have said, it is clear from these election trials and inquiries