Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-07-15
FIRE ENGINE A RAJAH,S
CHARIOT.
FIRE
Indian Potentate Buys Machine Of
Drummer for His State PROFESSIONS.


Selling goods in India" said an old
commercial traveller yesterday. lis
quite different matter from what it
was 10 or 10 years ago. In those days
1t was not necessary to demonstrate
the usefulness of an article. All you
had to do was to persuade some In
dian potentate that thing was orna-
mental, and a fine thing to use on
state occasion, and he'd hand you over
lac of rupees or two, or whatever
you said the thing was worth, and
that was all there was to it.
In those good old days l fell in at
Bombay with an American who had
come out there representing 81 different
lines of goods, and mind You, he had
samples of each and everything He
had come out there to sell the Hindus
anything and everything. About the
buikiest of his samples were a full
grown fire engine and big wagon on
the side of which was painted the
legend Indiana" the name of the
brand of the vehicle.
We'll, that fellow dragged those two
big vehicles about India until he was
nearly tired of them. The fire engine
+
first place. there was no real water
system, as we think of such a thing,
in any town in India, and if you had
hitched that engine on to the Bay at
Bombay it would have sucked all the
water up in two hours. But it was
painted blue and red. and silver and
gold, and its appearance did make a
great impression on the natives.
The custodian of the fire engine
was one day cussing his luck with the
thing in my hearing. 1 told him he
ought to sell it to a rajah. He said
1t couldn't be done. l told him it
could
We'll, we took the thing all the way
to Oudh, which is near Lucknow, and
there we called upon the rajah. We
had him look it over and explained
the points of the decorations laying
stress on the appearance the machine
would make in one of his state pro-
cessions, as it dashed through the
streets. We pictured the impression
1t would make upon the guests in
vited for his festivities to have this
noble fire engine dash up for them,
and how they would enjoy clinging
to it as they rode through the streets,
and the rajah of Oudh fell for it. I
am told that old fire engine is still
being used for that purpose.
Then there was the wagon. You
know an anna is the smallest coin
Well we went to a Hindu in Bombay
who was the proprietor of provision
shop. We told him that the name In
diana was a combination OF India
and ana and that the makers of the
wagon had the vehicle designed for
the Indian trade, and wished to COM
pliment the country and it's currency,
they had coined the name for the We
hicle His name, l remember, was
Narishamutta Chiefly. After some ar
gument We persuaded him that this
was just the vehicle he wanted
Il was in India three years that
first time, and l can tell you II was
monotonous. There is nothing of en-
tertainment except watching the ia
kris. i used to see all those thicks
that Bayard Taylor wrote about, such
as cutting a boy to pieces and throw
ing the pieces up in the air and then
reuniting them, and orange trees
growing and the fruit plucked and
passed about / watched those fakirs
closely, and the only way / could ac-
count for the tricks was that they
hypnotized me and everybody else In
the audience and got us to seeing
things that were not really happen
ing New York Times.