426 
J. HORNELL ON 
Under ordinary conditions the chief Calcutta importers have a business agree- 
ment among themselves, a form of co-partnery or syndicate by which the purchases 
are pooled and divided on a definite agreed basis. By this means they are usually 
able to maintain a monopoly of the trade and to a large extent to dictate their own 
terms both to the owners of the various chank fisheries and to the trade buyers in the 
Bengal manufacturing towns. 
The Bengal chank-cutters originally were all Hindus and belonged exclusively to a 
professional subdivision of the Vaisya caste ; at the present time the Dacca workers 
all belong to this subdivision, known throughout the Presidency as Sankhari Vaisyas 
or simply Sankharis, or, as the word is corrupted in Eastern Bengal, Shakharis. They 
in consequence claim to be entitled to wear the sacred thread and at Dinajpur actu- 
ally do wear it. 
The workers in Pabna District are also of the same caste, together with the des- 
cendants of a number of chank-cutting families which have emigrated from Dacca and 
Pabna from time to time to various other towns scattered throughout the two Bengals. 
Besides the Vaisya Sankharis who are occupational chank-cutters by caste, a large 
number of Muhammadans follow the same trade. In several centres, they even out- 
number the Hindu workers, and at Dinajpur for example, whereas only four families 
of Vaisya Sankharis follow the calling of their ancestors, from 80 to ioo Muhammadans 
earn their living at this trade. 
Dacca, as in Tavernier’s day (seventeenth century), when it was the capital of 
Bengal, continues to be the headquarters of the chank-cutting trade and the chief mart 
for the purchase by dealers and hawkers of the finished article. From Dacca, also, are 
exported to other towns in Bengal large quantities of sawn shell sections in the rough 
to be carved and finished locally. In Dacca the shell-cutters’ quarter, the Shakhari 
Bazaar, is located in the heart of the city ; it consists in the main of a long and narrow 
street, devoted exclusively to this one trade. Usually the preliminary processes and 
the work of shell-cutting are carried on in partly open sheds or verandahs at the rear, 
whereas the carving, lacquering, and finishing of the shell sections proceed in rooms 
and verandahs open to the street. 
The workers appear to be very conservative and have the reputation of being 
exceedingly clannish. Educationally their condition is or was till quite recently 
distinctly backward. Their quarter was held in ill-odour by their fellow-townsmen as 
the reputed scene of frequent robbery and undetected crime. Of recent years trade 
has been very good, and with increased prosperity and greater municipal and police 
supervision the Shakhari Bazaar has shown marked material and moral improvement. 
When I visited this locality the streets and the houses appeared up to the average of 
working-class quarters of an Indian city. Personally I met with perfect courtesy, 
and I am glad to be now enabled to express my appreciation of the helpful attitude 
shown towards myself by everybody with whom I conversed, as well as the workpeople 
themselves and their employers. My enquiries necessitated many questions and much 
cross-examination upon details of work and of trade, and never once did I meet with 
discourtesy or impatience. 
