bears a striking resemblance to it, in its adaptation to promote domestic happiness. The festival familiarly known in Bengal by the

, on their peculiar domestic and social economy. A designing priesthood had concocted an almost endless round of superstitious rites with the view of acquiring power, and looking for permanent reverence to the credulity of the blind devotees. Such foolish rites are eventually destined to fall into desuetude, as popular enlighte

n the chapter of their joys. A good son-in-law is emphatically the most darling object of a Hindoo mother-in-law. She spares no possible pains to please and satisfy him, even calling to her aid the supernatural agency of charms. Ostensibly and even practically a Hindoo mother-in-law lov

thful son-in-law is restrained by a sense of shame from freely partaking of the feast specially provided for him. The earnest importunity of the females urges the bashful youth to eat more and more. If this be his first visit as son-in-law he finds himself quite bewildered in the midst of superfluity and superabundance of preparations. Many are the tricks employed to outwit him. With all his natural shrewdness, and forewarned by the females of his own family, he is no match for either the playful humor and frolics of the young, sprightly ladies. Sham articles of food cleverly dressed in close imitation of fruits and sweetmeats are offered him withou

of the son-in-law, and every lane and street of Calcutta is thronged with male and female servants trudging along