Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-03-29

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legal fare, yet he and all the attend
ants will ask for ''backsheesh."
rhe Punkahs.
Ten months of every year life would
De lntolerable to Europeans in India
without the punkahs, which are in
every room of hotels and residences.
in all offices, shops and public build
ings. 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 a punkab
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, al. but naked. in a
draughty hall upon the tiled floor or
upon a 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 a 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.
A 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
dividual 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 of II hours, and with
these wages they must feed and
clothe themselves and those depend
| ing upon them. 1t is needless to
state that they do not wear much
clothing, only yard or so of cheap
cotton cloth wrapped about them.
Your boy, ''Mahamed," makes
your bed, and after your spin on the
cycle or a 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 small handbag or parcel down
stairs to the carriage, pull a punkah,
sweep 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 "his work" Each duty calls
for different servant
Native Home and Street Life.
Nine--tenths of the natives live in
one-story huts, made of mud, contain
ing one room without window or
chimney. For cooking, a fire is built
in hole dug in the floor, the smoke
escaping as best it can.
The villages are like a series of
caves, the streets forming a five-foot
sloping ditch. The majority of native
schools present some twenty children
grouped in a cavelike room, whose
door is a two-by- four-foot hole. There
are neither windows nor seats. Here
brlght-eyed children study Sanskrit
and old states filled with exercises in
mathematics.
Native shops are usually a 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 p. 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 dirty cloth and look like a bundle
of rags. One must have keen eyesight
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. A
group of a dozen will squat in the
streets of natives towns and chatter,
oblivious 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 a 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 mirror. A portion of
the men wear the hair short, but
thousands wear it long, in flowing
ringlets, They call one another by
opening and closing the hand while
outstretched, palm downward, on
i level with face.
The Hindus seem neither energetic
nor ambitious. They work leisurely,
as a rule many only for few hours