punished by Taleshur with instant death. On the other hand, among themselves sexual morality can scarcely be said to exist.

Some of the customs as regards the disposal of the dead are noteworthy. Cremation is unknown among them, although the more eclectic Meches are already copying this rite from Hinduism, in the case of their richer families. The Totos bury their corpses with all their clothes, ornaments, and weapons, in a place set apart for the purpose. They perform no religious service of any kind at death, but they kill a fowl, and place it near the grave to supply one meal for the dead in the next world. The sex of the fowl thus presented to the manes always corresponds with that of the departed. All the relatives assemble near the grave at night, and drink a libation to the memory of the deceased. They have no theory of the future life, and I could discover no trace of metempsychosis in their speculations. They have nothing corresponding to the custom of the Gáros, to which something analogous is found among the Kelts, of mingling their tearful outcries for the dead with dancing and the playing of musical instruments.

Their language is wonderfully distinct from any other Turanian dialect which has yet been published. I have compared my own record of the language, embracing some 110 words, with The Comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High Asia, by Dr. W. W. Hunter, which contains the Vocabularies of about 120 nonAryan races; and the differences between the Toto vocabulary and any one of those recorded by Dr. Hunter, are certainly greater than the differences from each other of any of the families of languages bracketed together. There undoubtedly isolated words which are nearly identical with the Bhutia language others similar to that of

are

the Dhímáls, an almost extinct branch of the Northern Bengal aborigines-and others which slightly resemble the tongues of the Keranti or East Nepal group; but the differences are far more striking than the resemblances. The Toto word for mother, aiya,' is unlike the equivalent in any non-Aryan tongue, except the Khond agga of Central India, and the Cachári 'aie.' Neither of the two traditions as to the origin of the Totos to which I have alluded, suggests either Central India or Cachar as the home of the race. It would require a separate paper to examine critically the number of sporadic resemblances in the Toto language to isolated words among the tribes of East Nepal, the Thibetans, the Lepchas, and even the Nágás. There are no less than thirteen out of the 110 words I have recorded in my Toto vocabulary which have some similarity to the equivalent in Bhutia; but the Toto features and colour are so utterly diverse from those of the Bhutias as absolutely to negative the value of this evidence. The similarity is, however, sufficiently marked to prove that many words have been adopted and assimilated from the Bhutia Vocabulary; and in order that this should take place, it is necessary to date the immigration of the Totos to the Bhutan frontier long before historic times. The resemblances, however, which exist between the Toto and Dhímál tongues, would tend strongly to corroborate the theory that they came originally from the delta of the Ganges and the Kásái. The Dhímáls, like the Totos, are nearly extinct, and I have only seen one specimen of the race, who lived in a village on the Darjiling frontier, and he did not present any striking similarity in appearance to the Toto. Totos themselves repudiate any connection with the Dhímáls, and, indeed, appeared ignorant of the very name. Strange to say, the

The

word 'orang' (the well-known Malay equivalent for man) occurs among them in a compound word meaning 'old man.'

The Totos can only be regarded as waifs and strays of humanity, whom the Titanic waves of race dispersion have left stranded on this edge of the Bhutan frontier, to become eventually fellow subjects with ourselves of the English Crown. By what tide of ethnical revolution they were driven to their present village, and from what home they originally came, are problems which the foregoing suggestions cannot be said to have solved. Whether the tradition that the cradle of the race was in the hills of Bhutan, or beyond the river Kásái be true, I have not the data to determine; but thus much can be gathered from the little that can now be learnt of their customs and superstitions, that they have no chance of surviving the conquering tide of Aryanism, which either absorbs or destroys whatever it comes into contact with. Degraded in their own eyes, and despised by their neighbours, they must soon play their final part in the tragedy of life; and the last

scene cannot be far off, which will end their strange history. Certainly no small interest belongs to them, if they are a remnant and a type of the aboriginal races which occupied Bengal before its subjugation to Aryan civilisation.

It will be seen throughout this paper that the subtle law of action and reaction among races is powerfully at work; the pre-historic influence of the non-Aryan tribes, whom the Hindus found in the plains of Bengal at the time of the Aryan immigration, upon the whole later fabric of Hinduism, has now given place to the reaction of composite Hinduism upon the tribes who have hitherto kept aloof in their mountain or swampy fastnesses. The distinctive religious customs of all such tribes as are destined to retain vitality are fast disappearing or merging in Hinduism; but those of others, such as the Totos, who have lost the assimilative faculty which keeps alive an inferior race in contact with a higher civilisation, and are destined to be swept away by the wave of progress, remain unchanged to the last.

T. DURANT BEIGHTON, B.C.S,

things in a trade-union. Pressure is sometimes brought to bear, to an unfair degree, upon those who refuse to join the union; but usually this is exercised over those who have in some way transgressed its rules. This kind of pressure is not confined to trade-unionists; we can find plenty of it among barristers, doctors, ministers, traders and commercial men of all classes. The Reform Club recently gave us an example of its working in political circles; in what is termed 'society' we find it developed to a most unhealthy extent, often it operates without rhyme or reason, to the exclusion of a luckless offender from its ranks. It is not intended by these remarks to defend the practice of the unions; the object is rather to narrow down the issues.

