The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-04
A LAND OF HUNGER
MT. Keir Eardie Tells How Some People Have to Live
 in India.
SCENES AT A HINDU SCHOOL
\ Condition of Things Which Is Not Flattering to British
 Rule.

In the l4abour Leader MT. keir Har- die, NJ. F.. paints the following inter- esting picture of the "'3aiyat at Home"
 Eleven miles from Benares is the vil- lage of Chaybopore l selected that for a visit because it has school and a police station, and is therefore a place of some importance. Being close to Benares. I assumed that it would show more prosperity than those villages further removed from big center of population.
 The school was visited first. It con sisted of a thatch roof, supported on bamboo poles. There are 250 boys in at- tendance, and the fees range from one pice G4d) month for infants to 4d for the more advanced classes. The boys were mostly the sons of raiyats. There is also a pupil training class with five students. A girls school has lately been opened in a dingy mud hut given free by it's owner, who Is also the teacher. His salary is five rupees (6s Sd) a month. Sitting round the wall on the floor were the girls. most of them very young. for at thirteen they must leave tc be married. It is considered disgrace to have an unmarried daugh- ter over fourteen years of age. Some of them had trinkets on. tl nose drop being common; but many of 'hem were in rags, and most of them haif-starved. Bright. active little things they proved ' tn hn U-ft1, bnt han if whiting, they traced out the alpha bet on their black wooden states. :" For a great wonder, no fees are charg- ed in the girls school. The entire school is under the coatrol of the District Board and when tho fees fall short of the outlay that body makes good the deficit.
 The children come from distance of ten miles around, and the parents show a laudable desire to give their ch!l- dren the education which the school provides. Children coming from a distance bring their food with them, I opened half dozen of the little food parcels to see what they contained. In one, which contained days food sup ply for four growing boys, there were a few ounces of uncooked mai2e-that and nothing else. Others had split 1 peas. and others. again, a like weight of marna, which is kind of hemp seed about the size of pin head. That Is to say, that each of these growing lads whose ages ranged from eight to | twelve years. subsist on bird seed, and get less of that each day than a bird fancier at home would give to a can ary.
 The salary of the head master is 9 rupees tSSs 4d) per month: his assist ants receiving from ten to fifteen ru- pees. No English Is taught or spoken. | For bright, active boys fit to take a | higher education at q secondary school in Benares there are free scholarships; for the entire province, comprising thousands of villages. with a popula- ton of forty millions, there are forty free scholarships, The figures speak for themselves. At the corner of many houses little crescent shaped cakes were drying in the sun. These were made of COW dung. which. after being dried. is carried into Benares to be sold as fuel. The cooking in the village is mostly done by dried grass and leaves.
 From the school we went into the center of the village, the dominic and his staff leading, Imagine collection of mud huts, with some of matted palm leaves, all thrown higgledy -piggledy together, with goats and cattle moving about or being fed from earthenware troughs and you have the village I noticed that in the older huts the lin- tels and doorposts were carved. At the village store l saw the pulses and grains which compose the food of the people, and learned from the storekeep- CT that rice was selling at six seers per rupee, whereas formerly it sold at fif- teen seers. Wheat had advanced sim ilarly That is to say. the price of food has trepled in. say. ten years.
 At first the villagers held aloof. and subsequently, learned that they thought was the doctor who had come to vaccinate them. But at length they were induced to come together. and fin ally l got their confidence. They brought mo handfuls of boiled rice. which was being prepared for their one and only meal and pieces of bread some made thick like Scotch oatmeal ban nocks, and others thin. like ordinary oatmeal cake If was uliito hla cl. and