The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-07
ANGLo-INDIAN SOCIETY.

mer Resorts.
 From the New York Sum-
 'Kipling" said the returned East Tn.
 dian, "has given true and dramatic pie.
 lures of Anglo-Indian society. It Is pc
 culiarly tempting to the satirist, for il
 apes British society at home, and, of
 course. exaggerates it's faults. It is
 largely male society, and it lacks the
 charm and interest of children, for
 there comes time when every family
 must send the children to England to be educated. The color prejudice is bru-
 tally strong in India. The phrases, "A
 touch of the tar brush and so many
 'annaS !!G the rupee, are applied to
 those of mixed blood, and the suspicion
 of hybridism debars a man or woman
 from Anglo-Indian society. Even the
 country born,' as the phase is for Eng
 fish natives who have never been to
 England, are held in low esteem, ana
 hence the necessity of sending children
 home to be educated, Doubtless the
 prejudice against the country born has
 its origin in the fact that children
 brought up under the care of native
 servants imbibe degraded superstitions, and possibly bad habits.
 Anglo-Indian society is strangely marked by classes that mingle and yet are in measure separate. The viceroy maintains a mimic court at Calcutta in
 winter and Simla in summer. Here the etiquette of the real court of St. James is initiated, though social lines are not drawn so tightly. You see at the Vice roy's drawing rooms the Indian civil servants of the higher places, the army and navy, the Indian marine officers, and the wholesale merchants, with, of course, the native princes occasionally and any native enjoying high place under government. There are state dinners at the vlceroy's palace, and his little court is in all respects a mimicry of the real thing at home. The viceroy is of course a man of rank and wealth.
 You have at Bombay and Madras the courts of the lieutenant governors, with the local civil servants, army officers, bankers and merchants. The lieuten- ant governor leads society, and the higher civil servants, his immediate subordinates, are persons of importance, though the army has way of looking down upon the civil service. Then in the interior. where there are military stations, you have military society, with the aid of the local collector and his staff Social life in India is gay and showy. There is much display of equipage, dress and service. There are dinners and dances and tiftins all con- ducted in accordance with strict Eng fish etiquette, and there is no end of lawn tennis.
 'The thing that sickens one is the shadow of death. Wherever there is an English colony there is am English cem- etery, with many tombstones indicat- ing that those beneath were between twenty and twenty-three years of age. Every man is shocked by the number of sudden deaths in his own circle, and whenever one drives in the suburbs of the cities one sees the native funerals, | the corpse borne on high beneath a | covering of flowers, but clearly outlined and moving softly with the movements | of the bier. There one comes from time | to time upon the funeral pyres, and | knows that the body of a native is as- | cending in the smoke. Still more shock | ing are the Parsee towns of silence. | standing and beautifully laid out gar dens The dead are laid on a paling | about three feet below the top of the open towers. The funeral ceremonies are scarcely over when the vultures come to tear the flesh from the limbs of the corpse.
 "Kfpling has familiarized American readers with life at Simla, the summer residence of the viceroy. The Anglo-In- 1eN Na ho t6h Cha,roI IJt11e, as a summer resort, or the Nilgherries; those of Bombay Mahableshwar, Poo nah, and Materan. The lieutenant gov ernor of Bombay goes to Poonah, and sets up his little court for July, August, and September. Materan lies on the last spur of the Ghauts, about thirty miles from Bombay. No one, not even the natives of the hill country can live up there during the sea son of the mon soons, because the region is wrapped in clouds, but with the coming of July the women and the few children journey up for the summer You telegraph to a railroad station, twenty miles out from Bombay, asking for 'tats' as the small horses of the region are called, and at the station you begin the journey About six miles from the sta- tion the ascent begins to be steep, and thence you zigzag up, sometimes on, the edge of deep precipices, until you are 1000 feet above the sea level. You have come in. a few hours from an intense tropical heat to the climate of an Eng ish spring, the beautiful bougainvil1aea blooming everywhere, while here and ,here in the shrubbery is set a pictur- i esque bungalow. From the plateau on ' he mountain top one sees the whole olatn and Bombay, 5000 feet below ana thirty miles away, lies dim mist In [ heat. English flowers bloom, English strawberries ripen, and Eng 2 ish vegetables grow f "The severity of Anglo-Indian eti- V luette is relaxed at Materan, and one a nay dine without putting on evening f lress The society is like that of an II American watering place. mostly fem nine. The padre, as the clergyman is e alled, walks about like a tame cat II he only male at many social gather F ngs. The men come up from Bombay r n Friday or Saturday to stay over Sun Q ay, and there are all sorts of little r to make them forget fl he miseries of the coast. The women. a