great fires will be
lighted in the middle of the main road and capacious pots of toddy will
be at hand, and every merry Koli will get hilariously drunk and do and
say things which we had better not see and hear. And the children will
look on and try to imitate their elders. And women will find it best to
keep out of the way for the sake of their pretty dresses, if there were
no better reason. For pots of water dyed crimson with _goolal_ powder
are ready, and everybody has licence to splash everybody when he gets a
chance. Any time during the next two or three days you may find your own
servants coming home dappled with red.

So the ape has his fling. And the tiger is lurking not far behind. In
each of those fires it is the proper thing to roast a cock, throwing him
in alive. If the fire is a great one, a general village fire, then it is
still greater fun to throw in a live goat. But the worst of these
ceremonies are happily going out of fashion. For the English law is
stern, and the _sahibs_ have strange and quixotic notions about cruelty
to animals, and although they are far away on tour at this season and no
native officer would voluntarily interfere with an immemorial custom,
still the tiger walks in fear in these days and the Koli is often
content to roast a coconut as proxy for a cock or a goat.

XVIII

INDIAN POVERTY

THE STANDARD OF LIVING

When Mr. Keir Hardie was in India he satisfied himself that the standard
of living among the working classes in India has been deteriorating.
This is interesting psychologically, and one would like to know by what
means Mr. Keir Hardie attained to satisfaction on such a great and
important question. Doubtless he had the ungrudging assistance of Mr.
Chowdry.

The poverty of India has for a good many years been a handy weapon, like
the sailor's belaying pin, for everyone who wanted to "have at" our
administration of that country; and if "a lie which is half a truth is
ever the blackest of lies," then this one must be as black as Tartarus,
for it is indubitably more than half a truth. The common field-labourer
in India is about as poor as man can be. He is very nearly as poor as a
sparrow. His hut, built by himself, is scarcely more substantial or
permanent than the sparrow's nest, and his clothing compares very
unfavourably with the sparrow's feathers. The residue of his worldly
goods consists of a few cooking pots and, it must be admitted, a few
ornaments on his