In selling horses, it is customary to describe their several casts, the same as those of the people of India; thus, an auctioneer advertises a toorky, or a majennis ‘of high cast,’ to be sold on such a day. The term may, however, be considered as rather technical, and at least as arbitrary in its meaning, as when our British knights of the hammer puff off some hovel, crammed into a corner, where no one would have dreamt of seeing an edifice, as ‘a capital mansion, undeniably situated!’ It must, at the same time, be acknowledged, that Asiatic advertisements do not require to be so cautiously accepted, cum grano salis, as those catch-penny notices, which not only attract the eye directly, but are literally supported by insidious puffs interspersed among the news of the day.
The extravagant price to which all articles of horse furniture have at times risen in India, operated as a considerable injury to the European manufacturer, who rarely makes much profit on goods intended for exportation. Within the last thirty years, numbers of persons, both European and native, have established themselves as saddlers and harness-makers. At first they were not much encouraged, owing to a belief very generally prevalent, that leather tanned in India was inferior to that exported from this country.
That objection did not stand its ground; for it was soon ascertained that the bark of the baubool (mimoza) was at least equal to that of the oak; and that the leather prepared therewith by several Europeans, who had constructed tan-pits, on a large scale, was both equal to, and full fifty per cent. cheaper than, what the ships conveyed to India. Thenceforward, all the leather-work of the carriages built in India, some of which might vie with any to be seen in Europe, was done with country hides. Shoe-makers, both European and native, resorted to the same means of supply, and offered both boots and shoes of the best prepared leather, the want of which had, for a long time, caused the very neat shoes made for about a shilling the pair, by the latter class, to be held in little estimation.
Saddlers and harness-makers have appeared, whose labors have proved eminently valuable; their materials, and their work, being alike excellent. I must here be understood to confine my approbation to the articles manufactured from leather tanned in a regular manner, and not that paltry brown-paper-like rubbish manufactured in pots and pans by indigent natives, who often work up a skin within the third or fourth day after its being stripped from some starved sheep, or goat; but which leather may always be distinguished by a narrow streak of white, that is, of raw hide, remaining in the middle of its thickness.
Saddles made of such crude materials, but in every other respect by no means to be condemned, may be had at Monghyr, where also bits and bridles are made with singular neatness, for about ten rupees (25 shillings); but those of superior materials, and made under the inspection of an European, will cost full as much, or perhaps more, then the sums ordinarily paid in London for saddles, &c., of prime quality, and high finish.
The climate is extremely adverse to the tanner, inasmuch as there is great difficulty in obtaining an ample stock of raw hides; owing to the consumption of beef and mutton being confined to the European, and to the Mahomedan parts of the population; and to the great difficulty of conveying the skins to the pits before incipient fermentation may become obvious, and disqualify them for the purpose.
That leather might, with great advantage to both countries, be sent from India to Europe, cannot be doubted: the great difficulty would be to furnish such a quantity as might render the trade an object. According to the present high prices, it would almost be worth while to buy cattle in India, for the purpose of sending their hides and tallow to market in England. As to the benefits to arise to the state, they are too obvious to require pointing out.
A person who might have quitted India about thirty years ago, when the generality of articles of almost every description in use among Europeans, were sent from England; and when only one or two European tailors were to be seen in all Bengal; when, also, a news-paper was scarcely in existence, would now, on landing in that country, be astonished at the improvements made in various branches of manufacture: he would contemplate the advance made in the mechanical arts as the certain fore-runner of independence; and he would view the columns of the several news-papers published at Calcutta, in all fourteen, (besides magazines, &c.,) whose columns teem with advertisements on a large scale: these he would view as the paramount results of great enterprize, founded upon extensive capitals, and backed by an almost unlimitted credit.
The news-papers are generally published once or twice weekly, at about a rupee each; most days of the week bring forth two papers, in which the price of advertising is generally eight annas, (i.e. half a rupee, or 15d.,) for each line: as the type is rather large, the expence of advertisements must, in some great houses, prove a conspicuous item among the disbursements.
In this particular, the Hindostanee, or rather the Persian, news-papers are miserably deficient; as, indeed, they are in whatever should be the contents of a publication devoted to the important purposes of mercantile, or of political, intelligence. Far from containing a single advertisement, or from communicating any matter relative to the arts, these bulletins, for I can call them nothing better, are penned by persons about the several native courts, according to the whim of a sycophant, or to the mere tattle in the suburbs of a city; nay, they are often manufactured hundreds of miles from the places whence they are supposed to emanate, and contain accounts of battles and sieges, capitulations and defeats, halts and marches, known to the fabricators only; who, in whatever relates to invention, contradiction, and re-contradiction, absolutely surpass those industrious wights that supply our British news-mongers with paragraphs of the highest importance, accidents, murders, &c., &c., at the cheap rate of ten shillings per dozen!