omes at all the large
centres of population.

Connected as will be this department with the network of other agencies
that we have already established, and increased as will be our
facilities for reaching this class, we are confident that we shall be
able to carry out this much-needed reform on a scale commensurate with
the evil, besides warning the youths of our cities against the terrible
contamination to which they are at present exposed. All the weight of
our increasing influence will be thrown into the scale for cutting off
both the supply and demand of this infamous traffic in human souls.

CHAPTER XII.

"THE COUNTRY COLONY"--"WASTEWARD HO!"

As has been already explained in the first part of this book, the
congested state of the labor market in the agricultural districts is
leading to an enormous and increasing immigration of the country
population towards the towns, not as a matter of preference, or of
choice, but of dire necessity. The object of the Country Colony, as
applied to India, will be twofold:

1. It will seek to divert into more profitable channels the steadily
increasing torrent of immigration from the villages to the towns.

2. It will re-direct and re-distribute the masses of the Submerged Tenth
who already exist in every large city.

Like his English representative, the Indian village bumpkin has a
natural aversion to town life. Peculiarities in his dialect, dress, and
manners make him the laughing-stock of the clever Cockney townsman. His
simplicity and ignorance of the world cause him to be easily victimised
by the city sharper, for whom he is no match in the struggle of life. He
sighs for his green fields, and longs to get away from the bustle that
everywhere surrounds and bewilders him. He surrenders these preferences
only, because starvation is staring him in the face, and he has better
chances of working, begging, or stealing in the city than in his
village.

And yet within a few miles of his birthplace there are frequently tracts
of waste land amply sufficient to support him and thousands more. He
could reduce it to cultivation if he had the chance. He would infinitely
prefer eking out the scantiest existence in this manner to flinging
himself into the turbulent whirlpool of town life. Strangely enough the
"Sirkar" (Government), to whom these tracts belong, is equally anxious
that the land in question should be cultivated. It would yield in the
course of a few years as ric