ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 231 



grow as it best can, its adult shape being determined by the 

 mould in which it was made to begin life. There will be no 

 cramping or stunting — the better grown and healthier the 

 better value — only the little growing body must expand 

 where it can, repressing itself elsewhere. The face is gener- 

 ally left free, and the feet normally placed, but obviously 

 if the shape did not vary considerably from the natural 

 human form the aim proposed would be defeated. The 

 process is not a painful one — so we were assured — and the 

 mere act of growing being an unconscious one, it may be 

 all one in what direction legs and arms develop, provided 

 they have space allowed them somewhere. An arm may 

 sprout out of the side ; or the chest be turned half-way 

 round to the back, the body being a series of hollows and 

 excrescences. All that eccentricity is not necessarily pain- 

 ful, nor was it so in the making, judging by the appearance 

 of health in the finished productions — an appearance not to 

 be simulated. Parents with a far-seeing eye have found 

 that they could thus provide an easy means of livelihood 

 for themselves, and for their child if it should be orphaned ; 

 not everybody would know it to be an artificial creation, 

 nor could the child itself be blamed in any case. Perhaps 

 this may be thought to be invention, or at least exaggeration. 

 Not so. I have been told that it is literally true, and most 

 assuredly some of the objects I have seen in native bazaars 

 would seem to prove it. 



There is one thing to be said, natives of India certainly 

 are extraordinarily kind to afflicted persons — too kind, some 

 might think — keeping them alive as long as ever they can, 

 against all reason and common-sense : witness the example 

 at Hyderabad. Their very name for idiots is a beautiful 

 one ; they call them ' God's animals ' ; and one and all 

 vie with each other in their endeavour to serve the imbecile 

 creatures. There is no jeering or stone- thro wing at the idiot 

 boy or childish old man, such as every one must have seen 



