11 



credit. These working sections are tied up in strings 

 of hundreds and j3acked in baskets at Nadia or Dacca as 

 the case may be whence they are forwarded to their 

 destination in charge of an employee; wherever possible 

 preference is shown for transit by a country boat as the 

 safest method in the case of brittle articles such as bangle 

 sections. 



The bulk of the Dinajpur trade consists in the pro- 

 duction of bangles to meet the requirements of the lower 

 castes — people who require broad strong serviceable 

 bangles not readily broken in the course of their day's 

 labour. Fully seventy-five per cent, of the production is 

 thus accounted for, considerably less than twenty-five 

 per cent, being medium and high grade work suitable for 

 Hindu ladies of good caste. Further, while the latter 

 only care at most to wear one or two pairs of narrow 

 bangles their poor sisters of humble j^osition are keen to 

 possess and wear as many as they can get upon their 

 fore-arm — a set covering a length of 3 inches and some- 

 times'even more is quite common among the Paliya and 

 Santal women who form the bulk of the clientele of the 

 Dinajpur workshops. 



In the other Bengal local centres work proceeds on 

 similar lines, varied only in detail to meet the particular 

 demand or fashion prevailing among the women of the 

 surrounding district. Generally the bulk of the work is 

 in the hands of the Sankhari caste except where Muham- 

 madan competition has become keen, or where the town 

 is outside of Bengal proper. Such an example is Chit- 

 tagong, where the chank-bangle trade is monopolized 

 by Muhammadan cutters. At this centre large shells 

 only are in demand as they are required for the produc- 

 tion of the very broad massive bangles or armlets 

 favoured by the hill tribes served from Chittagong. 



(f) Volume and imtortance of the trade. 



Commercially important as the trade in chank shells 

 and bangles still is, it appears to have been considerably 

 greater in former times. Thus in Simmonds' '' Com- 

 mercial Products of the Sea " it is stated that " frequently 

 ''4,000,000 to 5,000,000 of these shells are shipped in g, 



