Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-03-29

roam through the fields In cultivated
districts almost every acre has its
irrigating we'll. and a bed of grass 10
feet in air on poles, from which a
native guards and protects the ripen-
ing grain, etc. Bullocks are used to
hoist water from the wells
An Bmaciated Race.
The Hindus of both sexes are very
thin and have a starved appearance.
Their limbs are merely bone and
sineW, as if wasted by years of illness.
These people present most pitiful
sight 1t is impossible for foreigners
10 distinguish the sex of the native
youths, voice and appearance being
so much the same. Their chests are
we'll developed.
Rich natives are an ininitesimal
percentage of the vast population, and
are usually recognized by their being
bl0ated, due to 'stuffing." The sikhs,
however, are of fine physique, tall and
muscular. They make a splendid
soldiery, and their regiments are much
admired.
Natives will sit in trains, on store
steps or anywhere, reading in loud
sing-sOng tone, or suddenly bursting
forth in a chanting song, oblivious of
the numbers of listeners. Prolonged
conversation is often carried on be-
tween two natives in opposite ends of
a car, who shout loudly, above the
babel of the others.
The natives are peaceful and their
crowds usually very quiet, but any ex-
citing cause will arouse fierce word
battles between a score or more, each
one i'll the crowd feeling free to add
his shouts to the noise. The loudest
usually seem to win the fight.
Passengers alighting from horse
cars in Bombay or Calcutta yell at
the driver and never notice the con-
ductOr.
In crowded streets one native man
ages the rope lines, another works
the brake, a third continuously blows
a whistle or shouts, others whip the
starved horses and half a dozen cool
les run along to push the car until the
bony horses are aroused back to life.
Madras has the only electric cars
in India.
Rickshaws are not used in India, ex-
cept a few at Simla, mountain re-
sort and summer residence of the
Viceroy
Off the railway travel is solely done
by exceedingly crude bullock carts.
At chief cities and villages, along the
railway chiefly, there is established a
system of one-story buildings called
"Dawk Bungalows" one to a town, In
which traveller may spread his bed
at rupee (32 cents) per night, and
feel reasonably safe from snakes, ETC.
The tourist soon forms the habit of
examining his boots for snakes each
morning.
Jugglers and snake charmers with
baskets and old bags full of deadly
cobras and huge pythons, besiege your
hotel door, as also do dozens of Or
iental peddlers, each with a pack of
goods. They squat in groups in hotel
grounds for hours and seem to camp
there. When your door opens they
Sti - GA ACtbuJ LIZ Ou, CdSl CdSCl W
engage your attention.
Natives are inveterate smokers
Their pipes are of various kinds,
chiefly of Turkish pattern, some elab-
crate, others merely small earthen
funnel, within which is fire and to-
baccO. a rag wrapped around the
small end is sucked in smoking, half
a HnznT1 q o+n1N ,ri he
pipe.
If a European in a Hindu's shop
touches one of a tray of eatables
not fried in grease he is said to have
contaminated the whole, and by the
law of India must pay for the entire
lot
The COW is sacred to Hindus and is
sheltered in the home as one of the
family, which makes them very gentle
and free from fear of man.
Plague, Famine and Distress.
The gorgeous East of today certain
" is not one of splendor and pomp,
but chiefly land OF famine, distress
and grooming humanity.
Every one is amazed at the daily
practices of these people, who defy all
recognized laws of health, yet live and
increase in population 100000 per
year. One ceases to wonder at the
presence of disease, but marvels at
absence of extermip ating epidemics.
Hindus object to vaccination, be-
cause they have idols before which
those infected with smallpox gather
and pray for cure. To these shrines
among the convalescent your native
guide unhesitatingly leads and nearly
frightens you to death when he in
forms you where you are.
Natives Of wealth and influence, who
wear European clothes and speak
English fiuently, insist there is no bu-
bonic plague in india, and that it is
only an excuse for a conspiracy in
tended to kill OF certain natives and
for confiscating the estates of those
whom the native inspectors willfully
poison, and for obtaining money.
They say the paltry salary that
plague inspectors receive is not suf-
ficient to induce any one to undertake
such work among real plague suffer
ers, and they wax warm as they cite
cases supporting their view. Hun
dreds of cases are known to have
been incorrectly called bubonic plague
until the native or European inspector
was paid his bribe. Then the house
was not sacked, the business destroy
ed, nor the members of the family
sent to plague hospitals never to re-
turn.
The native populace's acquaintance
with such occurrences accounts for
the fight To the hills Of many uraalthr