Our People. 25 
former may have been. The fault of this lies with Mr. Hewick’s racial antece- 
dents who wrongfully enslaved them. Neither is any of them “stuck up ” or 
can with truth be “‘ reminded of the time when he was a ‘ shut-tail like awé.” 
It would be a serious reflection upon English education if it made a negro pro- 
fessional man so utterly foolish as to consider himself as china and his black 
brother as earthenware. The imputation that the black professional man 
“for auld lang syne,’’ does unprincipled things “against the etiquette of the 
honourable profession to which he belongs ”’ is gratuitous, but I challenge Mr. 
Hewick to give a single instance of this outside of his imagination. 
Dealing with Hast Indians who are “next in point of numbers,’ Mr. Hewick 
writes much that is interesting. They are the least understood of the colony’s 
population. And it is astounding to observe that very few, if anybody, take 
the slightest trouble to prosecute this interesting study of ‘‘ those character- 
istics which make the East the East, and which will never be eradicated.” 
Here people forget that “there was light in Asia before there was gas in Exeter 
Hall.” For these people it is suggested that village communities should be 
established in the interior, although it is admitted that they are doing remark- 
ably well on the colony’s littoral. According to Mr. Hewick, the East Indian 
“has steadily gained in physique, and has become more creole than the black 
people themselves ”’ ; “‘ he is contented with his lot inthe village communities 
where he finds all he wants’; and he is “advancing in prosperity.” What 
more could human nature desire than strength and wealth, with contentment— 
to say nothing of the attendant ministrations of the priests. And the sugges- 
tion is, they should be taken to the hinterland, where, Mr. Hewick states, the 
stronger physique of the black man breaks down during a temporary sojourn ; 
when “hundreds flocked to the bush, many alas! to leave their bones 
there or to contract diseases which sapped their strength.’”’ The sug- 
gestion is, to say the least, unkind, and East Indians would be foolish to adopt 
it under present conditions. The virgin forests of British Guiana are congenial 
to those capable of great physical endurance, and are wholly uncongenial to 
the fragile constitutions of the imported or native born East Indian. But Mr. 
Hewick has evidently forgotten that East Indian settlements under the egis 
of the Government have been tried and have failed, chiefly because of the very 
system concerning which he says: “ They are imbued with the traditions of 
the past,and caste remains as a severely drawn line.”’ These Government 
settlements are an object lesson, and sufficiently answer Mr. Hewick’s suggest- 
ion. The most ideal places were selected for them, within easy reach of the 
city by rail in one instance and by steamer in another. And yet they failed ! 
The fact is the East Indian prefers to select his own domicile, and in this 
he is not peculiarly different from the rest of us. 
Error has crept in also in Mr. Hewick’s venturing to account for the East 
Indian choosing to reside in the colony rather than to return to India. “ For 
many years,” he writes, “the return ships to India claimed a good many, but 
since the abolition of back passages the number of those leaving these shores 
has been greatly reduced.” Ihave no comparative figures at hand to gainsay 
the statement regarding the reduction in numbers of late years—though I 
