. Since the introduction of machinery,
their lot has come to be particularly pitiable. In one district it is
reckoned that there are 400,000 of them. Previous to the mills being
started, they could get a comfortable competence, but year by year the
margin of profit has been narrowed down, till at length absolute
starvation is beginning to stare them in the face, and that within
measurable distance.

To the above we may add again the various gipsy tribes, who have no
settled homes or regular means of livelihood. Finally, there are the
non-religious mendicants, the religious ones being considered as not
coming within the scope of our present effort, being provided for in
charitable institutions of their own.

Representatives of nearly all the above abound in our cities, and when
both town and village destitutes come to be reckoned together, I do not
think it will be too serious a view to take of their numbers, to reckon
the absolutely workless as numbering at least 25 or 26 millions.

CHAPTER VII.

THE HOMELESS POOR.

On this question I do not propose to say much, not because there is not
much that could be said, but because in a climate like India it is a
matter of secondary importance as compared with food. The people
themselves are comparatively speaking indifferent to it. The "bitter
cry" of India if put into words would consist simply of "Give us food to
fill our stomachs. This is all we ask. As for shelter, we are content
with any hovel, or willing to betake ourselves to the open air. But food
we cannot do without."

And yet, looked at from the point of view either of a moralist, a
sanitarian, or a humanitarian, the question is one which calls for
prompt consideration and remedial action. For instance, according to the
last Government census, the average number of persons inhabiting each
house in the city of Bombay is no less than 28. The average for the
entire Presidency is six. But then it must be remembered that the great
majority of the houses of the poor in the agricultural district consist
of one-roomed huts, in which the whole family sleep together.

In the cities the overcrowding has become so excessive, and the
accomodation available for the poor is so inadequate, costly and
squalid, as to almost beggar description. Considerations of decency,
comfort and health are largely thrown to the winds. A single unfurnished
room, merely divided from the next one by a thin boarding, through which
ever