The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1892-06-11
FROM FAR INDIA.
Planning for an Indian Village at
the Worlds Fair.
A Zig scheme by Consul General BALKAN
tine and One That Would Prove
Very Attractive Feature-How
1t Is to Be Done.

village from India to the worlds fair.
Henry Dallantine is United States con-
sui general at Bombay. His father be-
fore him was consul general at Bombay
and he himself was born in Bombay
Mr. Ballantine is the Worlds Columbian
commissioner at Bombay, and, there
fore, he knows all about India. He and
his wife are in Chicago now. For days
Mr.. Ballantine has been in consultation
with the officers of the fair, and at the
next meeting of the directory it is al
together likely that he will be accredited
properly in order that he may carry out
his scheme. 1t is wonderful scheme.
There have been Indian villages at
worlds fairs. There were about seventy
inhabitants of the little hamlet that
was pitched in Philadelphia. But no
Indian village with five hundred people
was ever seen at any international eX-
position. That is the number Mr.. Bal
lantine is going to bring to Chicago. In
that number all the castles of that coun-
try will be represented. And that is
another thing no one ever saw or heard
of at fair. There will be the rajahs,
who never came to America and whom
it is difficult to secure. A rajah in
India is about as big as governor in
the United States, and it is easily seen
what it means to drag them over here
and place them on exhibition. Mr.. Bal
lantinc has been promised by many
rajahs whom he knows that they will
come if they are invited with proper
dignity. To do this Mr.. Ballantinc is
seeking the consent of the government
L. Al -
go there and invite them in the impress
sive manner such a voyage would nee
essarily imply. If invited with such
ceremony, Mr.. Ballantine says, the
rajahs will come and bring rare pres
ents, following the custom of the
Orient But Mr. Ballantinc intends to
fetch them and to establish an actual
Indian village in Jackson park. The
picture will be something like that IA
nous description of Lord Macauley in
his essay on Lord Give. Every caste
will be representative rajahs with
their glittering trains, the middle and
lower classes and the artisans. There
will be carpet weavers from Cashmere
and gold workers from Denarcs. There
will be turbaned snake chnrmers in the
of India, who do such tricks as wrap
ping little boy in a basket, setting
the basket on marble slab, jabbing |
him with swords until the blood flows |
and then seeing him come running over
n hill over q half mile away. There
will be the nautch dancing girls and all
Of midas glories and all her pomp.
The temples will be reared and the
mosques, and the Mohammedan will
turn his face toward Mecca as he does
at home. The religious ceremonies will
be of vast interest, for the Indians are
dcvout folk and will abandon none of
their ceremonies on this visit. The
parsecs and Mohammedans, who have
no caste, will come with the Buddhists
who observe the I-am-holier-than-
thou" customs About the only thing
Mr.. Ballantine will not have in his
Indian village is Rudyard Kipling. But
no feature of the exhibit will be moro
and none more entirely
novel, as the women from India's
zenanas. Mrs. Ballantine, who is her {
husbands collaboration in this '
work will arrange the women's
exhibit, and will do what no one ever
did before-bring women out of the
harems of India into public gaze. When t
one knows of the strict seclusion in T
which the beauties of the Indian
zcnana are kept, the enormity of this
scheme begins to dawn. Mrs. Ballan- /,
tine will take the high caste women into
her own home and entertain
them there as her guests, driv- /
ing them to the Indian village A
n the morning and back again d
1t night. Mrs Ballantine, in convcrs- h
ng about her portion of the work the i,
,thcr evening, said that the zenana O
would astonish the ladies in the a
congress, where she will have &
hem appear, for they are all highly ed h
lcated, even though their lives are SO n
.onfned, and can speak English as well !,
Is American girls speak French. Their
influence and their interest in the wom- Il
ms congress, Mrs Ballantine says, a
viii be amazing. ''There is peculiar h
Y appropriate reason why India should W
&c represented at the fair in an clabor- L.
te manner" said Mr.. Ballantine. II
Don't you remember that Columbus {,
-as searching shorter passage to the -,
asst Indies when he sailed on that voy- h
&C which resulted in his discovery of n,
merica? That is alone enough to hi
lake the interest great in America, ST
vcr India, at this tlme.' Mr.. Ballan- in
ne will organize company to carry n
at his scheme, for it is all arranged II
I've that it must be financed. The di- IT
,ctory cannot furnish the funds, for We
lc charter dees not admit that, but Chi w
go capitalists have already significd m
leir willingness to take hold Of it.
ngland, of course, will not furnish the We
cans to exhibit India on such scale IN
r commercial reasons that are quite ~
,vious but Mr.. Ballantine says all the III
n1rlich srrnnnthr is with his enfar- 4 I.