treets and has been running horse cars
ever since.
The introduction of electricity and the extension of the street
railway system is imperatively needed. Distances are very great
in the foreign section, and during the hot months, from March
to November, it is impossible for white men to walk in the sun,
so that everybody is compelled to keep or hire a carriage; while
on the other hand the density of the population in other sections
is so great as to be a continual and increasing public peril.
Bombay has more than 800,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are
packed into very narrow limits, and in the native quarters it
is estimated that there is one human being to every ten square
yards of space. It will be realized that this is a dangerous
condition of affairs for a city that is constantly afflicted
with epidemics and in which contagious diseases always prevail.
The extension of the street car service would do something to
relieve this congestion and scatter many of the people out among
the suburbs, but the Orientals always swarm together and pack
themselves away in most uncomfortable and unhealthful limits,
and it will always be a great danger when the plagues or the
cholera come around. Multitudes have no homes at all. They have
no property except the one or two strips of dirty cotton which
the police require them to wear for clothing. They lie down to
sleep anywhere, in the parks, on the sidewalks, in hallways,
and drawing their robes over their faces are utterly indifferent
to what happens. They get their meals at the cook shops for a
few farthings, eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are
sleepy and go through life without a fixed abode.
In addition to the street car company the United States is
represented by the Standard Oil Company, the Vacuum Oil Company,
and the New York Export and Import Company. Other American firms
of merchants and manufacturers have resident agents, but they
are mostly Englishmen or Germans.
There is, however, very little demand in India for agricultural
implements, although three-fourths of the people are employed in
tilling the soil. Each farmer owns or rents a very small piece
of ground, hardly big enough to justify the use of anything but
the simple, primitive tools that have been handed down to him
through long lines of ancestors for 3,000 years. Nearly all his
implements are home-made, or come from the village blacksmith
shop, and are of the rudest, most awkward descript
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