EXPENSE OF LIVING. 307 



The maintenance of a numerous body of servants is an 

 expense which the usages of the country unavoidably entail 

 upon the European resident. This is the kind of state in 

 which, above all others, the opulent natives delight ; and in 

 conformity to it a system has been established, by which 

 each domestic appropriates to himself a peculiar and very 

 limited function, beyond which he will on no account pro- 

 ceed. There must be a flambeau-bearer, water-carrier, 

 water-Cooler, palanquin-bearers, pipe-holder, grass-cutter, 

 and others whose duties are as strictly limited. The ob- 

 stinacy with which the natives adhere to every thing con- 

 nected with caste and employment renders it impossible to 

 break through -these restrictions. A servant of all work is 

 quite unattainable. Hence, for a family thirty domestics 

 are considered a very moderate establishment. But this 

 remark, in its full force, chiefly applies to Calcutta. At 

 Madras and Bombay, the subdivision of work is much less 

 minute, and consequently the number required is less formi- 

 dable. This body of menials, however, is maintained at no 

 very extravagant cost. Their usual pay is small, amounting 

 in the case of palanquin-bearers to not more than four 

 rupees monthly, though the upper servants receive from ten 

 to twenty, and sometimes even more ; but they supply them- 

 selves with food and clothing, and generally live out of the 

 house. The expense is therefore not so great as might be 

 apprehended, and it consists in a fixed rate of wages, which 

 may always be exactly calculated. Most of those employed, 

 therefore, especially in the civil service, might, with due 

 economy, easily support themselves in comfort, and retire 

 with a competent fortune. As the income, too, of every 

 individual is known from the situation which he holds, there 

 is no temptation to impose on the public by false appear- 

 ances. But thoughtless youths, with a liberal allowance 

 and an assurance of progressive advancement, accustomed 

 perhaps to expensive habits at home, and removed from the 

 eye of their relations, are, nevertheless, too apt to indulge 

 in a profuse style of living. A debt, which their augment- 

 ing resources may enable them easily to discharge, appears 

 no very serious evil. Thev obtain ample loans from the 

 native baboo, or money-lender, a most accommodating and 

 profligate person, who readily advances funds to almost any 

 extent. As soon as, by the accumulation of principal and 



