EURASIA. 7 



portions. With anything between one and two hundred rupees a 

 month — the rupee being equal to about one shilling and fivepence 

 — he is fairly comfortable, and a person of respectable position. 

 He can afford to occupy the whole of a small house in a back 

 street, to feed and clothe his family tolerably well, and, with the 

 assistance of one of the charitable educational institutions of Cal- 

 cutta, to educate them. But the Eurasian is improvident to the 

 core, and will marry, taking no thought for the morrow, upon from 

 thirty to forty rupees a month. The young lady of his species is 

 charming in her way, which the young gentleman naturally 

 finds a very captivating way. She develops early all the arts of 

 beguilement ; her eyes are liquid brown, her cheeks soft and 

 round, her figure slim and graceful. Her prettiness is weak and 

 transitory, but she possesses it long enough to insure the reward 

 of her desirability. The matter is submitted to her mother, not 

 her father — in Eurasian households the sway is maternal — and 

 the affair is arranged upon the basis of family community. The 

 young man agrees to live with his mother-in-law, to hand over to 

 her his entire monthly talub, and to be provided for, with his wife, 

 much as she thinks fit. His earnings go into a general fund, con- 

 trolled by the mother-in-law, who is not unf requently blessed with 

 several married sons and daughters in circumstances that keep 

 them under her roof. She feeds them all and clothes them all, 

 dispensing such luxuries as she may. They increase, but not in 

 riches, and when the multiplication reaches a figure quite dispro- 

 portionate with that which represents the collective income, the 

 family go over in a body to swell the great piteous majority which 

 forms the Eurasian problem. Their accession to it is often hast- 

 ened by a peculiarity of temperament on the part of the wage- 

 earner, who is apt upon the slightest provocation to throw up his 

 situation, no matter with what difficulty it has been procured or 

 can be duplicated. His vanity and love of display tempt him to 

 curious extravagances. On the occasion of a wedding or a chris- 

 tening he will spend his last pice with a generous trust in Provi- 

 dence for the commonplaces of food and drink in the days that 

 come after. His family affection is a marked characteristic. Par- 

 ents cling to their children with a degree of sentiment apt to be 

 common among people who have too many, and often this attach- 

 ment stands with foolish obstinacy in the way of the welfare of 

 its object. 



Notwithstanding their lack of thrift and strength, the most ob- 

 vious reason for the great poverty and distress among the Eura- 

 sians lies in the tremendous competition of the natives. There is 

 almost no department of labor in which it is not felt. The East 

 Indian is particularly fitted by nature and inclination for minor 

 clerkships ; and here he finds in the baboo, who also loves an office 



