The study of the vagabonds and criminals of India demonstrates with special force the purely arbitrary nature of the moral standards which men have set up for themselves in different parts of the world. When, in the West, Buckle first made the statement that, given a certain proportion of Frenchmen, Englishmen, or Germans, the average number of suicides, murders, and larcenies committed by them could be accurately calculated, it was feared that his statistical treatment would undermine sound morality. Yet the Hindus have so little doubted that there must always be a fixed ratio of crime and vice that they have strengthened the natural certainty by the influence of their religion and ethics. A few years ago British officials were startled on finding that the census returns of a certain Hindu province included the names of thieves, murderers, sorcerers, poisoners, and beggars; but that these returns were given in all seriousness was later confirmed by similar reports from other provinces. The truth is that in India crime and vagrancy, like fighting and farming, are regular professions, and the men who follow them have laws, a religion, and a language all their own, and are united by ties more binding than any which have held together mediæval guilds or modern trades-unions. Were this merely the result of their efforts to consolidate their forces, it would not be so remarkable. Men who have lived by illegitimate means have, the world over, drawn together for mutual aid. But the esprit du corps which gave power to strolling beggars and vagrants in the Middle Ages, to Robin Hood and his tough-belted outlaws, to Spanish and Italian banditti, and which to-day stimulates the criminal classes of Europe and America, has always been maintained in direct disregard to established laws, while that which exists among Hindu vagabonds results from strict adherence to them. In one instance there is a rebellion against, in the other compliance with, social commands. It would be impossible to understand this exceptional phase of immorality without knowing something of the caste system which has been the cause of it.

Whether the four great castes of Brāhmans or priests, Kshatriyas or warriors, Vaisyas or merchants, and Sudras or servants were formed because of the legend relating the manner of their origin from the head, arms, thighs, and feet, respectively, of Brāhma, or whether this was an after-invention, intended to give divine sanction to an existing state of affairs, it is difficult to decide. But however that may be, it is certain that this division was made in an early age, probably even before the end of the Vedic period, and that its consequent religious and social requirements have been of such primal importance that, despite reformers and missionaries, invaders and conquerors, they have been faithfully observed unto the present time. The Brahman, who has outlived Chaldean and Assyrian, Persian and Egyptian civilizations, and survived Mohammedan, Mogul, and Christian rule, is to the European traveler of to-day what the Pope of Rome will be to Macaulay’s famous New Zealander. In almost every country, class distinctions have been continually modified as men with higher culture became more liberal. But in India any change or modification has been prevented by the fact that Hindus of all stations of life have for long centuries been taught that their highest spiritual and temporal duty is to marry within their own castes, and to follow throughout their lives the professions to which they are born. That such artificial barriers were at times overthrown is a matter of course. Cela va sans dire. The very statutes upon this subject, recorded in the Code of Manu and the Institutes of Vishnu, presuppose the crimes against which they guard. Hindus were but mortal, and, notwithstanding the law and its penalties, there were intermarriages. But, like the mulatto, who cannot be ranked with his Caucasian or his African parent, the offspring of these mésalliances could not be included in the social genus of either their father or their mother. The increasing complications of civilized life gave rise to new forms of work; yet the man who deserted for them the trade of his forefathers was isolated from his family and former associates. The problems thus raised were solved by the creation of a multiplicity of lower castes. But just as the ethnologist occasionally finds individuals of abnormal physical formation, beyond the limits of classification, so there were some beings who, because of their vile trade, or still viler birth, seemed to the Hindus moral monstrosities, for whom there was no place in their social scheme. Strong as was the hatred of Greek for barbarian, or of Jew for Gentile, it was exceeded by that of the Hindu for Mlekkas or non-Aryans. He could not ignore the aboriginal inhabitants of the country which he had conquered, and whom he had not been able to wholly exterminate, but he looked upon them as creatures too low to be used as slaves or servants, or even as beasts of burden. They were, in his estimation, no better than unclean animals, from whose contaminating contact and presence it was necessary to shield legitimate members of society. For all social purposes it was the same as if they did not exist. They were not permitted to belong to any caste, and the law and the religion of the land knew them not. There was thus, in the midst of a people whose obligations of every kind were defined with unparalleled exactness, a large population of men and women to whom all rights and duties were denied. To their numbers were added those political and religious offenders among men of caste for whom death of the body was deemed too merciful a punishment, and the sons and daughters born of what was considered the infamous union of a Brāhman with a Sudra. The large proportion of this degraded class were therefore literally out-castes.