Modern India - William Eleroy Curtis

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Their rural population is drifting too rapidly to the cities, and the cities are growing faster than is considered healthful. In India, during the ten years from= 1891 to 1901 the city population has increased only 2,452,083, while the rural population has increased only 4,567,032.

      The following table shows the number of people supported by each of the principal occupations named:

Agriculture 191,691,731
Earth work and general labor (not agriculture) 17,953,261
Producing food, drink and stimulants 16,758,726
Producing textile fabrics 11,214,158
Personal, household and sanitary 10,717,500
Rent payers (tenants) 106,873,575
Rent receivers (landlords) 45,810,673
Field laborers 29,325,985
General laborers 16,941,026
Cotton weavers 5,460,515
Farm servants 4,196,697
Beggars (non-religious) 4,222,241
Priests and others engaged in religion 2,728,812
Workers and dealers in wood, bamboo, etc. 2,499,531
Barbers and shampooers 2,331,598
Grain and pulse dealers 2,264,481
Herdsmen (cattle, sheep and goats) 2,215,791
Indoor servants 2,078,018
Washermen 2,011,624
Workers and dealers in earthen and stone ware 2,125,225
Shoe, boot and sandal makers 1,957,291
Shopkeepers 1,839,958
Workers and dealers in gold and silver 1,768,597
Cart and pack animal owners 1,605,529
Iron and steel workers 1,475,883
Watchmen and other village servants 1,605,118
Grocery dealers 1,587,225
Sweepers and scavengers 1,518,482
Fishermen and fish curers 1,280,358
Fish dealers 1,269,435
Workers in cane and matting 1,290,961
Bankers, money lenders, etc. 1,200,998
Tailors, milliners and dressmakers 1,142,153
Officers of the civil service 1,043,872
Water carriers 1,089,574
Oil pressers 1,055,933
Dairy men, milk and butter dealers 1,013,000

      The enormous number of 1,563,000, which is equal to the population of half our states, are engaged in what the census terms "disreputable" occupations. There are about eighty other classes, but none of them embraces more than a million members.

      Among the curiosities of the census we find that 603,741 people are engaged in making and selling sweetmeats, and 550,241 in selling cardamon seeds and betel leaves, and 548,829 in manufacturing and selling bangles, necklaces, beads and sacred threads. There are 497,509 teachers and professors, 562,055 actors, singers and dancers, 520,044 doctors and 279,646 lawyers.

      The chewing of betel leaves is one of the peculiar customs of the country, even more common than tobacco chewing ever was with us. At almost every street corner, in the porticos of the temples, at the railway stations and in the parks, you will see women and men, squatting on the ground behind little trays covered with green leaves, powdered nuts and a white paste, made of the ashes of cocoanut fiber, the skins of potatoes and a little lime. They take a leaf, smear it with the lime paste, which is intended to increase the saliva, and then wrap it around the powder of the betel nut. Natives stop at these stands, drop a copper, pick up one of these folded leaves, put it in their mouths, and go off chewing, and spitting out saliva as red as blood. Strangers are frequently attracted by dark red stains upon pavements and floors which look as if somebody had suffered from a hemorrhage or had opened an artery, but they are only traces of the chewers of the betel nut. The habit is no more harmful than chewing tobacco. The influence of the juice is slightly stimulating to the nerves, but not injurious, although it is filthy and unclean.

      It is a popular impression that the poor of India live almost exclusively upon rice, which is very cheap and nourishing, hence it is possible for a family to subsist upon a few cents a day. This is one of the many delusions that are destroyed when you visit the country. Rice in India is a luxury that can be afforded only by the people of good incomes, and throughout four-fifths of the country is sold at prices beyond the reach of common working people. Sixty per cent. of the population live upon wheat, barley, fruit, various kinds of pulses and maize. Rice can be grown only in hot and damp climates, where there are ample means of irrigation, and only where the conditions of soil, climate and water supply allow its abundant production does it enter into the diet of the working classes. Three-fourths of the people are vegetarians, and live upon what they produce themselves.

      The density of the population is very great, notwithstanding the enormous area of the empire, being an average of 167 to the square mile, including mountains, deserts and jungles, as against 21.4 to the square mile in the United States. Bengal, the province of which Calcutta is the capital, on the eastern coast of India, is the most densely populated, having 588 people to the square mile. Behar in the south has 548, Oudh in the north 531; Agra, also in the north, 419, and Bombay 202. Some parts of India have a larger population to the acre than any other part of the world. The peasants, or coolies, as they are called, are born and live and die like animals. Indeed animals seldom are so closely herded together, or live such wretched lives. In 1900, 54,000,000 people were more or less affected by the famine, and 5,607,000 were fed by the government for several months, simply because there was no other way for them to obtain food. There was no labor they could perform for wages, and those who were fortunate enough to secure employment could not earn enough to buy bread to satisfy the hunger of their families. It

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