Some business, as well as a desire for a change in the monotony of
station life, took me to Calcutta. I was the guest of a well-to-do
Eurasian family whom I had met. This gentleman, by inheriting some
property and by profitable investments, was able to live quite
independent and very comfortably. The family, on account of its wealth,
was on the verge of society, sometimes inside, but oftener on the
outside. “Society” has always been a puzzle to me. I can understand the
Hindu caste system, for that is something well defined and natural. All
the castes accept the position in which they are born. One caste is as
proud of its place as another, and there is no trying to pass from one
caste to another. There are strict rules for each, settled by immutable
laws and recognized by government, even among the criminals in the
jails. Everything is definite and satisfactory to everybody. As an
instance, among Hindu fishermen there are these castes: those who fish
from the rocks, those who fish from boats, those who catch turtle, those
who cast nets, and those who fish with a rod. There is no chance here
for mistakes, as each one knows where he is; but among Europeans
everything is higgledy-piggledy, no one knows who’s who or what’s what.
It is a sarcasm on western civilization to allow the heathen to be so
far ahead in such an important matter.
From the high caste English Brahmins down to the lowest caste of English
Shudras there seems to be no boundary lines or rules. No one knows where
he is, and is forever in danger of being snubbed and humiliated, except,
perhaps, the very high mucky-mucks, who assume a kind of divine air of
superiority and immaculateness.
It appears that a man who acts as wholesale agent for a firm in England,
occupying a little office only large enough to hold a table and chair,
is in “society” because he is a wholesaler. Another whose business takes
up a number of buildings, selling anything from a steam engine to a
hairpin, giving employment to a thousand or more people, is not in
society because he is a retailer. He is obliged to be a man of superior
ability, while the wholesale agent may be but a popinjay. The one can
draw cheques for lacs of rupees at a time, while the boarding-house
keeper and dhoby of the other have to wait months for their pay.
I was told of a case where a clerk in a large firm fell in love with a
daughter of his landlady, a bright, intelligent girl, the mother owning
considerable property. They were married. The next day his fellow
clerks, receiving each a couple hundred dibs a month, and often
overdrawing their wages to get tennis suits and neckties, drew up a
petition requesting the benedict to resign his clerkship, as they only
associated with gentlemen.
This miserable, degrading notion about caste or labor often inflicts the
greatest hardships. A Scotch lady, a neighbor of my hostess, called. She
was of excellent family, formerly in good financial circumstances, but
now greatly reduced by some misfortune. She had two grown up daughters,
well educated and in society. She was lamenting over the impoverished
condition of the family, and said, “I know how to take care of sick
people, and would gladly go out as a nurse and so earn some money to
help keep the pot boiling, but what would society say, and what would
become of my daughters? Their prospects would be ruined, and they would
always be spoken of as ‘the daughters of that old Scotch nurse.’ So I am
obliged to sit idle at home, when we need a little money so badly.”
As to shop-keepers, tradesmen, they are another breed or caste
altogether, and never taken into consideration by “society.” This is a
strange thing under the sun to me. When the English are a nation of
shop-keepers—and Napoleon knew what he was saying—when the very
substructure of England’s life and prosperity is commercial business,
buying and selling truck, I cannot see why they should so despise their
own trade.
In the “service,” why one man who receives a thousand a month is in
“society,” and a five hundred or a two hundred rupee walla is excluded,
though the latter may be superior mentally, morally and physically to
the other, is a conundrum to me. They are all naukars, servants, work
for wages, and are at the beck and call of others, and even the best of
them at times have to do a little shinning for the sake of a few paltry
rupees.
Evidently God has not formed me with intelligence enough to comprehend
these intricate society matters, so that whatever error there may be in
my questions, can be imputed to my imbecility and ignorance. I candidly
admit that I am sometimes a fool. I do this the more readily to escape
the major conclusion in the saying, “He that is not a fool sometime, is
likely to be a fool all the time.” Still I cannot forbear giving my
opinion that this blind running in respect to the unfixedness of
“society,” has gone on long enough, and in this advanced stage of
civilization such an important matter should at once be so well defined
that an outsider, though a fool, need not err thereat.
If St. Peter should make it a question of admission through the pearly
gates whether we had been in “society,” or to what caste or grade we
belong, too many might be puzzled for an answer, and so miss the
privilege of treading the golden pavements.
