"Behind the Purdah."

"BEHIND the Purdah." Or the lives and legends of Hindu sisters is the title of an excellent and fascinating little volume issued by Messrs. Thacker Spink and Co., the well known publishing firm of Calcutta. Miss Mary Cattell, the author, has written the book with the earnest wish to draw closer together the women of the East and West, and it must be gladly recognized that she has eminently succeeded in her self-allotted task. Miss Cattell's object is to take the daughters of the British Isles with her into the inside of the Hindu homes in Bengal and to enable them to see what is to be found there. Miss Cattell with a large insight and deep-seated sympathy gives credit to the ladies of Bengal behind the Purdah the fullest credit for their noble qualities, their religious devoutness, their devotion to the family circle, and their spirit of love and charity, traits of character common to the Hindu women all over India. She has studied with a careful eye the conditions of life in the zenana and found what is, indeed, the truth that the Hindus woman has great traits of character and that though inside the four walls she cannot be hastily dismissed, except by the tongue of malice as an ignorant and uncultured woman.