THE POPULATION AND PEOPLE OF INDIA
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to appear before you, and to look you all in the face," his lordship began as the applause subsided. "The task befaw me is to put a gallon of fluid into a pint pot. It cawn't be done. I shall not attempt to do what is quite impossible. I can only put in what the vessel will hold. I cawn't say all there is to be said about the people of India in an hour, or even two or three hours."
The noble gentleman was an easy, pleasant, and fluent speaker, evidently quite accustomed to addressing public assemblies; but he had certain peculiarities of speech, a very few of them, which sounded just a little odd to the Americans, as doubtless some of their pronunciation did to the Britons. But there is hardly a perceptible difference in the pronunciation of highly trained speakers of one nation and the other. It is not necessary to indicate any farther the slightly peculiar speech of the accomplished gentleman.
"I can only select from the mass of material before me what I think will be most interesting and useful to you; for I have been warned that I must not talk all day," continued the viscount.
"We leave that to your lordship's own judgment," added Captain Ringgold.
"I will be merciful, Mr. Commander: as merciful as possible. Next to China, India is the most populous country on the globe; and without Nepaul, it numbered, in 1891, 287,223,917, or more than one-seventh of the people on the face of the earth; and the increase in the last decade was almost 28,000,000,--enough to populate about a dozen of your larger States.
"In spite of its vast population, India cannot be said to be a very densely peopled region; 184 to the square mile for the whole country. The mountain territory is quite thinly settled. All the native states have but 108 to the square mile, though the plains of the Ganges show about 400. About Benares and Patna the average is about double these figures. I was looking at the 'Year-Book' in your library, and I saw that the average in the States, including Alaska, is about 18 to the square mile; but the nine States in the north-east have 107.
"The little bit of a State of Rhode Island leads in the density of its population, with 318, while Massachusetts comes next with 278. New Jersey has 193, Connecticut, 154; the big States of New York and Pennsylvania have respectively 126 and 117. In the United Kingdom the average in England is 541; in Scotland, 135; in Wales, 206; and in Ireland, 144. The density of India, therefore, is quite respectable by comparison.
"By the census of 1891, India has seventy-five towns with over 50,000 inhabitants, and twenty-eight with over 100,000; but unlike three cities of the States, it has not one with over a million, though Calcutta and Bombay are likely to reach that distinction in another decade. You have not a monopoly of the fast-growing cities in the States."
"We have found out that Berlin has increased faster than Chicago," said Uncle Moses with a chuckle; "and Glasgow has got ahead of Liverpool."