After the special duty which they were organized to perform had been accomplished The Improvement Trust was made permanent as a useful agency to undertake works of public utility of a similar character which the government could not carry on. The twelve trustees serve without pay or allowances; not one of them receives a penny of compensation for his time or trouble, or even the reimbursement of incidental expenses made necessary in the performance of his duties. This is an exhibition of unusual patriotism, but it is considered perfectly natural in Bombay. To carry out the plans of the Trust, salaried officials are employed, and a large force is necessary. The trustees have assumed great responsibilities, and supply the place of a board of public works, with larger powers than are usually granted to such officials. The municipality has turned over to them large tracts of real estate, some of which has been improved with great profit; it has secured funds by borrowing from banks upon the personal credit of its members, and by issuing bonds which sell at a high premium, and the money has been used in the improvement of the city, in the introduction of sanitary reforms, in building model tenements for the poor, in creating institutions of public necessity or advantage and by serving the people in various other ways.
The street car system of Bombay belongs to an American company, having been organized by a Mr. Kittridge, who came over here as consul during President Lincoln's administration. Recognizing the advantage of street cars, in 1874 he interested some American capitalists in the enterprise, got a franchise, laid rails on a few of the principal streets and has been running horse cars ever since.
The introduction of electricity and the extension of the street railway system is imperatively needed. Distances are very great in the foreign section, and during the hot months, from March to November, it is impossible for white men to walk in the sun, so that everybody is compelled to keep or hire a carriage; while on the other hand the density of the population in other sections is so great as to be a continual and increasing public peril. Bombay has more than 800,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are packed into very narrow limits, and in the native quarters it is estimated that there is one human being to every ten square yards of space. It will be realized that this is a dangerous condition of affairs for a city that is constantly afflicted with epidemics and in which contagious diseases always prevail. The extension of the street car service would do something to relieve this congestion and scatter many of the people out among the suburbs, but the Orientals always swarm together and pack themselves away in most uncomfortable and unhealthful limits, and it will always be a great danger when the plagues or the cholera come around. Multitudes have no homes at all. They have no property except the one or two strips of dirty cotton which the police require them to wear for clothing. They lie down to sleep anywhere, in the parks, on the sidewalks, in hallways, and drawing their robes over their faces are utterly indifferent to what happens. They get their meals at the cook shops for a few farthings, eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are sleepy and go through life without a fixed abode.
In addition to the street car company the United States is represented by the Standard Oil Company, the Vacuum Oil Company, and the New York Export and Import Company. Other American firms of merchants and manufacturers have resident agents, but they are mostly Englishmen or Germans.
There is, however, very little demand in India for agricultural implements, although three-fourths of the people are employed in tilling the soil. Each farmer owns or rents a very small piece of ground, hardly big enough to justify the use of anything but the simple, primitive tools that have been handed down to him through long lines of ancestors for 3,000 years. Nearly all his implements are home-made, or come from the village blacksmith shop, and are of the rudest, most awkward description. They plow with a crooked stick, they dig ditches with their fingers, and carry everything that has to be moved in little baskets on their heads. The harvesting is done with a primitive-looking sickle, and root crops are taken out of the ground with a two-tined fork with a handle only a foot long. The Hindu does everything in a squatting posture, hence he uses only short-handled tools. Fifty or seventy-five cents each would easily replace the outfit of three-fourths of the farmers in the empire. Occasionally there is a rajah with large estates under cultivation upon which modern machinery is used, but even there its introduction is discouraged; first, because the natives are very conservative and disinclined to adopt new means and new methods; and, second, and what is more important, every labor-saving implement and machine that comes into the country deprives hundreds of poor coolies of employment.
The development of the material resources of India is slowly going on, and mechanical industries are being gradually established, with the encouragement of the government, for the purpose of attracting the surplus labor from the farms and villages and employing it in factories and mills, and in the mines of southern India, which are supposed to be very rich. These enterprises offer limited possibilities for the sale of machinery, and American-made machines are recognized as superior to all others. There is also a demand for everything that can be used by the foreign population, which in India is numbered somewhere about a million people, but the trade is controlled largely by British merchants who have life-long connections at home, and it is difficult to remove their prejudices or persuade them to see the superiority of American goods. Nevertheless, our manufactories, on their merits, are gradually getting a footing in the market.
When Mark Twain was in Bombay, a few years ago, he met with an unusual experience for a mortal. He was a guest of the late Mr. Tata, a famous Parsee merchant, and received a great deal of attention. All the foreigners in the city knew him, and had read his books, and there are in Bombay hundreds of highly cultivated and educated natives. He hired a servant, as every stranger does, and was delighted when he discovered a native by the name of Satan among the numerous applicants. He engaged him instantly on his name; no other recommendation was necessary. To have a servant by the name of Satan was a privilege no humorist had ever before enjoyed, and the possibilities to his imagination were without limit. And it so happened that on the very day Satan was employed, Prince Aga Khan, the head of a Persian sect of Mohammedans, who is supposed to have a divine origin and will be worshiped as a god when he dies, came to call on Mr. Clemens. Satan was in attendance, and when he appeared with the card upon a tray, Mr. Clemens asked if he knew anything about the caller; if he could give him some idea who he was, because, when a prince calls in person upon an American tourist, it is considered a distinguished honor. Aga Khan is well known to everybody in Bombay, and one of the most conspicuous men in the city. He is a great favorite in the foreign colony, and is as able a scholar as he is a charming gentleman. Satan, with all the reverence of his race, appreciated the religious aspect of the visitor more highly than any other, and in reply to the question of his new master explained that Aga Khan was a god.
It was a very gratifying meeting for both gentlemen, who found each other entirely congenial. Aga Khan has a keen sense of humor and had read everything Mark Twain had written, while, on the other hand, the latter was distinctly impressed with the personality of his caller. That evening, when he came down to dinner, his host asked how he had passed the day:
"I have had the time of my life," was the prompt reply, "and the greatest honor I have ever experienced. I have hired Satan for a servant, and a God called to tell me how much he liked Huck Finn."
III
SERVANTS, HOTELS,