(3.) We should brigade the beggars under the name of the Household Salvage Brigade, or some similar title, dividing them into small companies and appointing over them Sergeants from among themselves, and providing each with a badge or number.
(4.) We should with the advice and consent of the leading members of the native community, map out the city into wards, and assign each company their respective streets, allotting as far as possible the Mahommedan beggars to the Mahommedan quarters, and the Hindoos to the Hindoo. In this we should also take the advice of experienced beggars, from whom we should expect to learn many useful hints.
(5,) Each house that was willing to receive them would be supplied with three receptacles, one for waste cooked food, another for gifts of uncooked food, and a third for old clothes, waste paper, shoes, tins, bottles, and other similar articles.
(6.) At an appointed hour the Brigade would proceed to their posts, would patrol their wards, and bring or send the various articles collected to the labor yards, where all would be sorted and dealt with as necessary the cooked food being distributed among those who were willing to eat it, or sent to the surburban farm for our buffaloes. The raw grain would be handed over to our food depôts, and credited by them to the Beggars Fund for the special benefit of the destitute.
(7.) At the end of each day every member of the Brigade would receive a food ticket in payment of his services. The amount could be regulated hereafter. This ticket he would present at our food depôt, where he would be supplied with whatever articles he might require. There would be a regular system of rewards and encouragements for good conduct. But all such details will be settled hereafter.
(8.) A special feature in the system would be the introduction of the ancient Buddhist custom of "meetihal," or "the consecrated handful of rice." This is as follows. A pot is kept in each home and a handful of grain is put into it every time the family meal is cooked. We think that there would be no difficulty in getting this custom universally adopted, when it was understood that the proceeds would be devoted entirely to feeding the destitute. I believe that the income derived from this alone would in course of time be sufficient to meet the needs of the destitute in any city in India, at the same time that it would serve to equalise and therefore minimise the burden which now rests chiefly on a comparative few.
(9.) In case the food supply thus obtained should be insufficient, we have little doubt that we could persuade leading merchants in the city to club together and make up the difference, when they saw the good work that was going on.
Such in brief is a skeleton of the scheme for elevating and renovating the Beggar population of India. It is no doubt open to criticism on some points, but it has special advantages which I will proceed to point out, apologising for the extra space I am obliged to occupy, in dealing with this subject, on account of its novelty and importance, and in order that I may be thoroughly understood.
1. It is conservative. Here you have a reformation without a revolution, or rather a revolution by means of a reformation. And yet there is no attempted upheaval of society.
2. It is thoroughly Indian, and suited to the national taste.