Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-07-26
THE vAsTNEss OF INDIA.
Ancient Nations, Great Cities, Fighting Peop1es-Occupations and Industries.

Ancient Nations, Great Cities, Fighting
 Peoples-Occupations and Industries.
 For eighty years at least writers have en- deavored to bring home to Englishmen the vastness of India, but so far as can be per- ceived, have failed The Briton 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 con- tinent large as Europe west of the Vistula, and with 3O,OOO, 900 more people, fuller of an cient nations of great cities, of varieties of civilization, of armies. nobilities, priesthoods, organizations for every conceivable purpose from the spreading of great religions down to systematic murder. There are twice as many Bengalese as there are Frenchmen; the Hindostanees, properly so called, outnumber the whites in the United States; the Nah rattas would fill Spain, the people of the Punjab with Scinde are double the popula- tion of Turkey, and I have named but four of the more salient divisions.
 Everything is on the same bewildering scale The fighting peoples of India, whose males are big as ourselves, as brave as ourselves, and more regardless of death than ourselves, number at least 120, 0,0O0, 900, equal to Gibbons calculation of the population of the Roman empire. There are 400, 900 trained brown soldiers in native service, of A at least 2, 1000, 900 men who think their proper profession is arms, who would live by arms if they could, and of whom we in England never hear a word. If the Prussian con scription were applied in India, we should, without counting reserves or landwehr or any force not summoned in time of peace, have 2,500,000 soldiers actually in barracks, with S00,OOO 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 hoard ings make of India the grand absorbent of the precious metals, tens of millions of peas ants beside whose poverty fellahs or Sicilians or Connaught men are rich; millions of arti- sans, ranging from the men who build pal aces to the men who, nearly naked and al- most without tools do the humblest work of the potter.
 Every occupation which exists in Europe exists also in India The industry of the vast continent never ceases, for India, with all her teeming multitudes, with a popula- tion i'll places packed beyond European precedent, imports nothing either to eat or drink, and, but for the Europeans, would import nothing whatever. She is sufficient to herself for everything save silver. Amid these varied masses, these 250 000, 900, whose mere descriptions would fill volumes, the tide of life flows as vigorously as in Europe. There is as much labor, as much contention, as much ambition, as much crime, as much variety of careers, hopes, fears and hatreds. It is still possible to q moneyless Indian to become vlzier of a dynasty older than his tory, 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 Glaston- bury ever was, owner of an estate that cov- CTS county, head of a firm whose transac- tions may vie with those of the Earrings or Bleichroders. One man, Jute Pershad by name, fed and transported the army which conquered the jab.-Meredith Townsend in Fortnightly Review.