Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-05-27
PEOPLES OF INDIA
BY REV. ]. NJ. McELRoY


Our weekly letters from Bombay
contain some items that may be OF in
terest to readers of the Courier-relat-
ing to work people, customs and SAM
tary matters.
In the numerous factories of that
great city, hundreds, perhaps thous-
ands of young women find employ
ment They are chiefly Eurasians-a
mongrel race, half native. half Eng
fish. The older women are prominent
in outdoor work. In building opera
lions, they carry the mortar and the
bricks up long ladders to the tops OF
the tallest buildings. The domestic
helpers are, largely. men. Being ell
bowed off street work. and out of the
factories. they, in turn elbow the
women out of the homes.
Wages are extremely low. Women
toll all day for 3 or annas, equal to
| 6 or, 8 cents, yet that small amount
will buy ample food for the family. A
driver for your carriage to care also
for YOUR Arabian horse, will find him
self and be at your service any hour
of the day for four dollars per month.
That you may have pure and fresh
milk. the obliging dairyman brings
his cattle and milks them at your
I! door, but you may find later, that the
milk is one-fourth water brought per-
haps in the milkmans vessels, or, sup
piled through the roguery of some
house servant who is in collision with
| him.
If you visit the large factory where
! 5000 men are occupied with ship re-
pairs and ship-building and if you are
! there at the close of the work day. you
will see that the narrow passage lead
/ ing to the outer gate is lined with a
double row of uniformed police, and
| that every man has to hold up his
arms and be searched to see that he
is not carrying off something that does
not belong to him:
| You naturally wonder about the dor
mitories, the sleeping facilities for this
| crowded populace in the hot season.
/ If you take walk after midnight you
will find the sidewalks INSTRUCTED,
men, women and children asleep on
the pavements.
What about the style and costumes
of these people? Brilliant and fantas-
| tic colors appear everywhere. Not
only women and girls and dolls, but
men, aged and dignified, are arrayed
I in yellow, scarlet, white and green toy
gerry.
If you look in upon the Social Serv-
ice club where the most intelligent
1 and refined native women do congre-
gate you will notice that along with
the most costly silks and profusion
of jewelry and sparkling diamonds the
feet and lower limbs are bare or only
supplied with fiat slipper.
4 In the city of million inhabitants,
there are some 10000 Parsees. They
are more intelligent and thrifty than
the Hindoos, many of them being
wealthy. Their disposal of the dead
is not by burial nor by cremation, but
! by what might be called-coining a
word-vulturization The dead bodies
are exposed, in the open air at the top
of tall building which overlooks the
Indian, Ocean. On the tall trees which
| surround the building, hundreds Of
vultures are. perched awaiting their
feast. They swoop down upon the ca
davers and have quarrelsome, angry
1 revel, leaving the bones to descend by
] underground conduits into the ocean.
The Parsees claim that this is alto
gether, the most sanitary way to dis
pose of the dead. 1t is almost too in
1 human and abhorrent to think of or
describe.
The bubonic plague prevails fear
fully in parts Of India, but not at Bonn
bay. Europeans are not often stricken
with it. 1t has been noticed that it's
beginning and progress are marked
by great mortality among the rodents.
The very latest sanitary measure is a
war upon rats and mice, on the theory
that the cause of the plague is the bite
of the rat flea Traps are furnished,
and premiums paid to those who cap
ture the miscreants, and with much
success, greatly reducing the mortality
from the plague.
Itch cured in thirty minutes by
Woolfords Sanitary Lotion Never
| fot1 Co1l w