Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1900-03-29
legal fare, yet he and all the attend
ants will ask for "backsheesh."
The Punkahs.

iesal rare, yet he and all the attend
ants willask for "backsheesh."
The Punkahs.
Ten months OF every year life would
he lntolerable 70 Europeans in India
without the punkahs, which are In
every room of hotels and residences,
in all Offices shops and public build
,ngs The churches have elaborate
systems OF punkahs, and they present
an odd appearance with these huge
! fans swinging TO and fro.
Every one sleeps beneath punkah.
and at all hours of the night are
heard the cries of both sexes of
Europeans at the sleeping "punkah
| wallah who since dark has been al
most ceaselessly pulling the punkah
while seated. all but naked in a
draughty hall upon the tiled floor or
upon mat or cotton cloth On The
ground. II is a common sight to see
the punkah wallahs upon the roofs OF
houses and back buildings. Juggling
away at long rope that passes over
pulleys to the punkahs in the rooms
through some hole bored in the brick
wall or frame of door or window.
During the day a different wallah
pulls the punkah. and each guest at
hotels must employ two punkah wal
labs, one for day, and one for night
| service
4 Sort of Bondage.
| The majority seem to think they
have bought the poor coolie, and this
idea OF property right in human flesh
! seems to increase the longer the in
diyidual remains in India. These poor
native servants receive, besides fire.
quent brutal kicks and cuffs, the
equivalent of IS cents. something less,
for days work o. II hours, and with
these wages they must feed and
cothe themselves and those depend
ing upon them 1t is needless to
state that they do not wear much
clothing only yard or 50 of cheap
cotton cloth wrapped about them.
Your boy, "Mahamed" makes
your bed, and after your spin on the
cycle or game Of tennis, he rubs you
down, dresses and grooms you He
polishes or whitens your boots and
sun helmet, and does similar work,
but he will give up his situation in
stantly, though he be ever so needy,
rather than empty basin of water,
carry a small handbag or parcel down
stairs to the carriage. pull a punkah,
sweep a room, or bring hot water, etc.
It's not his work, he says, and he
would lose caste by doing it.
A coolie who carries heavy cases of
goods all days will point-blank refuse
| to post a letter for his master In a
street letter box few yards from the
door, or to do the most trivial thing
if it is not Ibis work" Each duty calls
for a different servant.
Native Home and Street Life.
Nine--tenths of the natives live in
one-story nuts. made of mud, contain
| ing one room without window or
chimney. For cooking, fire is built
in hole dug in the floor, the smoke
escaping as best 1t can.
The villages are like a series OF
caves, the streets forming a fye-foot
sloping ditch. The majority of native
schools present some twenty children
grouped in a cayelike room, whose
door is a o-by-four-foo hole. There
are neither windows nor seats. Here
bright-eyed children study Sanskrit
and old states filed with exercises in
mathematics.
Native shops are usually mere
hole, three by five feet and four feet
high. into which the clerk crawls
and cannot stand erect All shops are
open on the street and operations are
conducted in full view Of the passers-
by.
The natives sleep anywhere. every
where and AT all hours. Calcutta's
sidewalks in front of European stores
look like a huge hospital, especially
after 8 D. M Scores Of sleeping natives
lie at full length in rows for blocks
some on cots, most on dirty cotton
cloth spread on the ground
If the night is cool, which is a rare
thing, they cover head and body with
the ulItt tlDlH anu iObh iIhG q buhu't
OF rags One must have keen eyeslght
to avoid stumbling over sleeping ma
tives in daytime as well as in these
dimly lighted streets at night In
small towns they even lay in the roads
and teams have to avoid them \
group OF dozon will squat in the
streets OF natives towns and chatter
obhvious of the stream OF bullock
carts and traffic.
Roadside Scenes.
Roadside merchants unpack and
spread their stock Of goods upon a
three by four foot cloth or sack, and
complacently sit waiting for buyers
The BARRIERS on the pike scrape their
customers without lather while the
victim watches operations in a dimnu-
tive scrap Of a mirror 4 portion OF
the men wear the hair short but
thousands wear It long in flowing
ringlets. They call one another by
opening and closins the hand while
outstretched, palm downward on
level with face