Trade-unions are sometimes described as being the hot-beds of tyranny,' the 'instruments of oppression,' and as secret organisations for the purpose of assassination.' Secret societies they are not, and never have been, in the sense attributed to them. Whatever of secrecy they may ever have had was forced upon them by unjust laws; and even then they were less secret than some others that were tolerated, and in a sense protected by law. In their darkest days, when penal laws were enacted for their suppression, and cruel sentences inflicted on all offenders, they were generally as open and above board in their acts and deeds as were the political organisations of the same date. Since the partial repeal of the combination laws in 1824, trade-unions have no more deserved the name of secret societies than those established for purely benevolent purposes; in this respect they stand on precisely the same footing as friendly societies, provident societies, building socie

ties, scientific associations, and political clubs. Before that date their members were hunted like wild beasts, and there are men still living who can remember having to bury their books on the town moor for fear of a vindictive prosecution.

The charges of tyranny and oppression which are brought against the unions, must be examined a little more closely. These accusations did not originate with the investigations which took place at Sheffield and Manchester in 1867; they belong to a period much farther back in the annals of their history; but their repetition in our day is almost entirely due to the facts then and there brought to light. The disclosures made before the Royal Commission had no more to do with trade-unionism than rioting and plunder have to do with political meetings; the whole of the evidence given has been sifted, and my conclusions thereupon stated elsewhere. Briefly they are these: that the trade-unions of England should be held guiltless of any participation in those crimes, just as much as you would hold the Government of to-day guiltless of the crimes committed at Peterloo. No good can ever come from the impeachment of a whole class because of the wrong-doing of a few belonging to that class; to brand trade-unionists as criminals for the reason that some union men have dishonoured themselves, and brought disgrace on their fellows, is an outrage on common decency, and a violation of all justice.

2

It is said that the unionists are a tyrannical majority who rule the minority with an iron hand; this, however, is hardly true in any case; in most instances it is the very reverse of being true. Let the statement be tested by a few facts. The members of the Amal

gamated Society of Engineers, according to their own reports, do not number one-third of those working at the trade. The estimated number of working engineers in the country is stated to be 150,000: of these, 45,000 only are members of the union; so that in this, one of the best organised in the world, the society men are but a small minority. The boiler-makers and iron ship-builders estimate their numerical strength as being fully three-fourths of the whole; the iron-founders number, probably, about two-thirds; the steam-engine makers, one-half; the carpenters and joiners about one-fourth; the masons have, possibly, nearly twothirds; the bricklayers most likely number three-fifths; the plasterers, one-third; the painters and decorators probably one-sixth; the tailors and shoemakers about one-fifth. In most other trades the proportions are far less than those above given. The idea, therefore, of a domineering majority, crushing the minority under their heel, is a little far-fetched, seeing that, in the examples selected, which are among the strongest and wealthiest societies in the United Kingdom, the proportion stands at twenty-two nonsociety men to sixteen unionists.

How, then, it will be asked, is it that society men are usually represented as being oppressive towards non-union men? The explanation is not difficult, when all the facts are fairly taken into account. Non-society men, be it remembered, are eager enough to enjoy all the advantages gained for them by means of the union, and as a rule they are equally anxious to avoid contributing to its funds, submitting to its discipline, and taking their share of its risks. At the same time they are often quite as reckless as the men in union in entering into a strike, and not unfrequently even more so, for in the one case an organised body

has to be consulted, the majority of whom are not in any way mixed up with the dispute, whereas in the other they can act on the spur of the moment without being called to account. When a strike has actually taken place these men expect to be paid out of the union funds just in the same way as though they were members. When they find that the society men are getting 10s., 128., or 158. per week, and that they have no claim to a like allowance, they first grumble, then waver in their resolves, and at last submit to the terms offered by the employers. But there is another class quite different from those before indicated, namely, the unskilled, or only partially skilled, men who would not at any other time be accepted as members by the union, nor would they be employed by the masters if it were not for the strike. It is astonishing how much inconvenience the employers will put up with, at these times, if they can only manage thereby to beat the union, and frustrate the objects of those on strike. Then comes retaliation; those who during the dispute took the places of the turn-outs,' as they are called, are gradually weeded out, by two processes; first, by the masters, who rid themselves of the more incompetent workmen as soon as possible; after having served his turn, as makeshifts, and being no longer needed, they have now to make way for better men; secondly by the society men refusing to work alongside of those who helped to destroy their chances of success. Some of them are thus forced, as it were, into the union, while others seek employment elsewhere. The feeling here described, however much we may condemn it, is but natural, and evidences abound of its existence in other classes than those who constitute the members of trade-unions. Still it must not be forgotten that the policy is a