482 Mr. Glyn on the various Classes of Population in Bareilly, 



and want of industry, are found in all. Compare any town in the civilized 

 parts of Europe, containing a population of 66,000 inhabitants, with Bareilly, 

 and how many more varieties of trade and manufacture will be found in it, 

 than this statement shews ! Tiiis is no doubt in some measure to be attributed 

 to the nature of the climate, in which man has less occasion for quantity and 

 variety of clothing, food, and houseliold furniture than in Europe. The 

 Hindu religion, that so strictly inculcates the dread of pollution, both in 

 food and in dress, does also no doubt materially contribute to diminish the 

 number of trades in Indian towns:* still although these circumstances do 

 certainly tend to restrict the multiplication of handicrafts, the poverty of the 

 people, and their low advance in civilization, must be admitted to be the 

 principal cause. The very limited diffusion of wealth, and consequently the 

 little demand for the conveniences and luxuries of life, limit the number 

 of trades and manufactures to a very insignificant amount. The nations of 

 Europe have very little idea of the actual condition of the inhabitants of 

 Hindusthan : they are more wretchedly poor than we have any notion of. 

 Europeans have hitherto been too apt to draw their opinions of the wealth 

 of Hindusthan from the gorgeous pomp of a few emperors, sultans, nawabs, 

 and rajas ; whereas a more intimate and accurate view of the real state of 

 society would have shewn, that these princes and nobles were engrossing 

 all the wealth of tlie country, whilst the great body of the people were 

 earning but a bare subsistence, groaning under intolerable burthens, and 

 hardly able to supply themselves with the necessaries of life, much less witli 

 its luxuries. The statement of monthly earnings given in tliis enumeration 

 is rather over than underrated: but it may serve to convey some notion of the 

 comparative poverty of this people. The average rate of earnings appears 

 to be from five shillings to eight sliiliings per month (taking the rupee at 

 the exchange of two shillings). Wheat is the food of the higher classes in 

 Hindusthan (by Hindusthan is meant the northern provinces of our Indian 

 empire, between the Nerbada and the Setlcj) ; but though wheat is 

 three times cheaper in Hindusthan than in England, yet the earnings of both 



* Actuated by this superstitious notion, the greater part of the Hindus cook their own 

 victuals, make and mend their own clothes, and wash their own linen ; and even the higher 

 classes chiefly employ their own private servants in those offices, instead of resorting to shops 

 for the supply of their wants. Hence butchers and bakers are wanting, and tailors and washer- 

 men not numerous, in the Hindu part of the community. 



