PARSEE MERCHANTS BARGAINING FOR COTTON.
The cotton market of Bombay is an excellent place in which to study these strange people, and in the height of the season it is often crowded with them. They go among the bales and bags of cotton examining the fibre, and talking busily with each other in their efforts to buy or sell. When making a bargain they are rarely in a hurry, and it is not an unusual sight to see a couple of them seated on a bale of cotton, each with a sample in his hands, arguing with great earnestness over a difference of a few cents on a transaction amounting to thousands of dollars. From the closeness of their bargains they are sometimes called "the Jews of the East." It has been said that the Israelites of Europe can not compete successfully with the Parsees in matters of trade.
These people adhere to the dress of their ancestors. Their ordinary costume consists of a white frock falling below the knee, over trousers of the same material, and for head-coverings they wear a curiously shaped hat of spotted muslin, without a brim. Their priests wear a hat of the same shape, but of pure white, the rest of their dress being similar to that of the ordinary Parsee. They take care of their poor so thoroughly that a Parsee beggar is never seen. The men rarely accompany their wives in public, and very few Europeans have ever seen the inside of a Parsee house, so as to learn the domestic life of the family. Parsee boys and girls are frequently very handsome, but their beauty fades while they are yet young. Their parents are very fond of them, and a father will often deny himself many things in order to spend freely on the education or amusement of his children.
Notwithstanding their habit of driving close bargains, the Parsee merchants have a high reputation for honesty. They may be a long time closing a transaction, but when the word has been given, they adhere closely to their agreements. The wealthiest men of Bombay are among the Parsees, and they are as noted for their charities as for their great fortunes. One of these merchants, who had gained an enormous fortune in trade with China, devoted the closing years of his life to works of charity. He connected the island of Bombay with the mainland by a causeway at his own expense, he built and endowed two hospitals, and he gave a large amount of money for the relief of British soldiers during the Crimean war. The Queen conferred on him the honor of knighthood, and afterward made him a baronet. Since his death his son has inherited not only the title but the charities of his father.
The Parsees do not bury or burn their dead like the Hindoos and Mohammedans around them, but expose the bodies to be eaten by birds. One of their most prominent merchants explained this custom as follows:
"We consider fire sacred, and would not use it for burning the dead, as the Hindoos do, or for any other ignoble office. The earth is the mother of mankind, and the producer of the fruits and other things on which we live, and the burial of the dead would be a defilement and an injury. Cemeteries are everywhere considered unhealthy, and our mode of sepulture is open to none of the objections that are made to cremation or burial."
The Parsees are not by any means confined to Bombay and its vicinity; there are several Parsee houses in Calcutta, Madras, and other cities of India, and they can also be found in Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Yokohama, and other cities of Asia. Some of the Bombay houses have branches in London, and a few in New York and San Francisco, and year by year their business is spreading throughout the world. Twelve hundred years ago they numbered but a few thousand refugees; now they have become an influential people, respecting the religions of others, but clinging tenaciously to their own. The sacred fire burns in their temples, as it has burned for centuries, and from present indications it will continue to glow for many centuries to come.