2o6 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII 



Pancham has a kutcha house, 15 by 24^ yards. Inside it 

 are two rooms, 4 by 2J yards each, with a thatch in the front, 

 and one anteroom, 6 by 2^ yards. Near the outer door of the 

 house is a room 5 by 2^ yards, with a thatch in front. In the 

 last-mentioned room Pancham works at his trade. 



The three examples which I have here given are all of men 

 who followed the calling of carpenters. It is obvious, however, 

 that prosperity has been different in different callings. The 

 blacksmith and the carpenter have suffered but little from the 

 competition of European goods, and they have probably con- 

 siderably improved their position in the last fifty years. But 

 during the same period the weaver has been suffering the 

 reverse fate, and though weavers are not so numerous as 

 carpenters in the villages, nor so essential a part of village 

 economy, I might produce an incorrect impression if I did not 

 include in this Appendix one representative of the class who 

 are following moribund callings. The following extract from 

 Mr. Rose's evidence deals with this question :* 



' The carpenter and blacksmith receive their remuneration 

 at each harvest ; and, while far from a position of anything 

 which approaches affluence, they do not, except in times of 

 scarcity, probably suffer at all from an inadequate supply of 

 food. But there is one class of artisan which, as it seemed 

 to me in the course of my inquiry, probably more nearly 

 approached than any other the position in which the sufficiency 

 of daily food becomes a question of uncertainty. These are 

 the weavers and, in a less degree, the cotton-carders, whether 

 Hindu or Muhammadan. In the villages the weaver seldom 

 uses his own cotton : the cotton is supplied by his employer, 

 and he is paid at the rate of an anna for 5 yards, this 

 quantity representing a day's work. The cotton-carder is in 

 much the same position. He gets 2J pucka seers of grain for 

 the carding of cotton for a razai, and 1^ seers for the carding 

 of the cotton required for a mirzai or angarkka. With hard 

 work he can card cotton for two razais in one day, the wage 

 of which is 5 seers of grain ; but work of this kind is not 

 continuous. The position of a cotton-carder will very much 

 depend upon the number of persons in the household who are 

 employed in the work and the continuity of the employment. 

 Upon the whole, his position is very much better than that of 

 the weaver. As an instance of the straitened circumstances in 

 which persons of the latter class are sometimes to be found, 

 I will take the case of Raza, jolaha, of Usia. This man is 

 seventy years of age. His wife and two married sons, with 

 their wives and three small children, are included in the family ; 



* ' Economic Inquiry,' p. 138. 



