Shepherdstown Register

Human Sacrifices in India.

SHOCKING SCENES!—There is a ferocious tribe of natives inhabiting Goomsor in Bengal, called Khonds. The earth-goddess, one among the multitudes they worship, can be propitiated, as they believe, only by human flesh and blood. The miserable victims are purchased on false pretences, or kidnapped from the poorer classes of Hindoos in the low country. These are often children, great numbers of whom are kept on hand in reserve as they shall be wanted.

At the time appointed for the sacrifice, the victim is bound to a stake, and after scenes of most revolting drunken and obscene introductory services, at an appointed signal the bones are broken, after which the promiscuous crowd rush, with maddening fury, upon the sacrifice, wildly exclaiming, "We bought you with a price, and no sin rests upon us." They then cut his flesh in pieces from the bones. Thus the horrid rite is consummated. Each man then bears away his bloody shreds to his field, leaving them there as an acceptable offering, in favor of their fertility, to the bloody goddess.

The British Government has acted with great energy against this dreadful custom. In January, 1849, their agent, by an armed force, rescued one hundred and six of these devoted victims. A great sacrifice had been determined on, in anticipation of his coming; but he appeared among them suddenly, twelve days before the appointed time, and stayed the bloody work.

Under date of February, 1850, we learn that up to Jan. 27, one hundred and forty-three victims had been rescued by a young British officer by the name of Frye. At a later date we learn he had rescued one hundred and fifty victims in addition to the one hundred and forty-three previously rescued. The British Government are awake to the dreadful evil, and no pains will be spared to cause its entire cessation.

Some of these rescued victims have received a Christian education in the schools of the English Baptist Mission at Orissa, and promise great usefulness to their benighted countrymen.—Boston Traveller.