Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-07-21
COFFEE PLANTING.
The Men with Whom the English Planter
Deals in Southern India.

The Men with Whom the English Planter
Deals in Southern India.
This passage occurs in Mr.. Z. l..
Arnold's recently published ION the
Indian Hills"
'.When 1 entered the great circle of
nearly two hundred men, women, and
children, looking as solemn as might be,
with the Hateful book in one hand and a
huge bag of copper and silver coins in
the other, having the half-caste clerk at
my elbow to interpret, L was conscious
that all eyes were upon me, and my
smallest motion was being watched in
deep silence by the assembled coolies
Determined to get into practice as soon
as possible, instead of letting the half
caste call over the names, determined
to do it myself, and, shooting out the
bag of money into a glittering heap on
the rough wooden tables in front of me,
plunged at once into the long columns
of OutlandiSh names, which filled ten or
or twelve folio pages of the day book.
When began calling the
fearful and wonderful Tamil and
Canarese names, there was general
litter round the circle, and three or
nunciation being so shaky that they
could not distinguish whose name it
was. However l suppressed the gig
CLING and, having obtained silence in
the court, forged slowly ahead, every
now and then making some mistake
which set the natives smiling, but get
ting slowly into the way of the pro-
nunciation, and running up the sums
and counting out the change like a
booking clerk. Often a coolie would
conclude he had not got the right
amount, and open a discussion which /
had to cut short; and 80 per cent of
them thought their rupees were bad,
so that from all sides rose the sound of
money being clinked upon the
rock to test its ring. Each native
as he came up salaamed and
held out both his hands, edge to
edge, to receive the overlooking bounty
of the sahib. Poor people! the strong
est man among them who had worked
in the rain and sun all the week only
took six times five annas-about equal
to IS. 4d.-and on this, of course, many
had to support wife and children to :
ill or weak to toll. Then, again. the
women-many of them mothers, with
small brown fragments of humanity
slung upon their backs-got three annas
a day, and the most they could earn
was little more than IS a week. Even
the little children came up, ducked their
small shaved heads in comical homage
to the great white sahib, and held out
very small brown hands for the price
which those hands were supposed to
have earned, at the rate of penny a
day. Last of all, the maistries receive
pay at the rate of six or eight annas pei
diem, and then the horse-bovs, cooks.
sweepers, and hangers-on of all sorts.
When these were satisfied, there was
still a small crowd of non-contents who
came up and complained that their
money was bad-would / change it:
which always did when possible, as il
poor fellow earned one rupee and
CHANGED to get paid with bad, I'M
changeable coin, there was nothing but
starvation for him during the next week
Others thought there was a mistake
somewhere-always to their disadvan
tage-and their names had to be hunted
for, and the amount of money oiver
compared with that entered in the
book"