Another question is the status of gentleman. This has never been
settled. Some one has said that “a gentleman is one who does not have to
work for a living.” This might not suit India, as it would almost
exclude everybody, for all here have to work, or pretend to do so, and
most of them, from what they say, deuced hard to get their grub. I might
come in under this definition, for through the kind providence of Mr.
Percy I have never been obliged to do a hard stroke of work. Yet I would
very likely, judging from my experience, be objected to on account of
the color of my integument. So I am left in the dark as to my position,
under the shade of my skin—an undefined, crude, protoplasmic nonentity;
a very undesirable position. There are always so many little things to
upset one’s calculations. The slightest extraneous matter, as I have
read, will destroy the distinctive flavor of a vintage, or, as we well
know, the sight of a tiny fly in the soup will destroy our relish for
the dish, so the slight tinge that God or the Devil put into my face has
often offended the delicate sensibilities of colorless people.
As I have a personal interest at stake in this question, I would like to
know who I am and where I come in, anything to settle the matter, and
not for myself only, but for thousands of other unfortunates.
I am always curious to know the breed of my horses and dogs, and the
strain of my chickens, why not about my own status and that of the
different humanities I meet?
The world is so careful about the breeding and grading of every kind of
domestic animals, and the improvement of machinery, but the breeding of
humanity is left to luck, haphazard chance, and the devil to take the
hindmost. This ought not so to be.
I cannot refrain from giving another definition of gentleman: “A man
distinguished for his fine sense of honor and consideration for the
rights and feelings of others.” This suits me, as there is nothing in it
about color, lineage or wages, or whether one sits at table with
shop-keepers.
Lord Lytton makes one of his characters say, “I belong to no trade, I
follow no calling. I rove when I list, and rest when I please, in short
I know of no occupation but my indolence, and no law but my will; now,
sir, may I not call myself a gentleman?”
Some one says, “No one is a gentleman who has not a dress suit.” There
must be something in this, as every one knows the power of the tail of a
coat in social life; yet the statement is not more definite than the
definition of the word “network” in Johnson’s dictionary, “Anything
reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between
the intersections.”
A clearer definition of a society gentleman is, “One who can break all
the commandments genteelly and keep his linen scrupulously clean.”
Another word is often used, excellent when rightly applied, that of
“Christian,” “as to a person acting in the manner, or having a spiritual
character proper to a follower of Christ.” But is this the world’s use
of it?
I do not know just what started me on this gait, but I frequently find
myself going off on a tangent. I am no heavenly body, so have no fixed
orbit, and often take the privilege of a wanderer.
During my visit to the city I was greatly interested in looking at
“society” and upon the moving world. It was as good as a circus to see
the maidan of an evening. The very High Highs of natives in their
phaetons, followed by horsed spearmen, as if these swells were afraid of
bandits capturing their sweet selves, then a load of bareheaded,
barefaced babus, with a number of ragamuffins clinging on behind and
shouting at the top of their voices, while the driver was trying to run
down every one in front of him. In one of the grand phaetons was a swell
rajah, with a servant sitting near him, carrying a spittoon to receive
the royal spittle. He probably is one who is clamoring for
representative government. What would he represent? I never see such a
nest of natives but I think the government erred in not passing a law a
century ago restricting every native to his ancestral bullock hackery. A
native is by nature a squatter, and is as much out of his place in a
phaeton as he is among European ladies in a drawing room. A babu said to
me, “If you go to the houses of these fellows who appear in public in
great style, you would find the most of them living in mud huts
surrounded by filth and stinks, while everything they have is mortgaged
to keep up their appearance when they go on parade.” He knew no doubt
what he was saying.
Then the traps of the Europeans, the extremes could be seen at a glance.
A slender, six foot youth, wearing an enormously high collar and the
highest kind of a narrow-rimmed hat, seated on a six foot cart, while
alongside of him was a pompous porpoise of a man in a trap nearly
touching the ground, drawn by a limping, half-starved pony. Then the
people, scarcely one good looking, but ugly and so so, all kinds and
conditions as various as the crowd that once assembled in Jerusalem, not
omitting the painted bedizened females in grand style, flaunting their
characters before everybody—evidently in “society”—the whole scene a
vanity fair, fit for the pen of a Bunyan or a Thackeray.
