“One gets very fond of the coolies, they are so much like children; they bring all their little grievances to one to settle. A man will come and complain that his wife refuses to cook his food for him; the most minute details of family affairs are settled by the sahib of the garden. The coolies have a hard time, and are treated little better than slaves; most willing workers they are. Still all I can say is that they have a much better time than the very poor at home, such as the factory girls, tailoresses, etc., and laborers. On this garden they have met with exceptionally hard lines; the manager being an ill-bred man has had no consideration for his men, and they have died in hundreds from exposure to weather in the garden and houses, which had all crumbled away from neglect. Many families of ten or eleven in number have dwindled away to one or two. In one case, two little fellows of eight and nine, living together on five rupees a month, are the only representatives (of a former family)....
“I was sorry to leave (the former garden), very; I had got to know the coolies, 300 of them at any rate who were under my charge, and they had got to know me. Many of them wanted to come with me here, but that is not allowed. Some said they would ‘cut their names,’ that is take their names off the garden labor-register, and go wherever I went, but of course they could not do that. I don’t know why they were so anxious to come, because I know I worked them very hard all the time I was there. I think my predecessor used to fine them and thrash them a good deal, often because he did not know what they said, and could not make them understand. I like the coolies very much, and one gets quite attached to some of them; they seem instinctively polite; and if you are ill, they tend you just like a woman—never leave one in fact. The higher and more respectable class of Baboos are just as objectionable, I think.”
CHAPTER V.
BRITISH LAW-COURTS AND BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
Kurunégala.—I have come to the conclusion that the courts and judicial proceedings out here are a kind of entertainment provided for the oysters at the expense of the British Government, and that the people really look upon these institutions very much in that light. Poor things! their ancient communal life and interests, with all the local questions and politics which belonged thereto, and even to a great extent the religious festivals, have been improved away; they have but few modern joys—no votes and elections such as would delight our friend Monerasingha—no circuses, theatres, music-halls. What is there left for them but the sensations of the police-courts? The district court here is, I find, the one great centre of interest in the town. Crowds collect in the early morning, and hang about all day in its vicinity, either watching the cases or discussing the judgments delivered, till sunset, when they disperse homeward again. Cooling drinks are sold, beggars ply their trade, the little bullock-hackeries trot up and down, and the place is as busy as a fair. There is no particular stigma in conviction by an alien authority; there is a happy uncertainty in the judgments delivered by the representatives of a race that has difficulty in understanding the popular customs and language; and the worst that can happen—namely relegation to prison life—affords a not unpleasant prospect. Besides, these institutions can be used to gratify personal spleen; cases can be, and frequently are, cooked up in the most elaborate manner. Damages can be claimed for a fictitious assault; and when an injury has really been done, the plaintiff (and this I find is a constantly recurring difficulty) will accuse not only the author of the mischief, but Tom, Dick, and Harry besides, who have had nothing whatever to do with it, but who are the objects of personal spite, in the hope of getting them too into trouble. The Cinghalese, as I have said before, are a very sensitive people. Any grievance rankles in their bosom, and in revenge they will not unfrequently use the knife. An Eurasian friend, a doctor, says that he quite thinks cases might occur in which a man who had been wounded or assaulted by another would die out of spite in order to get the other hanged!—would connive with his relations and starve himself, and not try to heal the wound. He says however that the cases of ruptured spleen—of which we so frequently hear—are genuine, as frequent fevers often cause immense enlargement of the spleen, which then bursts for a comparatively slight cause, e.g. a planter and a stick.
BULLOCK-HACKERY, COLOMBO.
The courts in this country are generally large thatched or tiled halls, sometimes with glass sides, but often open to the wind, with only a low wall running round, over which, as you sit inside, a crowd of bare arms and heads and bodies appears. At one end sits the English official, dutifully but wearily going through his task, a big punkah waving over his head and helping to dispel the slumbrous noontide heat; below him stands the mudaliar, who acts as interpreter—for the etiquette properly enough requires that the transactions of the court shall be given in both languages, even though the official be a native or an Englishman knowing the native language perfectly; at the table in the centre are seated a few reporters and proctors, and at the other end are the prisoners in the dock, and the policemen in their boots.
The cases are largely quarrels, and more or less unfounded accusations arising out of quarrels, thefts of bullocks or of coco-nuts, and so forth. The chief case when I was in court some days ago was rather amusing. A few days before, three or four men, having been accused, possibly wrongfully, of burglary, and having (on account of insufficient evidence) been acquitted, went off straight from the court to an arrack shop and got drunk. They then made it up between them that they would rob the man thoroughly that evening, even if they had not done so before, and give him a good hiding into the bargain; and taking to themselves some other congenial spirits went off on their errand. They found the man asleep in the verandah of his cabin, and tying him down gave him some blows. But—as it came out in the evidence with regard to the very slight marks on the body—before they could have hurt him much, the man, with great presence of mind, died, and left them charged with the crime of murder! An old woman—the man’s mother—with a beautiful face, but shaking with age, came forward to give evidence. She said she was nearly 100 years old, though the evidence on this point was not very clear. Anyhow, her head was remarkably clear, and she gave her testimony well; identified several of the prisoners, said they had broken into the cabin and carried off valuables, and that one, the leader, had motioned her into a corner of the cabin, saying, “Stand aside, old mother, or you’ll get hurt,” while another had come up to her and said, “I think I had better take those bangles from you, as they are no good to you now, you know.” There were nine men charged with the offence, and they were committed for trial in a higher court—very decent-looking scaramouches on the whole, just about average types of humanity.
The English officials that I have seen here and at other places strike me as remarkably good-hearted painstaking men; but one feels the gulf between them and the people—a gulf that can never be bridged. Practically all that a Government like ours does, or can do, is to make possible the establishment of our social institutions in the midst of an alien people—our railways, education, Bible missions, hospitals, law-courts, wage-slavery, and profit-grinding, and all the rest of it, in the midst of a people whose whole life springs from another root, namely religious feeling. The two will never blend, though the shock produced by the contact of two such utterly different civilisations may react on both, to the production of certain important results. Anyhow for a well-meaning official it must be depressing work; for though he may construct a valuable tank, or what not, from the highest motives according to his own lights—i.e. for the material welfare of the people and the realisation of a five per cent. profit to Government—still he never comes near touching the hearts of the millions, who would probably pay much more respect to a half-luny yogi than to him and all his percentages.
A.’s friend, Sámanáthan, comes to read English with me every day, and teaches me a little Tamil in return. He is something of a dandy, with his green silk coat and hair plaited down his back, and delicate hands and manners—a fellow over thirty, with a wife and children, and yet not earning any livelihood, but remaining on at home with his parents, and dependent on them! And what seems to us most strange, this is quite an admitted and natural thing to do—such is the familiar communism which still prevails. He is very much of a student by nature, and in his native town (in India) gives lectures, philosophical and theological, free of charge, and which are quite popular. He is reading S. Mark with me, and reads it pretty well, being evidently familiar even with the more philosophical words, though doubtful about the pronunciation of some. He is interested in the story of Jesus, and thinks Jesus was no doubt a “sage”—i.e. an adept—or at any rate versed in the arcane lore of the East. But he is much amused at the Christian doctrine of the redemption, which I suppose he has got hold of, not from Mark but the missionaries.