Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 122

THE POOREST CLASS OF HINDUS
82
I should class the inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula in
the following manner. The first and lowest class may be
said to be composed of all those whose property is below
the value of £5 sterling. This class appears to me to com-
prise nine- twentieths, or perhaps even a half, of the entire
population. It includes most of the Pariah class and nearly
and these together
all the Chucklers (leather- workers)
form at least a quarter of the population. To them must
be added a considerable portion of the Sudras, all the
poorest members of the other castes, and the multitude of
vagrants, beggars, and impostors who are to be met with
everywhere.
Most of the natives of this class hire themselves out as
agricultural labourers, and are required to do the hardest
manual labour for the smallest possible wage. In the
places where they are paid in coin, they receive only just
enough to buy the coarsest of food. Their wage varies
from twelve to twenty rupees a year, according to locality.
They are better paid along the coast. With this amount
they are obliged to feed and clothe themselves. In some
places they are paid half in coin and half in grain, or else
they get their keep, and over and above that receive from
four to eight rupees a year \
Some of the younger members of this class hire them-
selves out without wages, on condition that, after working
faithfully for seven or eight years, their master will provide
them with a wife of their own caste and defray all nuptial
Married servants who are fed by their masters
expenses.
carry home their daily rations. This food is supposed to
be sufficient for the wants of one person, or, to quote the
but they
native saying, to be enough to fill the belly
have to share it with their wives and children, who also
have to work and thus add to the provision. When they
are in actual want, as often happens, they go and seek for
food in the woods, or on the banks of the rivers and tanks,
where they find leaves, shrubs, roots, and herbs. These
they boil, as often as not without even salt or any kind
of condiment
and this primitive food forms, for the
;
'
'
;
;
1
The
scale is higher everywhere nowadays, but so also is the cost of
food-stuffs.
Nowhere in India does the common labourer earn much
more than a
'
livi^wage.'
Ed.