Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1888-09-19
THE YASTNESS OF INDIA.

For eighty years at least writer's have
endeavored to bring home to the outside
world a knowledge of the vastness of In
dia, but so far as can be perceived have
failed. The average ma reads what they
say, learns up their figures, tries to under
stand their descriptions, but fails, for all
his labor to realize what India is-a CONT
nent as large as Europe west of the Vistula,
and with 80, 600, 900 more people, fuller OF
ancient nations, of great cities, of varieties
of civilization, of armies, nobilities, priest
hoods, organizations of every conceivable
purpose from the spreading of great relig-
ions down to sytematic murder. There
are twice as many Bengalese as there are
Frenchmen; the Hindostanees, properly
so called, out-number the whites in the
United States; the Mahratattas would fill
Spain, the people of the Punjab with
Scinde, are double the population of Tur-
kew. and I have named but four of the
more salient divisions.
Everything is on the same beWildering
scale. The fighting people of India, whose
males are as big as ourselves, as brave as
ourselves, and more regardless of death
than ourselves, number at least 120, 600, 900,
equal to Gibbons calculation of the popu-
lation of the Roman empire. There are
400, 900 trained brown soldiers in native
service of whom we hear perhaps once in
ten years, and at least 1000, 600 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 CONSUMPTION were applied
in India, we should, without counting re-
serves or landwehr, or any force not sum
moned in time of peace, have 5,5O0,0 OO
soldiers in barracks, with 5000 0 recruits
oo.-:~~ ,,~ x,aor q fNroo with Nyhjph
not only Asia, but the world may be SUBJ
dued. There are tens of millions of pros
porous peasants whose hoardings make Of
India the grand absorbent of the precious
metals, tens of millions of peasants beside
whose poverty fellahs or Sicillians or Con-
naught men are rich; millions of artisans,
ranging from the 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 Eu-
O exists also in India. The industry
of the vast continent never ceases, for In
dia, with a population beyond European
precedent, imports nothing either to eat
or drink, and but for the Europeans would
import nothing whatever. She is suffi-
cient to herself for everything save silver.
Amid these varied masses, these 250,-
600, 900, whose varied descriptions would
fill Volumes, the tide of life flows as Wig
orously as in Europe. There is as much
labor, as much contention, as much ambi-
ton, as much crime, as much variety of
careers, hopes, fears and hatreds. 1t is
still possible to a moneyless Indian to be-
come vizier of a dynasty older than histo-
ry, 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 Glas-
tonbury ever was, owner of ar estate that
covers a county, head of a firm whose
transactions may vie with those of the
Earrings or Bleichroders. One man, Jute
Pershad by name, fed and transported the
army which conquered the Pupjab.