e people. Begging
has come to be such a national institution and is so much a part and
parcel of the Indian's life and religion, that any proposal to
extinguish the fraternity may cause in some minds positive regret. To
such I would say that we do not propose to _extinguish_ but to _reform_,
and with this one hint I must beg them, before making up their minds, to
study carefully the proposals detailed in Chapter VII of Part II.

CHAPTER VI.

"THE OUT-OF-WORKS."

I should question whether there is a single town or country district in
India which does not present the sad spectacle of a large number of men,
willing and anxious to work, but unable to find employment. Moreover, as
is well known, they have almost without exception families dependent
upon them for their support, who are necessarily the sharers of their
misfortunes and sufferings. There is one district in Ceylon, where
deaths from starvation have been personally known to our Officers, and
yet the country appears to be a very garden of Eden for beauty and
fertility.

In the early years of our work I remember begging food from a house, and
learning afterwards that what they had given us was positively the last
they had for their own use. Needless to say that it was hastily
returned. During the same visit a cry of "Thief, thief!" was raised in
the night. We learnt next morning that the robbery had been committed by
a man whose wife and child were starving. It consisted of rice, and the
thief was discovered partly by the disappearance of the suspected
person, and partly by the fact that in his house was found the exact
quantity which had been stolen, whereas it was known that on the
previous day he had absolutely nothing whatever in his house! He had
left it all for his starving wife and child, and had himself fled to
another part of the country, probably going to swell the number of
criminals or mendicants in some adjoining city.

I quote these instances as serving to show the impossibility of judging
merely from outside appearances in regard to the existence or
non-existence of destitution of the most painful character, which it is
often to the interest of the local landlords to whitewash and conceal.
It is only on looking under the surface that such can in many cases be
discovered. It has been the actual living among the people that has made
it possible for us to obtain glimpses of their home life, such as could
not otherwise have been the case.