Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1906-01-05
PonLn CT Cas-
How Lahorers Used Whc>I arrcv
Custom and New Plough.

GUot0fH anu INV ,Fi0NE Us
Caste is a great social organizat:oi
which governs and directs the Hindu
of India In every action of his daily
life There are four fundamental di.
visions of caste-the priestly or Brah
min, the warrior, the trading and tie
laboring; and these. again. are divide
into subsections numbering thou
sands. Below the laboring caste
there is a s.sDstratum which Is term.
ed Pariah or outcast. The Pariah is
not much more than sanitary ma
chine which performs the functions
of scavenger.
All these castles are hereditary A
priests son is priest, soldiers a
soldier, carpenters a carpenter, a
scavenger's a scavenger There Is no
question of What shall we do with
our boys?" in Hinduism; that problem
has been solved In advance for 1000
years. For a sire to start his son In
any other calling than his own would
be against his caste. and there all
argument ends. For caste Is both So
cial and religious, and includes the
calling as well as the creed
A Hindu cannot change his caste,
although he may be expelled from 1t;
his social status is fixed forever at
the time of his birth, and he can only
fall, never rise. This has tended to
make the Hindus an ambitionless
race. Caste will admit no infusion
of new blood, and when the same ex-
elusive spirit is imported into the or
binary dealings of life you arrive at
that stagnant conservatism which Is
called custom" in the East.
Caste Is restricted to the Hindus,
but custom is universal. There is
the Indian peasants plough. The
overwhelming majority of the inhabi-
tants of India are dependent on the
land, and their crops would be much
increased by better methods of cul-
tivation.
The plough in use is an implement
which merely scratches the surface of
the earth-an heirloom from remotest
antiquity. A new plough was intro
duced by an enterprising firm of man.
ufacturers, and lent free for trial
broadcast over a province. 1t did the
work more thoroughly and was Of
fered at a price within the peasants
means. But it did not catch on"
simply because the ploughman could
not get at his bullocks' tails to twist
them. The superior tillage, the in
crease of crop, could not compensate
for the REIMBURSEMENT of this time
honored custom.
There was a contractor engaged In
a railway excavation who recognized
that the soil could be far more ex-
peditiously removed In wheelbarrows
than carried away in baskets on the
heads of coolies. So he invested in
some wheelbarrows and showed how
they were to be trundled, and f1atter-
ed himself upon having introduced a
useful reform. The next time he
visited his works he found his men
putting little dust into the wheel
barrows and carrying them away on
their heads.
The paraphernalia of Indian daily
life all belong to the baTbarous ages
Attempt to introduce any otheS and
you are rebuffed with the reply: ct
is not the custom. My father used
this article, and therefore it is my
duty TO use it. Would you have rae
set myself up for a wiser man than
my reyered parent?"
Thus is stifled all attempt at re-
form. There is not the excuse of
ignorance. With the superior model
before him, the native deliberately re-
(ects it. He Is not to be beguiled
by any demonstration; he is too com
pletely crusted with conservatism and
prejudice-Farm and Country.