hwith from consideration. For the time being they are beyond the
reach of want, and they are not therefore the objects of our solicitude.
At some future date it may be possible to consider schemes for their
amelioration.

Indirectly, no doubt, they will benefit immensely by any plans that will
relieve them of the dead weight of twenty-five million paupers, hanging
round their necks and crippling their resources. But for the present we
may say in regard to them, happy is the man who can reckon upon a
regular income of five rupees a month for the support of himself and his
family, albeit he may have two or three relations dependent on him, and
a capricious money lender ever on his track, ready to extort a lion's
share of his scanty earnings. And thrice happy is the man who can boast
an income of ten, fifteen, or twenty rupees a month, though the poorest
and least skilled laborers in England would reckon themselves badly paid
on as much per week.

We turn from these to the workless tenth and to the other tenth who eke
out a scanty hand-to-mouth existence on the borders of that great and
terrible wilderness. But before enumerating and classifying them, there
is one other important question which calls for our consideration.

CHAPTER III.

THE MINIMUM STANDARD OF EXISTENCE.

What may reasonably be said to be the minimum scale of existence, below
which no Indian should be suffered to descend? Fix it as low as you
like, and you will unfortunately find that there are literally
_millions_ who do not come up to your standard.

Pick out your coarsest, cheapest grains, and weigh them to the last
fraction of an ounce. Rigidly exclude from the poor man's bill of fare
any of the relishes which he so much esteems, and the cost of which is
so insignificant as to be hardly worth mentioning, and yet you will find
legions of gaunt, hungry men, women and children, who would greedily
accept your offered regimen to-morrow, if you could only discover the
wherewithal for obtaining the same, and who would gladly _pay for it
with the hardest and most disagreeable description of labour._

Take for instance the prison diet, where the food is given by weight,
and where it is purposely of the coarsest description consistent with
health. That the quantity is insufficient to satisfy the cravings of
hunger I can myself testify, having spent a month inside one of Her
Majesty's best appointed Bombay prisons, and having noted with painful
s