The Bengalee is a study by himself. He has the reputation of being the
monumental liar of the world, and those who know him best, his own race,
say that truth is an absolute impossibility to him. This may be slightly
exaggerated, as I met some fine honest fellows among them, very few and
far between, as I wish to be truthful. One of his features attracted my
attention, and that was his stare, impudent enough to make a brass mule
hang its head. In this I think he takes the lead of all the world.
Always going bareheaded, he has become so accustomed to looking the sun
out of countenance that nothing on earth fazes him. It is said that as
each new statue was put upon the maidan the Bengalees stared so at it
that the image blushed all over with a blueish tinge. I have not the
least doubt of this, as I myself saw the cerulean color on all the
images. It is this arrogant stare that is so offensive to European
ladies, and characteristic of the educated babus, for it is said that
they are taught everything in the schools except manners and morality. A
writer in an English paper says of them, “They are a soft, supple,
quick-witted youth; utterly destitute of manly qualities, largely
without the Englishman’s truthfulness, equity and resource, good
subordinates but abominably bad superiors, and everywhere hated and
despised by their countrymen.”
Another says of him, “Though he may be dressed in the finest European
clothes, speak English fluently in the well finished style of Addison
and Macaulay, and have the superficial manners of a gentleman, yet
scratch him, as you would a Russian to find a Tatar, and in this native
of India you will always find the heathen.”
As to their religion, Macaulay says of it: “All is hideous and grotesque
and ignoble.” De Tocqueville: “Hinduism is perhaps the only system of
belief that is worse than having no religion at all.”
Another subject was brought to my attention. I did not desire to know
about it as in my life and the circumstances of my birth, I had been
compelled to know so much of the degradation of mankind in
licentiousness that any reference to it fills me with disgust and makes
me wonder how a just God or decent people could tolerate such iniquity.
I was informed that sexual vice was so prevalent that scarcely any one,
from the highest down to the lowest classes, was not blackened by it. It
was so foul a story that I soon stopped it with a request that I be told
no more. Zola could come to Calcutta and write a score of books, not
from his imagination, but of real facts, with names of living men and
women involved in seductions, intrigues and foul crime that would
astonish the world. Some one should do it, unmask these hypocrites as he
would report a den of thieves, reveal the sources of some fearful
epidemic or anything inimical to the well being of mankind. What
surprised me most was that the prominent actors in all this, are in
“Society,” and many or all of them professed Christians, pretended
followers of the pure and holy Jesus! They have, perhaps, such unbounded
faith in him that they dare revel in vice to their lust’s content, and
think that at the end of life his blood will wash all their guilty
stains away. What a delusive, deceptive, accursed belief!
One reflection of mine was, what a story the Monument on the Maidan
could tell if it only had a voice? It must have heard and seen so much
of wrong-doing that if it had any feelings it must have had many a heart
ache.
Professor Hitchcock, writing upon light in the formation of pictures,
says: “It seems then, that this photographic influence pervades all
nature, nor can we say where it stops. We do not know, but it may
imprint upon the world around us our features as they are modified by
various passions, and thus fill nature with daguerrotype impressions of
all our actions; it may be too, that there are tests by which nature,
more skillful than any photographist, can bring out and fix these
portraits so that acuter senses than ours shall see them as on a great
canvas spread over the material universe? Perhaps, too, they may never
fade from that canvas, but become specimens in the great picture gallery
of eternity.”
What if the monument has photographs and phonographs of all it has seen
and heard and some day, some acuter scientist than now living comes
along and reproduces all these scenes and voices in a historical
panorama! What a consternation it would produce! What worse hell could
there be to some people than the eternal possession of such a picture in
which they would appear in their real characters stripped of all
disguises and hypocrisies?
Omitting other things I was greatly interested in the Eurasian question.
It appeared that there were about twenty-two thousand in Calcutta. A
very few were in Government service, few others in shops, factories and
minor employments, the great majority living, no not that, but existing
when and how, God and the Devil only knew. I follow the religious
orthodox fashion in giving the Devil a place along with God in managing
the world.
