lly decreed that "None
but Weavers, Spinners, and other persons useful in the Weaving trade,
Painters (i.e. designers of patterns for chintz), Washers (bleachers),
Dyers, Bettleca-merchants (beetle-sellers), Brahmins and Dancing
women, and other necessary attendants on the pagoda (erected in the
settlement) shall inhabit the said town." In Chintadripet to-day there
are still many spinners and weavers; and one of the sights in
Chintadripet--growing gradually more rare--is the spectacle of
primitively-clad urchins or grown men spinning in the streets with
primitive gear and in primitive fashion; and it is interesting to
recall the fact that this has been going on in Chintadripet for nearly
two centuries--an industry which the Company established.

Washermanpet is another such locality. It was not so called, as many
people imagine, for being a land of dhobies (male laundresses). In the
Company's vocabulary a 'washerman' was a man who 'bleached' new-made
cloth; and the Company employed a number of bleachers. The bleaching
process needed large open spaces--washing-greens--on which the cloth
could be laid out in the sun to be bleached; and Washermanpet covered
a considerable area.

A great many more of the streets and districts of Madras have history
in their names; but the few that we have dealt with suffice to
exemplify the manner of the expansion of the city of Madras. We can
picture the rustic suppliers crowding into the city to sell the
produce of their fields; we can picture the humble weavers migrating
into the city with their wives and their children, and with their pots
and their pans and their quaint machines, in response to the Company's
tempting invitation; we can picture the small tradesmen and the small
mechanics setting up their humble shops in the new city in which they
believed that fortunes were to be made. And in the higher grades of
life we can picture the grave Armenian merchants, the submissive Jews,
the mistrusted 'Moors,' and others seeking interviews with Stuart or
Georgian-garbed factors of the Company, and eager all of them to turn
the Company to profitable account.

CHAPTER V

'THE WALL'

Skirting a thoroughfare in Old Jail Street, in North Georgetown, is
still to be seen a part of 'the Wall' that protected Black Town in
bygone days. This interesting remnant of the Wall of Madras might
before long have been levelled to the ground, either by successive
monsoons or by philistine contra