n they find that it interferes with the discharge of their duties.
Whether the Calcutta policeman really needs this protection from the
sun may be doubted, when the majority of the people in the Calcutta
streets are, by their own choice, entirely bareheaded. But the
appearance of dignity which the umbrella conveys is no doubt an
advantage to the policeman, even if he does not actually need it as a
protection.

A few years back umbrellas of every imaginable size and shape and
colour and degree of disreputability were in evidence in the streets
of Poona City. There was a favourite umbrella with wooden ribs,
covered with a kind of oilcloth, red or yellow in colour, which was a
cheap and useful article. But in these modern days of growing luxury
such umbrellas are despised. "Why do you carry this kind of umbrella?"
said an elegantly dressed young Hindu student to me. "I do so because
it is cheap, and I am poor," was my reply. "You are not poor; you are
rich," was his answer.

Umbrellas from Europe are brought into India in shoals. When an
agitation arose in Bengal to boycott foreign goods the umbrella
question became a complex one, because their manufacture is
practically unknown in the country. The difficulty was solved by
importing the component parts to be put together in India, and then
they could be labelled "country-made."

Although now anybody who can afford it may carry an umbrella whenever
and wherever he pleases, a certain idea of dignity still lingers in
connection with it, and the bearer of this ancient symbol of
importance often does so with a slight swagger, and all the more so if
he is dressed in rags, or scarcely dressed at all.

The agitation in Bengal referred to above was an epidemic of political
excitement amongst educated classes, and more particularly young
students, which spread wider than usual, and threatened to become
serious. It had therefore to be dealt with firmly. The epidemic
spread to Poona City (and indeed it was freely said that the chief
wire-pullers in the movement lived there). As a result of this unrest
there was a marked cooling-off in cordiality amongst the visitors to
Yerandawana when plague broke out again in the city, and the annual
exodus took place. The deportation to a distance of one of the leaders
on the side of discontent in the city, for a period of some years, was
the chief ground of local resentment. Boy friends of previous years
held aloof; elder brothers, of the stu