I did some slumming, for it was to the slums I went, to the disgust of
my sense of smell, and the detriment of my boots and clothes. I had
never been to such places, and if any one had told me that Christian
human beings existed in such conditions, I would have thought he was
stuffing me. The little court in which I was compelled to see my first
daylight, with its mud-walled huts, yet clean, was a palace compared to
the filthy, odorous, dingy holes where many of the Eurasians stay. And
the poverty! That was hardly the name for it. Absolute want of rags for
covering their nakedness, and the total absence of the coarsest,
cheapest stuff that the lowest animals could eat. I was told that when
one went out to look for employment, or do a little work, he would
either go barefooted or borrow a pair of boots from one, different
articles of cheap apparel from others, and the lenders would have to
wait in their nakedness, or with a rag around them until he returned.
There were children, grown up young men and women, skinny old people,
all wan and cadaverous, as if they had never enjoyed a good meal in
their lives. Some of the poor children were packed off to some charity
school to spend the whole day, where an attempt was made to cram their
heads with knowledge, when there was not a particle of food in their
stomachs. What a farce is this kind of civilization and Christian
charity!
I could not help thinking of the comfort and happiness of my heathen
villagers compared to the condition of these so-styled Christians. The
longer I live the more I conclude that more food and less knowledge,
less religion and more justice, is what the world needs. Stop building
expensive cathedrals and churches, throw down the palaces of the
archbishops and bishops, and give them and their brethren a chance to
imitate Jesus, who had not a place where to lay his head, and let them
go about doing good as he did. Melt down the gold and silver of the
churches, the tiaras, crosses, amulets and jewelry of the altars and
idols, and lay up treasures in Heaven by taking care of the bodies of
the poor as well as trying to save their souls.
And the rooms of these wretches, holes, places in which grown up young
men and women were huddled together! What chance for modesty or virtue
to be retained under such conditions? Is it any wonder that many
Eurasians are not better than they are, brought up in such adverse
degrading circumstances? Of what use is prayer to them in Church, one
hour of one day in seven, when every day and hour of the whole week the
devils of poverty, misery and uncleanness reside and exist in their
homes?
What are the chances, the outlook for these people? The Government
refuses to enlist them as soldiers. The railway companies put up
notices, “No Eurasians need apply.” Few of them are in Government
offices. There are almost none in the banks. The mercantile firms will
have none of them. A very few are in the shops. The factories prefer
cheap labor. The Government provides schools for the natives, but leaves
the Eurasians to take care of themselves. The natives will not favor
them. They provide for their own, leaving the Christians to appear that
they are worse than the heathen in not providing for those of their own
households. These people are outcasts, accursed by the Europeans and
natives, placed between the Devil and the deep sea, and probably the
best thing for them to do would be to take to the sea, either to cross
it, and get into some country where they might get, at least enough to
eat, or else to go down into it, and end their misery and disgrace with
their lives.
The bone that sticks in my throat in all this is, that many of these
unfortunates are the descendants of lust and crime, as I was one, and
still am. They were begotten or their ancestors, of Christian gentlemen.
This is one of my reasons for wanting to know what the word Christian
means, and also that of gentleman, in connection with the wretched
condition of these people. They, who by no fault of their own, are in
this miserable existence, the children of Christian gentlemen, should be
the special proteges of the Government, of the Church and of the
European people, are cast out and despised as social dregs.
It may be said that these gentlemen were not Christians when they
sinned. This reminds me of the story of an English fox hunting priest.
When he was asked how he could reconcile such sport with his profession,
he replied that he did not hunt as a priest, but as a man. “But,” asked
his questioner, “when the Devil gets the man, where will the priest be?”
So one might ask, “When the Devil gets these sinners, where will they be
as Christians or gentlemen?”
One evening a young woman came in on her way from a shop where she was
employed. She was meanly clad, but evidently making the best use of what
she had. Her wages were sixteen rupees a month, out of which she had to
pay rent, purchase food and clothing. She was obliged to be in the shop
from eight in the morning till seven in the evening, with a little rest
for a scanty tiffin at noon. All the girls were obliged to stand on
their feet the whole time in the shop. If they sat down or leaned
against the tables they were fined. She seemed to be in great distress,
and had come to my hostess for sympathy. She said that it had been a
terrible hard day. She became tired, and her feet ached so that she had
to remove her shoes, and stand on the marble floor to cool her feet. The
European clerks had annoyed her by calling her “Eurasian,” and they
often called the girls “half castes,” “niggers,” “sooars” and such like
names. The assistant manager had found fault with her clothes; that she
looked too slovenly to be seen. Summoning up courage she went to the
manager, and asked him if he couldn’t increase her wages a little. He
asked what she was receiving, and then said it was considerable, and
with a bland smile he asked, insinuatingly: “Haven’t you some young
gentleman friend who could help you out a little?” As she told this she
fell to sobbing.
