I
don't think they could manage on less than one annas' worth of food
a day."

One of our European Officers, Staff Captain Hunter, who has lived in the
same style for about four years among the villagers of Goojarat, and who
has been in charge of some 30 or 40 of our Officers, confirms the above
particulars. He says that on two annas a day it is possible to live
comfortably, but that one anna is the minimum below which it is
impossible to go in order to support life even on the coarsest sorts of
food.

He tells me that the weavers have assured him that when husband and
wife are working hard from early to late, they cannot make more than
four annas profit a day by their weaving, since the mills have come into
the country and then they have to pay a commission to some one to sell
their cloth for them, or spend a considerable time travelling about the
country finding a market for it themselves. A piece of cloth which would
fetch nine rupees a few years ago, is now only worth three and a half or
four rupees.

Bearing in mind, therefore, the above facts, I should consider that if
India's submerged tenth are to be granted, even nothing better than a
"bullock charter," the lowest fraction which could be named for the
minimum claimable by all would be one anna a day, or two rupees a month
for each adult. As a matter of fact, I have no hesitation in saying,
that there are many millions in India who do not get even half this
pittance from year's end to year's end, and yet toil on with scarcely a
murmur, sharing their scanty morsel with those even poorer than
themselves, until disease finds their weakened bodies an easy prey, and
death gives them their release from a poverty-stricken existence; which
scarcely deserves the name of "life."

CHAPTER IV.

WHO ARE THE SUBMERGED TENTH?

By classifying and grading the various orders that constitute Indian
Society according to their average earnings, and by considering their
minimum, standard of existence, I have sought to prepare the way for a
more careful investigation of those who actually constitute the Darkest
India, which we are seeking to describe. I have narrowed down our
inquiry to the fifty millions, or whatever may be their number, who are
either absolutely destitute, or so closely on the border-land of
starvation as to need our immediate sympathy and assistance.

Strictly speaking it is with the former alone, the absolutely destitute,
numbering as I