Note 68 — P (Continued) (continued 2)

In a kindly note on the Paraiya classes, Surgeon-Major W. R. Cornish sums them up as follows.68 “A laborious, frugal, and pleasure-loving people, they are the very life-blood of the country, in whatever field of labour they engage in. The British administration has freed them, as a community, from the yoke of hereditary slavery, and from the legal disabilities under which they suffered; but they still remain in the lowest depths of social degradation. The Christian missionaries, to their undying honour be it said, have, as a rule, persevered in breaking through the time-honoured custom of treating the Paraiya as dirt, and have admitted him to equal rights and privileges in their schools and churches, and, whatever may be the present position of the Paraiya community in regard to education, intelligence, and ability to hold a place for themselves, they owe it almost wholly to the Christian men and women who have given up their lives to win souls for their great Master.”