77 
credit. These working sections are tied up in strings 
of hundreds and packed 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 méet 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 position 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 1s 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. 
(c) VOLUME AND IMPORTANCE 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 a 
