| Agriculture | 191,691,731 |
| Earth work and general labor (not agriculture) | 17,953,261 |
| Producing food, drink and stimulants | 16,758,726 |
| Producing textile fabrics | 11,214,158 |
| Personal, household and sanitary | 10,717,500 |
| Rent payers (tenants) | 106,873,575 |
| Rent receivers (landlords) | 45,810,673 |
| Field laborers | 29,325,985 |
| General laborers | 16,941,026 |
| Cotton weavers | 5,460,515 |
| Farm servants | 4,196,697 |
| Beggars (non-religious) | 4,222,241 |
| Priests and others engaged in religion | 2,728,812 |
| Workers and dealers in wood, bamboo, etc. | 2,499,531 |
| Barbers and shampooers | 2,331,598 |
| Grain and pulse dealers | 2,264,481 |
| Herdsmen (cattle, sheep and goats) | 2,215,791 |
| Indoor servants | 2,078,018 |
| Washermen | 2,011,624 |
| Workers and dealers in earthen and stone ware | 2,125,225 |
| Shoe, boot and sandal makers | 1,957,291 |
| Shopkeepers | 1,839,958 |
| Workers and dealers in gold and silver | 1,768,597 |
| Cart and pack animal owners | 1,605,529 |
| Iron and steel workers | 1,475,883 |
| Watchmen and other village servants | 1,605,118 |
| Grocery dealers | 1,587,225 |
| Sweepers and scavengers | 1,518,482 |
| Fishermen and fish curers | 1,280,358 |
| Fish dealers | 1,269,435 |
| Workers in cane and matting | 1,290,961 |
| Bankers, money lenders, etc. | 1,200,998 |
| Tailors, milliners and dressmakers | 1,142,153 |
| Officers of the civil service | 1,043,872 |
| Water carriers | 1,089,574 |
| Oil pressers | 1,055,933 |
| Dairy men, milk and butter dealers | 1,013,000 |
The enormous number of 1,563,000, which is equal to the population of half our states, are engaged in what the census terms "disreputable" occupations. There are about eighty other classes, but none of them embraces more than a million members.
Among the curiosities of the census we find that 603,741 people are engaged in making and selling sweetmeats, and 550,241 in selling cardamon seeds and betel leaves, and 548,829 in manufacturing and selling bangles, necklaces, beads and sacred threads. There are 497,509 teachers and professors, 562,055 actors, singers and dancers, 520,044 doctors and 279,646 lawyers.
The chewing of betel leaves is one of the peculiar customs of the country, even more common than tobacco chewing ever was with us. At almost every street corner, in the porticos of the temples, at the railway stations and in the parks, you will see women and men, squatting on the ground behind little trays covered with green leaves, powdered nuts and a white paste, made of the ashes of cocoanut fiber, the skins of potatoes and a little lime. They take a leaf, smear it with the lime paste, which is intended to increase the saliva, and then wrap it around the powder of the betel nut. Natives stop at these stands, drop a copper, pick up one of these folded leaves, put it in their mouths, and go off chewing, and spitting out saliva as red as blood. Strangers are frequently attracted by dark red stains upon pavements and floors which look as if somebody had suffered from a hemorrhage or had opened an artery, but they are only traces of the chewers of the betel nut. The habit is no more harmful than chewing tobacco. The influence of the juice is slightly stimulating to the nerves, but not injurious, although it is filthy and unclean.
It is a popular impression that the poor of India live almost exclusively upon rice, which is very cheap and nourishing, hence it is possible for a family to subsist upon a few cents a day. This is one of the many delusions that are destroyed when you visit the country. Rice in India is a luxury that can be afforded only by the people of good incomes, and throughout four-fifths of the country is sold at prices beyond the reach of common working people. Sixty per cent. of the population live upon wheat, barley, fruit, various kinds of pulses and maize. Rice can be grown only in hot and damp climates, where there are ample means of irrigation, and only where the conditions of soil, climate and water supply allow its abundant production does it enter into the diet of the working classes. Three-fourths of the people are vegetarians, and live upon what they produce themselves.
The density of the population is very great, notwithstanding the enormous area of the empire, being an average of 167 to the square mile, including mountains, deserts and jungles, as against 21.4 to the square mile in the United States. Bengal, the province of which Calcutta is the capital, on the eastern coast of India, is the most densely populated, having 588 people to the square mile. Behar in the south has 548, Oudh in the north 531; Agra, also in the north, 419, and Bombay 202. Some parts of India have a larger population to the acre than any other part of the world. The peasants, or coolies, as they are called, are born and live and die like animals. Indeed animals seldom are so closely herded together, or live such wretched lives. In 1900, 54,000,000 people were more or less affected by the famine, and 5,607,000 were fed by the government for several months, simply because there was no other way for them to obtain food. There was no labor they could perform for wages, and those who were fortunate enough to secure employment could not earn enough to buy bread to satisfy the hunger of their families. It is estimated that 30,000,000 human beings starved to death in India during the nineteenth century, and in one year alone, the year in which that good woman, Queen Victoria, assumed the title of empress, more than 5,000,000 of her subjects died from hunger. Yet the population without immigration is continually increasing from natural causes. The net increase during the ten years from 1891 to 1901 was 7,046,385. The, struggle for life is becoming greater every year; wages are going down instead of up, notwithstanding the rapid increase of manufacturing industries, the extension of the railway system and other sources of wealth and employment that are being rapidly developed.
More than 200,000,000 persons in India are living upon less than 5 cents a day of our money; more than 100,000,000 are living upon less than 3 cents; more than 50,000,000 upon less than 1 cent and at least two-thirds of the entire population do not have food enough during any year of their lives to supply the nourishment demanded by the human system. As I have already shown, there are only two acres of land under cultivation for each inhabitant of India. This includes gardens, parks and pastures, and it is not evenly distributed. In many parts of the country, millions are compelled to live upon an average of one-fourth of an acre of land and millions more upon half an acre each, whereas an average of five acres of agricultural land per capita of population is believed to be necessary to the prosperity of a nation.
Few countries have such an enormous birth rate and death rate. Nowhere else are babies born in such enormous numbers, and nowhere does death reap such awful harvests. Sometimes a single famine or plague suddenly sweeps millions into eternity, and their absence is scarcely noticed. Before the present sanitary regulations and inspections were introduced the death rate was nearly double what it is now; indeed, some experts estimate that it must have been several times as great, but no records were kept in some of the provinces, and in most of them, they were incomplete and inaccurate. India is now in a healthier condition than ever before, and yet the death rate varies from 31.10 per 1,000 in the cold provinces of Agra and Oudh to 82.7 per 1,000 in the tropical regions of Behar. In Bombay last year the rate was 70.07 per 1,000; in the central provinces 56.75; in the Punjab, which has a wide area in northwestern India, it was 47.7 and in Bengal 36.63.
The birth rate is almost as large, the following table being reported from the principal provinces named:
| Births per 1,000 pop. | Births per 1,000 pop. | |||
| Behar | 50.5 | Burmah | 37.4 | |
| Punjab | 48.4 | Bombay | 36.3 | |
| Agra | 48.9 | Assam | 35.4 | |
| Central provinces | 47.3 | Madras | 31.3 | |
| Bengal | 42.9 | |||