The Portland daily press., 1892-12-07
LIFE in EAST INDIA.
Fifty Servants Required to Run an
Ordinary Household.
Tho Punlsah Craze Which Prevails Among
the Foreigners in the orient-A Coun-
try Where the Hired Girl Has No
overwhelmingly Low Wages.
isneeial Bombay Letter

Especial Bombay letter.
The deep respect and awe in which
the native population of the British
East Indies holds the numerically SO
insignificant European colony there is
in a large measure due to the fact that
every member of it literally leads the
life of a prince. Nowhere else in the
world, in fact, is the mode of living Of
the white man 80 uniformly luxurious
as in India. A simple clerk, for in
stance, whose services would be re-
about ten dollars week and who, con-
sequently. could certainly not afford to
employ valet, a cook, barber and
hairdresser, a waiter, ETC., for his own
personal use, will in India have a reti-
nue. of servants In which the above are
but part of the whole. His earnings
will average at least five times as much
as they would in England. And take
this together with the further fact that
nowhere is native human flesh and la
Dor held SO cheap as in India. and the
.slavish Difference showed the European
there, the unbridged chasm that di-
,vides there, the man with white skin
from the man with the yellow or brown
skin will readily be understood.
The houses in which the Europeans
in India reside always contain large
and high rooms, are SUR ounded by
tasteful and carefully kept gardens and
are nearly always stylishly furnished
and luxuriously appointed. Flowers in
profusion ornament every table, and at
imealtirne each dish excels the proceed.
ing one. Good eating and drinking, in
fact, is one of the main amusements OF
the European in India; and, with that,
the appetite and digestive powers dis.
played are usually of q high order.
Perhaps the most amazing feature,
though, of the average European house
hold is the singularly elaborate donaes-
tic service. This one meets with every
where, even in the households of soil
tary bachelors. Soon, however, the So
luton Of this mystery impresses itself
on the mind The caste spirit Is re-
'sponsible for this inhnitesirnal division
of labor. The servant who assists his
master at the toilet and the one who
takes care of his clothing and keeps il
constantly in excellent condition Ia
sphere of work for which the Hindoo is
particularly adaptedl never by any
chance wait on him at the table, be-
cause they hold the food Of their master
as unclean-in religious sense.
The table servant again-always q
Mohammedan-w never condescend
to swing the punlkah (the large fan that
is suspended from the ceiling) or to pre-
pare bath for his master. For these
things special servants have to be hired,
as well as others for the carrying of the
water supply used for the scrubbing OF
cleaning and washing of certain rooms
ia the house. These are tasks which
devolve solely on persons belonging to
the lowest caste. Then we have the
cook and his assistants, as well as the
coachman (for every well situated Eu-
ropean keeps coach and horses) and a
special groom for each horse. Lastly,
there is the gardener and his underlings.
Thus it happens that European house
holds in India with from twenty to fifty
servants are rather the rule than the
exception.
At dinners and banquets each guest
brings his own servant along, and the
same is expected and paid for as at the
hotels. During my stay at Bombay,
which happened to be in the regular