SUICIDE EPIDEMIC AMONG BENGAL GIRLS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 169, 22 August 1914, Page 7

SUICIDE EPIDEMIC AMONG BENGAL GIRLS.

An Indian correspondent writes thus to the " Statesman'':—'' It appears that quite a new' spirit has arisen among the girlhood of the Bengali race. Bengal has of late witnessed with astonishment akin to a feeling of reverence and admiration a number of cases of self-immolation of tender Bengali girls." What this Hindu writer describes 111 exalted terms is stated by English observers to be a curious epidemic of suicide. It began about three months ago with the self-destruction of a girl named Snehalata, whose father was about to mortgage his property in order to pay the purchase price of a husband for her. The sum now demanded bv the fathers of eligible bo} r s in Bengal is ruinously high. The price of a graduate may go up to £666, and ev.eu a matriculate can command £33. The enhancement of rates is due to the law of supply and demand. Girls must ordinarily be married before puberty, while the increasing requirements of education have led to the postponement

of the marriage of boys. There is thus a diminishing supply i. of .hiisbands, whereas the demand is unchanged. The suicide of Snehalata, who poured kerosene oil over her clothing anff set herself on fire, provoked an outburst of admiration among marriage reformers and the fathers of marriageable girls. The natural result is that other young girls have followed the example of Snehalata; while it is common talk among school girls that when the time comes for their marriage they will sacrifice themselves in the same wav.

This epidemic has not confined itself to victims of the husband's dowry. The widow of a wealthy young Hindu recently buried herself to death, leaving an orphan child. Since then a young girl on the sixth day of her widowhood saturated her clothing with kerosene and set it alight. Our ideas about the easy, careless lives of Oriental women have during the last few years received many rude shocks from the revelations that have been made. It is stated by the same English observers that the most cheerful prospect . that awaits a Hindu widow is a life of prostitution—a life no more desirable in an Indian bazaar, whatever romantic fictiouists may assure us to the contrary, than in the streets of any English-speaking community. It is not difficult for white women to understand how some young Hindus prefer blazing kerosene to an existence which holds out no better hope than that of becoming a member of what has been called with cynical immorality "the oldest profession in the world."