Note 16 — Chapter II · —SECOND PERIOD: BENGAL PROVINCES.—1756-1798.

The abolition of "sitting in dharna" by Sir John Shore was the first great social reform which was carried out in India under British rule. In 1802 Lord Wellesley abolished the still more horrible practice of sacrificing living children by throwing them to the alligators at the mouth of the Ganges; whilst the once famous rite of suttee, or the burning of living widows with their dead husbands, was practised under British rule down to 1829, when it was abolished by Lord William Bentinck.