21 



yards, he must be a man of good caste. Each man should 

 be given a card specifying his name and duty, to carry 

 with him as a credential. 



In English towns rubbish of all kinds is kept in proper 

 dust-bins, and is removed regularly by proper agents ; but 

 in the tropics the utmost carelessness prevails in this 

 respect. Even in the houses of Europeans, old buckets, 

 bottles, and meat-tins are left by the native servants strewn 

 about everywhere. Rain-water remains in these for months, 

 and contains thousands of mosquito-larvae, giving rise to 

 numbers of mosquitoes, which immediately enter the win- 

 dows of the houses and persecute the occupants who, of 

 course, attribute their presence to any marsh which may 

 happen to exist within ten miles of the place. 



The first duty of the gang will be to collect all the 

 broken bottles, tins, broken flower-pots, old gourds, and 

 such like, which they can find either in private premises or 

 in the streets. The procedure as regards the private pre- 

 mises is as follows : The head man informs the master or 

 one of his servants of his errand, and offers to remove all 

 his broken bottles and old tins free of cost. In the vast 

 majority of cases, the offer is accepted with alacrity. The 

 rubbish is then collected by the gang, and placed in a heap 

 near the door ; and next, in order to prevent accusations of 

 theft, the head man must ask one of the inmates whether 

 the heap contains any article which is required. This is 

 an important form, because natives often attach value to all 

 kinds of trifles. On permission being given, the whole heap 

 is piled into a cart and removed, together with similar col- 

 lections from other houses, to an assigned dumping-ground. 



One or more carts, drawn by horses, mules, or oxen, can 

 generally be borrowed from the municipality. 



