The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-10-08
HiNDoo MILL HANDS.
a Patient but DeceitfuI Class of
Operatives.
lJonrnal of Commerce. l

The cotton spinning industry in India, and
especially in Bombay, has given honest en-
ployment to thousands of people, and brought
them almost from state of poverty verging
upon barbarsm, to comparatively well-to-
do state. The nature of their present work
has brought them within well-constructed
buildings, working with ease and comfort
under systematic management coupled with
what we might call really good earnings,
For all these improvements in their state
they are nothing in comparison with any OF
the Continental working people, far less than
that of the English, and very greatly inferior
to American mill operatives. Their working
capacity is small and the quality of their
work very poor.
The habits of these people are peculiar.
They are of an obedent, forbedring and pa
tent nature, having, however, deceit and
fraud underlying those qualities. As a rule
they are idle, skulking their time away in
gossiping and smoking. They watch their
English foreman as mouse watches cat, al
ways trying to know his whereabouts with
a view to evade him as far as possible
They will give show of real hard working as
long as he is near them, but as soon as his
back is turned they are off again somewhere
for ten or fifteen minutes, during which time
their work is either neglected or only par
TALLY done by their neighbors, who also take
their turn when the former return. They
waste away almost half their salaries in
drinking country liquors made from Mohwra
flowers, and they are very impertinent whilst
in state of intoxication. They spend their
earnings as fast as they can, and the more
man earns the more he is in debt. They are
very docile in their habits, and when proper
ly handled they turn out to be very faithful
servants.
Their morals are also of a very low stand
| ard. The generality of them would stoop
to anything that is not conscientious, and
about topper cent, OF them work for their
masters with real honesty. So long as they
can earn sufficient money for the prime ne
cessaries of their lives-i. e., food and cloth
ing, they do not care for anything more.
The class of overseers, or what are called
in India 'Jobbers" are decent sort of work
men, understanding their work pretty well
They have a substantial control over the men
matters besides work. If the superintendent
gets wrong with them they put him to end
less trouble without showing the least sign
If doing such thing. They are the real
cause of strikes whenever there is one in any
mill, and still they would ignore everything
about it, and would really array on the
superintendent side and get to know all
their ideas and movements, and thus keep
the people on strike until they have wholly
or partially gained their point
Native mill hands are supposed to be a
class of very Woodworking men, but one can
easily note from the foregoing remarks that
they are not so hard-working as they are sup
posed to be. No doubt they are confined in
the mill for twelve hours of the day, but
that does not constitute hard working, as al
most half of this time is spent in gossiping,
smoking, and otherwise neglecting their work
which is performed by a number of spare
and extra hands that are as rule employed
in almost all the mills in India, although of
such class of men there are fewer in Bonn
haV