wife.

But a sparrow is usually well fed and quite happy. It has no property
simply because it wants none. If it stored honey like the busy bee, or
nuts like the thrifty squirrel, it would be a prey to constant anxiety
and stand in hourly danger of being plundered of its possessions, and
perhaps killed for the sake of them. Therefore to speak of a Hindu's
poverty as if it certainly implied want and unhappiness is mere
misrepresentation born of ignorance. In all ages there have been men so
enamoured of the possessionless life that they have abandoned their
worldly goods and formed brotherhoods pledged to lifelong poverty. The
majority of religious beggars in India belong to brotherhoods of this
kind, and are the sturdiest and best-fed men to be seen in the country,
especially in time of famine.

But the Hindu peasant is not a begging friar, and may be supposed to
have some share of the love of money which is common to humanity; so it
is worth while to inquire why he is normally so very poor. There are two
reasons, both of which are so obvious and have so often been pointed out
by those who have known him best, that there is little excuse for
overlooking them. The first of them is thus stated in Tennant's _Indian
Recreations_, written in 1797, before British rule had affected the
people of India much in one direction or another. "Industry can hardly
be ranked among their virtues. Among all classes it is necessity of
subsistence and not choice that urges to labour; a native will not earn
six rupees a month by working a few hours more, if he can live upon
three; and if he has three he will not work at all," Such was the Hindu
a century ago in the eyes of an observant and judicious man, studying
him with all the sympathetic interest of novelty, and such he is now.

The other reason for the chronic poverty of the Indian peasant is that,
if he had money beyond his immediate necessity, he could not keep it. It
is the despair of the Government of India and of every English official
who endeavours to improve his condition that he cannot keep his land, or
his cattle, or anything else on which his permanent welfare depends. The
following extract from _The Reminiscences of an Indian Police Official_
gives a lively picture of the effect of unaccustomed wealth, not on
peasants, but on farmers owning land and cattle and used to something
like comfort.

"Yellapa, like all cotton growers in that part of the Western
Presidency, profi