Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1882-07-12
tolee-Plaptirg.

ment in his book called Son the Indian
Hills IN relation to coffee planting in
Southern India. "When l entered
the great circle of nearly two hundred
men, women, and children, looking as
solemn rs might be, with the fatelu
day-book in sne hand and huge bag
Of copper and silver coins in the other,
having the half-caste clerk at my elbow
to interpret, | was conscious that all
eyes were upon me, and my smallest
motion was being watched in deep 81
lence by the assembled coolies. de-
termined TO get into practice as soon as
possible, instead Of letting the half
caste call over the names, 1 determined
to do it myself. and, shooting out the
bag of mon<y into a glittering heap on
the rough wooden table in front Of me,
plunged at once into the long columns
of outlandish names, which filed ten or
twelve folio pages of the day-book.
When 1 began calling the fearful and
wonderful Tamil and Canarese names,
there was general litter round tine cir
Gle, and three or four men answered at
once, my pronunciation being SO shaky
that they could not distinguish whose
name II was However, l suppressed
the giggling, and having obtained ST.
lence in the court. forge6 slowly ahead.
every now and then making some mis-
take which set the natives smiling, but
getting slowly into the way OF the pro
nunciation. and running mp the sums
and counting ont the change like IA
booking clerk. Often a coolie would
conclude he hal not got the hight
amount, and opened discussion which
| had to cut very short; aud 80 per
cent. of them thought their rupees
We're bad, SO that from all sides rose the
sound of money being chinked upon
the rock to test its ring. Each native
as he came up salaamed and held out
both hands, eige to edge, to receive the
oNciho"iuS pouA'y VI eh'' Sahip. wi
people the strongest man amongst
them who had worked III the rain and
sun all the week only took six times five
annas--about equal to Is. 4d.-and on
this, of course, mary had to support a
wife and children too i'll or weak to toll.
Then, again. the women many of them
mothers, with small brown fragments of
humanity slung upon their backs-got
three aHnas day, and the most they
could earn was little more than IS.
week. Even the little children
came up, ducked til, il small shay en-
heads in comical homage to the great
white sahib, and held out very small
brown hands for the price which these
same hands were supposed to have earn-
ed, at the rate of penny day. Last
OF all, the maistrios received pay at the
rate of six or eight annas per diem, and
the horse boys, cooks, sweeIers 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 l always
did when possible, rs if a poor fellow
earned one rupee and chanced to get
paid with bad. Interchangeable coin,
there was nothing but starvation for him
during the next week. Others thought
there was a mistake somewhere always
to their acknowledgement their namei
had to be hunted for, and the amouAi
of money given compared with that en-
tered in the book. 1t was hopeless te
please them all, but on going over the
accounts during the course of the next
evening, was well satisfied to find there
was only an error of a few annas-hap
PLY too much given out, net too little.