d, he
resigns his situation and goes. This does not indicate pinching poverty;
there must be some margin between such men and starvation. And a saunter
through their villages will amply confirm such a surmise.

It is no uncommon thing in these coast villages to see that foreign
luxury, a chair, perhaps even an easy-chair, in the verandah of a common
Bhundaree (toddy-drawer). The rapidly growing use of chairs, glass
tumblers, enamelled ironware, soda-water and lemonade, patent medicines,
and even cheap watches, declares plainly that the young Hindu of the
present day does not live as his fathers did. Men go better dressed, and
their children are clothed at an earlier age. The advertisements in
vernacular languages that one meets with, circulated and posted up in
all sorts of places, tell the same tale convincingly; for the advertiser
knows his business, and will not angle where no fish rise.

Nor are large towns like Bombay the only places where the Hindu peasant
widens his horizon and acquires new tastes. In the Fiji Islands there
are about 22,000 natives of India who went out as indentured coolies
with the option of returning at the end of five years at their own
expense, or after ten years at that of Government. When these men come
home, they bring with them new tastes and new ideas, as well as the
habit of saving money and thousands of rupees saved during their short
exile. In Mauritius and South Africa the Hindu working man is learning
the same lessons. When he gets back to the sleepy life of his native
village, he is not likely to settle down contentedly at the level from
which he started.

On every hand, in short, forces are at work stirring discontent in the
breasts of the younger generation with the existence which was the
heritage of their fathers. These forces operate from the outside, and
the mass is large and very inert: it would be rash to say that in the
heart of it there are not still millions who regard a monotonous
struggle for a bare existence as their portion from Providence. But when
a man who has travelled in India for half a cold season tells us that
the standard of living in India has deteriorated, we are tempted to
quote from Sir Ali Baba: "What is it that these travelling people put on
paper? Let me put it in the form of a conundrum. Q. What is it that the
travelling M.P. treasures up and the Anglo-Indian hastens to throw away?
A. Erroneous hazy, distorted impressions." "One of the most seriou