After a little my hostess said: “Mary, what did you tell him?”
She answered with much hesitation: “At first I could not comprehend what
he meant, and then I was so shocked that I seemed stunned, and turned
and left him without a word. Had I resented what he said, he would have
dismissed me at once, and then what would I do? How I wish I could end
this cursed life, I am tired of it!” She fell to weeping again, and no
wonder.
And this bland, smiling, Christian Mephistopheles, manager and part
owner of the big shop, was a member of the church and an official, and
probably often resting his hands on his fat paunch, talked about the
fearful unchastity and lack of honesty among the rising generation. I
don’t believe in a place of hell, but I think there ought to be a fiery
pen where such sleek hypocrites could have a good roasting. But he will
get all he deserves, else there is no use in having a just God or any
faith in justice.
I could fill a book with such stories of want, temptation and
wretchedness, but of what use? There must be a screw, or many of them,
loose in this inhuman social arrangement of life, or else I am a fool.
The first mistake, or rather crime, was in begetting this hybrid race to
be scorned and accursed as long as they live. The next crime is that the
Government and Europeans do not assist them, and the next is that the
better class of Eurasians do not look after these despised unfortunates
of their own race or caste. They in their pride try to appear what they
are not, and try to conceal the pit from whence they were digged. They
may powder as much as they please, but there is not chalk enough in the
world to conceal or remove the pigment in their skins. They may put on
style, live in wealth and luxury, and in their egotistical imbecility
ape the Europeans in everything; yet they will remain Eurasians still,
as I am one.
If these more favored ones would stand up for their rights and let
Government and everybody know that they had some pride and manhood left;
would organize, defend and help their unfortunate people, there would
soon be a change. The voluble babus have their representatives in the
legislative councils, and nearly every other tribe, no matter how
obscure, except the Eurasian. These get nothing, because they have not
the courage to demand anything.
In self-vindication I must say that I assisted the poor girl of whom I
have spoken by leaving some money with my hostess for her. I only
mention this to show that my practice corresponds with my theory. I have
always contributed with an open hand to assist Eurasians, as I
considered that they had a claim on me, or rather that it was my
privilege to assist them as far as I could; yet I prefer rather to leave
the recording of such things with the angel who keeps these kind of
accounts.
I had heard enough of evil, want and wretchedness to make me long again
for my quiet home, so I quickly hied myself thither.
An afterthought. It might be said that I am somewhat of a “kicker.” I
admit it. I always kick at the disagreeable, against imposition,
wrong-doing, hypocrisy, and if my mouth was filled with bitterness and
curses, they would not be sufficient to show my utter abhorrence of lust
and licentiousness, especially among what is termed “society,” by people
who style themselves Christians, ladies and gentlemen, for the reason
that I was accursed in my birth and have been accursed all my life by
the sin and crime of a Christian gentleman. Aside from this, I think I
am acknowledged to be one of the mildest and most kind-hearted of men.
It is said that if you wish to know the character of a man, ask his
neighbors. Well, one of mine told another that Japhet always built a
fire on cold mornings on purpose to warm the flies. Another said,
“Japhet never sees a lame cur on the road but he takes him in and puts
splinters and ointment on his legs.” If I know myself I think my chief
characteristic is to sympathize with the under dog in a fight,
particularly if he is a weak, helpless creature and the other a great
bull dog of a thing. Alas! there are so many big dogs in the world. I am
wicked enough, but do not like to be considered worse than I really am.
Another thought. I am not opposed to marriage between people of
different races, if it be a true marriage. If a European wishes to marry
an Asiatic or an African woman, by all means let him do so, and then let
him treat her as his wife in every respect. If he have children, let him
be man enough to acknowledge them as his, educate and take care of them,
so that they may love him as their father instead of despising and
cursing him.
Here beginneth another chapter of my life.