Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-08-18
THE vAsTNEss OF INDIA.
a Populous Nation with Great Cities an,
Great Future.

Populous Nation With Great Cities and
Great Future.
For eighty years at least writers have
endeavored to bring home to the outside
world knowledge of the vastness Of India,
but so far as can be perceived have failed. The
average man, says the Fortnightly RerielC,
reads what they say, learns up their figures,
tries to understand their descriptions
but fails, for all his labor, to realize what
India is-a continent large as Europe west
of the Vistula, and with 100000 more
people, fuller of ancient nations, of great
cities, of varieties of civilization, Of armies,
nobilities priesthoods, organizations of
every conceivable purpose, from the spread
ing of great religions down to the system
attic murder. There are twice as many
Bengalese as there are Frenchmen; the
Hindostanes, properly so called, outnum-
Der the whites in the United States the
Mahrattas would fill Spain; the people of
the Punjab with Scinde are double the
population of Turkey, and | have named
four Of the more salient divisions.
Everything is on the same bewilderiug
scale The fighting peoples of India,
whose males are as big as ourselves, and
more regardless of death than ourselves,
number at least 100, Q00000 equal to Glib
bon's calculation of the population of the
Roman Empire. There are 400, Coo trai led
brown soldiers in the native service, of
whom we hear, perhaps once in ten years,
and 100000 men who think that their
proper profession is arms, who would live
by arms if they could, and of whom we in
England never heard word If the Prus-
sian CONSUMPTION were applied to India we
Oh
wehr, or any force not summoned in time
of peace, have 2,5G0000 soldiers actually
in barracks, with 100000 recruits coming
up every year-a force with which not
only Asia but the world might be subdued.
There are tens of millions of prosperous
peasants whose hoardings make of India
the grand absorbent of the precious metals,
tens of millions of peasants beside whose
poverty fellahs or Sicilians or Connaught
men are rich; millions of artisans, ranging
from men who build palaces to the men
who,- nearly naked and almost without
tools, do the humblest work of the potter
Every occupation which exists in Europe
exists in India. The industry of the vast
continent never ceases, for India, with
population in places packed beyond
European precedent, imports nothing
either to eat or drink, and but for the
Europeans would import nothing what
ever. She is sufficient to herself for every
thing save silver. Amid these varied
masses, these 250,000,000 whose varied
descriptions would fill volumes, the tide of
life flows as vigorously as in Europe
There is as much labor as much CON
tention, as much ambition, as much crime,
as much variety of careers, hopes, fears and
hatreds. 1t is still possible to moneyless
Indian to become Vizier of dynasty older
than history, or Finance Minister of a new
Prince whose personal fortune in hard
cash is double that of the late Emperor
William, or abbot Of a monastery richer
than Glastonbury ever was, owner of an
estate that covers a county, head of a firm
whose transactions may vie with those of
the Barings or Bleichroders One man,
julie Pershad by name, fed and trans
ported the army which conquered the
Punjab.-BoSton Herold.