SUTTEE IN INDIA.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1611, 19 April 1879, Page 4

SUTTEE IN INDIA.

Minute and harrowing accounts of the suttee of the inconsolable widows of Sir Jung Bahadoor (says the “Times of India”) were to be read immediately, after the death of that remarkable man. It was afterwards mentioned that only a few of the great Minister’s relicts expired in the flames, and ultimately it came to be surmised that possibly only one, the youngest and prettiest, died by fire; still it has hitherto been believed very generally that Sir Jung’s death proved the knell of a considerable percentage of his widows, if not of the whole batch. This pleasing romance has, however, been completely discredited by the arrival in Bombay, at three o’clock in the afternoon, of the whole four widows in question, escorted by a detachment of the Nepaulese army under the personal command of General Jegot Singh—“The Lion of the World”—the Oommander-in-Ohief, we are informed, of the forces of Nepaul. The ladies are en route to Dwarka, one of the five places of pilgrimage mentioned in the Shasters as possessing extraordioary sanctity. Juggernaut is another of the five places in question, and Benares is a third. The holiness of Dwarka may be inferred from that of its compeers. The widows are shrouded from head to foot with such care that even if the masculine eye were permitted to approach them it could learn nothing of their forms and features. But every care is taken that not even their outer garments may bo seen by the other sex. A covered way was formed at the Byculla station, passing from the railway carriage through the ladies’ waiting-room to the carriages in attendance, and along the passage the ladies were carried or moved beneath a sort of canopy of silver, right royal in style and value. Once safely got into the carriages they were whisked on off to Sunkersett House, which has been engaged for the occasion. There they will remain for a short time to recover from the fatigue of the railway Journey before proceeding to Dwarka.