The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1888-09-13
A HINooo CRITICISM
An Educated East Indian Gives His I'm.
pressions of the English.
An educated Hindoo. who is WRITING

pressions of the English.
An educated Hindoo, who is writing a
series of his first impressions of England
in The Indian Spectator, eulogizes the
scomfort of English homes, laments the
costliness of English fruits and declares
THAT John Bull has too many things to
ATTEND to TO look after cooking. I'm
fruits he excels everybody. In sweets
he is not inferior to the Frenchman, and
always inferior to the Indians
He continues: John Bull loves to be ex-
elusive. Every man for himself is his
/. motto. Let me alone is his ideal of soci-
ETY.. You might travel for hours in the
same compartment of train without ex-
changing half dozen words with your
companions. l should not be surprised
! if they wanted heaven to themselves.
\ Perhaps Swedenborg was right. Even
their f1irts, male and female, have an air
of cold solemnity about them which
makes your blood run cold in your veins.
Their very amusements SAVIOR of bust
ness. Most of them have a cynic dis
gust of life, are always morose, and,
though burning with desire to oblige
you, quite capable of making you turn
away in disgust at their GOODNESS. Then
there is SO much stoutness and solidity in
their character. What they do thew do
with will. If they eat, they eat like
giants; if they drink, they drink like
giants, turning brandy into water. but if
they work, they also work like giants.
No half heartedness, no irresolution. no
want of earnestness about them. Ifyou
see them walking in the streets of Lon
don you would think the world had come
to an end. Yet they are only going to
the parks.
Everybody has hobby. The nation is
so full of eccentricities. They hold their
own; tell lie and stick to it, is their
motto; and then they love opposition. 1t
is crime to be poor. The goddess of
wealth has more votaries than any
church. To call one a beggar is the
greatest insult. Short accounts make
long friends, so goes the English proverb,
not like the Indian proverb, friends ac-
counts are settled in heart. Nobody
tolerates being under money obligations
to another if he can help it. Your money
is the test of your merit. In India poor
men could live and even be comparatively
comfortable. In England it is not SO. it
is the law of the survival of the fittest,
and the fittest is he who commands most
money. There is feverish competition
everywhere, and to be man of indepen-
dent means is everybody's ambition. This
lies at the root of all that material pro-
gress which one everywhere finds in
England. But unlike our people, whose
per cents or massive buildings or curl
GUS jewels are often the only evidence of
their wealth, they know how to make
good use of their money.
Every Englishman and Englishwoman
works, If not to earn q livelihood. to do
good to others. The climate is fatal to
an idle man. A Frenchman considers to
show capacity is the end of speech in de-
bate; an Englishman considers the end of
speech in debate is to advance business.
They require everybody to be true to his
engagements, and I often missed many
one by being only a minute too late. For
punctual man, man of work, nothing
is too good, and there is not public man
who is not man of work. A good
speaker is not always looked upon as the
best man in ministry; nfnister3who
does not work is soon elbowed out. Their
Gladstones, Hartingtons, Churchills, Par
nells, Bradlaughs are working themselves
to death in their respective causes, other
wise they would be nowhere. Reserve
power, nothing by fits and starts, is the
rule. Nobody hates show and humbug
more than they, and the best dressed man
is he whose dress excites no notice.
Englishmen talk of the baneful effects
of caste in India as if they had none in
> England, though it may not be in the
same sense. A poor man is Sudra and
rich man lord, peer, Brahmin;
but the English Sudra can, like Viswa-
mira of Hindoo mythology, be Brah-
min, not by austerities like the royal
sage, but the austerities in the accumu-
lation of wealth. An Englishman never
pardons his superiors for any familiarity
toward him, nor does he pardon himself
for any toward those below him. We in
India have yet to learn the lesson of
stubbornness and resoluteness, and one
might willingly sacrifice half the rhet-
ORIG of the country for a tenth of that
spirit of self help which is so strongly
noticeable in England. There they do
all that they attempt. Perhaps this sys-
tenn of mutual dependence is the great
bane of our society. Joint family is
not their motto; as soon as man mar
ries he hires separate lodgings and keeps
separate house. The Hindoo suffers, the
Enghshman struggles.-Pal Mall Ga
zette.