[9] The disproportion between the two sexes is explained by the general custom, which does not allow the Parsi servants to bring their wives to the cities where they are employed.
[10] Statistics of births, deaths, and marriages amongst the Parsis of Bombay, during the last ten years, in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, ii., November 1, pp. 55–65.
[11] We refer to the Parsee Prâkâsh, for all those interesting details, those of our readers who can read and understand Gujerati.
[12] “If I have not yet replied to your letter of the 19th November,” he writes, “it is because I desired to make special researches concerning the strange rumour which has been spread by the Syed on the subject of a tribe of Parsis established at Khoten, remaining faithful to the Zoroastrian customs, and still governed by its own kings. I can tell you that it is a legend devoid of foundation, and that Major Rawlinson, so learned in these matters, partakes of my view. I suppose that the Syed, seeing the prosperous condition of his co-religionists in Bombay, imagined that in flattering your vanity he would act on your purse. Besides, the country of Khoten is not the terra incognita which he has depicted. I have been in touch with the people who have sojourned there; it is a dependency of China, inhabited by Mussulman subjects of the Empire: the only Chinese who are there form part of the garrison. According to all that has been said to me of Khoten and the adjacent countries, the only difficulty I have had is to define who are the Christian traders who frequent those markets. I think that they are Russians or Nestorian Christians.”
[13] See Cabool: being a Narrative of a Journey to, and Residence in that City in the years 1836–7–8. By the late Lieut.-Col. Sir Alexander Burnes. London, 1842.
[14] Vivien Saint Martin, New Dictionary of Universal Geography, vol. iii. p. 9. Paris, 1887.
[15] “Returned herself as living on the wages of shame” (see Dosabhai Framji Karaka, Hist. of Parsis, vol. i. chap. iii. p. 99).
[16] The Parsis have never followed certain occupations, as those of a day labourer, palanquin bearer, barber, bleacher, &c., &c.
[17] Let us note the efforts of Sir Richard Temple, Governor of Bombay (1877–80), who, on his way to Naosari, reminded the Parsis of certain verses of the Vendidad relating specially to agricultural or pastoral occupations, and exhorted them to continue such traditions. Since then a rich Parsi of Bharooch, Mr. Rastamji Maneckji, has taken on lease from the chief of Rajpipla, a great stretch of land in the Panch-Mahals, and has cultivated it with success. He has been outstripped by Kavasji Framji Banaji in his beautiful domain of Pawai. Lord Mayo has highly recognised the great importance of agricultural studies, and in 1870 he declared that the progress of India in riches and in civilisation depended on the progress of agriculture. See Strachey, India, trans. Harmand, chap. ix.; Hunter, Bombay, &c., about the question of agricultural education (chap. vi. pp. 158, 159–166), and about the foundation of a Chair of Agriculture at Baroda under the auspices of the Gaekwar, at the suggestion of Lord Reay, (p. 168.)
[18] See for the army in India, Strachey, India, trans. Harmand, chap. iii. pp. 52 et seq.; Hunter, Bombay, &c., chap. xiv. pp. 448 et seq.