GROWTH OF LUXURY 187 



death of some relative, requires his immediate 

 presence in his village, and he asks for leave. If he 

 cannot get it otherwise, he offers to forfeit his pay 

 for the period. If it is still refused, he resigns his 

 situation and goes. This does not indicate pinching 

 poverty ; there must be some margin between such 

 men and starvation. And a saunter through their 

 villages will amply confirm such a surmise. 



It is no uncommon thing in these coast villages 

 to see that foreign luxury, a chair, perhaps even 

 an easy-chair, in the verandah of a common Bhun- 

 daree (toddy-drawer). The rapidly growing use of 

 chairs, glass tumblers, enamelled ironware, soda- 

 water and lemonade, patent medicines, and even 

 cheap watches, declares plainly that the young 

 Hindu of the present day does not live as his fathers 

 did. Men go better dressed, and their children are 

 clothed at an earlier age. The advertisements in 

 vernacular languages that one meets with, circulated 

 and posted up in all sorts of places, tell the same 

 tale convincingly ; for the advertiser knows his 

 business, and will not angle where no fish rise. 



Nor are large towns like Bombay the only places 

 where the Hindu peasant widens his horizon and 

 acquires new tastes. In the Fiji Islands there are 

 about 22,000 natives of India who went out as 

 indentured coolies with the option of returning at 

 the end of five years at their own expense, or after 

 ten years at that of Government. When these men 

 come home, they bring with them new tastes and 



