Morning journal and courier., 1884-05-24

With a Bar Which Makes Trouble The Salvation Army-H3Gh Church I'm. fuence-Street scenss=-An American Employment Agency.
 BOMBAY, India, April r. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 Bombay is at once the most English, American and Oriental of all the Indian
 cities. The most English, as am reminded
 every quarter of an hour by full chime o1
 bells, and constantly by the architecture the
 most American by reason of the resistlese
 bustling tide of human life that flows up and
 down the main thoroughfares; the most typ
 ical of the Orient by reason of the lofty
 projecting buildings in the native portions of the city, and also of the gorgeous turbans,
 tunics and silk tFowsers which dazzle the eye
 on all the important streets. need not say
 that Bombay is the most promising city in
 the 0Eisats and fairly ahead of Calcutta in
 metropolitan features already. Not even
 Chicago took more rapid strides ahead than
 did this city at the time of our civil war Though the sudden decline in cotton-the great staple of Bombay-brought on panic in 1865 which ruined nearly every merchant
 here, find that the city has fully recovered from that shock, and is now on the high road to opulence. Many things have con tributed to this. The rapid development of India by railroads, converging into Bombay
 on the west and Calcutta on the east, has made this not only the postal center of the country, but also the commercial entrepot. The opening of the Suez canal has had its influence in the same way. The principal exports to-day are cotton, jute, spices, ivory, gums, grain, seeds and tobacco. But of course the greatest staple is cotton. Cotton sc KS~n, So Sc oha fn4o at New Orleans or Charleston. Cotton has built the great warehouses here, and collect ed the hundreds of cargo steamers that are anchored out in the harbor, or moo ed along side of wharves in Princes dock. Large barges, with rude sail attached, move about in the bay, and little masses of the material float on the water's surface. Of course this cotton is not equal to that produced in Amer ica, just as the India wheat, which is nov coming into the European market, is inferior to American wheat but for certain purposes it is amply good enough, and there is an im- mense trade in it.
 Every one of these Oriental cities has it's fashionable place of public resort and prom enade. In Bombay this is called the Apollo BRnder. The Apollo Bunder is simply 8 broad pier that runs out few hundred feet into the bay, and is improved by means of gasposts, ice cream saloons and 8 small gar den to one side. It is not near as pleasant a place as the Esplanade, but it is fashionable and that settles the matter. m Besides that the band plays there every evening. The limited dimensions of the Bunder must be very annoying. Every night that I have been there the street has been packed with carriages as thick as sardines in 8 sardine- box. A person could scarcely thread his way safely through the seemingly inextricable confusion of barouches. The people sit right in their carriages. It would be too dna In Ua yEar The Bunder like most of the principal streets in the city, is sprinkled by hand but after the carriages begin to collect, the Hindoo bhisties cannot get about and those who are on foot prefer dust to mud.
 Just back of the Apollo Bunder is the Royal Alfred Sailors Home," of Bombay, shich is the finest sailors home in the world suppose. This is magnificent stone build ing that must have cost 8 mint of money. It is so elegant that it seems to friQhten the sailors away in 8 measure, and they resort to the low boarding houses and taverns in the city. Nevertheless, tsie food and every fea- ture of the comfort provided at the Home are first-class. The price for board and lodg ing is the merely nominal one of a rupee day for sailors and rupee and half for of fcers. Of course the concern runs behind every year. and the financial deficit is made up by public subscription. One of the fea- lures of all these government institutions 1&Rtuk6 bGuO0Ely uOUE1SASu Dy Bu9 uOO6E8ES- drink bishops of the Church of England-is the bar-room. Of course this gives rise to innumerable broils but the whole fiber of society in India is so pledged to moderate CD drink, that let anyone suggest the abolition of the bar to either church or state Gf the two can be spoken of apart), and he would be quietly set down at once as a lunatic Since have been here there was fearful TOW at the Home, in which the unoffending steward was thrown down by 8 drunken brute, and had nineteen teeth kicked out of his head. He is now in the hospital quite ill. Two months ago there was 8 pitched battle in one of the Home corridors. It was of Sunday night, and the next morning one of the participants breathed his last. have seen the steward previously alluded to and had an amusing conversation with him. Said he s'I shall not return to the Home, for it isn't phy sically safe to do so. It says on the posters that liquors mustn't be sold to any one who is intoxicated, but it's all dead let ter. If didn't do it. there wouldn't day pass but that would be mauled within an inch of my life; and if I complained the public would side against me. Tho rules are that no drunken man can lodge in the hall but am tired of carrying fellows up stairs and hinging them across their beds. You see when a man-of-war comes into port or ship which has been on long cruise, the sailors are like so many mad men-mad for
 
 chantmen sailors and those belonging to the men-of-war are especially awful i"
 ''Why not banish ths bar and make the men go elsewhere for their drink ?" 70, no, (with wide open wondering eyes) s'of course there must be bar, but all I claim is that they ought to have man with more nerve behind it-a regular pugilist.'
 This illustrates the difference between American and Anglo-Indian society as well as any circumstance that I could point at The only band of religious workers who an- this system is the Salvation Army. Of course the American missionaries disap- prove of and discountenance such things, and not the British they quietly ignore the evil and prosecute their-Rork with success. But the Salvstionists are aggressive, preach and accordingly provoke good deal of opposition. When the Salva- ] ton Army first came to Bombay, 8 good | many months ago, it's members were arrested l and imprisoned Major Tucker is comman- 1sr-in-chief of the Indian branch of the 1 Army. He is good man evidently, but not l altogether wise according to my view. He 1 was drawing big salary in 8 government I position when this wave of religious reform | p swept over the country. He gave up his | ,fice, poured his private fortune into the | 'hurch treasury, and has been given up to xcessivs zeal ever since in connection with | he t'Army." Major Tucker was imprisoned nd served out term of one month for 'trespassiug upon private property, commit ing a breach of the peaoe," i" etc.
 I find that the High Church of England ut here in the East is just what it was in treat Britain when the dissenters were per- ecated two or three centuries ago and fled 0 America for refuge. A handful of de- Christians, who are perhaps pe- ! uliar and indiscreet, but nothing worse, are brown into jail for organizing a parade on he public streets, while the same govern aent not only tolerates but encores the easily Hlndoos when they drag their Gar of through these same public high- vays, and attend the ceremony with unmen- onable indscencies Can human imagina- ion coniure up anything more bigoted in hese days of religious toleration? I need ot say that the Church of England was at he bottom of this shameful reception. But he other denominations in India cried, ''For hame!" and even the educated Rindoos polk the matter up. Very soon it was made DO hot for the government, and the matter 'as smoothed over. Of course the Saliva onists were only prosecuted by means of of the laws, and recognizing this, le Salvationists and their disinterested allies kacted damages for Major Fuckers false i'm riuoru1ant which wara ralnetapt1v raward- !