themselves in order to do more justice to the feast—they at last arrive at their journey's end. Here no accommodation has been provided for them, and no amusement, beyond enormous piles of indigestible food, with which they gorge themselves without intermission for three days and nights, freely abusing their host, should there be any shortcoming, and then start on the homeward journey, to endure the same discomforts as before, now aggravated by the agonies of indigestion. Every year half the outbreaks of cholera that occur may be traced up to these ghastly merry-makings. At pilgrimages there is no over-eating, but the exposure and the crowding are greater, and an essential part of the proceedings generally consists in drinking some filthy water from a turbid stream or stagnant tank of reputed sanctity, where thousands of people have been bathing. On neither occasion is there any thought of pleasing the eye or gratifying the mind, except by the excitement inseparable from being one of a crowd which is moved by a common object.
If the sordid discomfort of home were relieved by some element of culture, people would no longer look abroad for their enjoyments. They would be happier and healthier, nor would the ultimate cost of living be increased. Instead of money being hoarded for special occasions, and then squandered in thankless and unprofitable profusion, it would be distributed with judicious economy over the whole area of domestic requirements. Food, clothing, shelter and education are comparatively so cheap, that all but the very poorest could rear a family in a decent and respectable manner, if it were not for the extravagant outlay on marriages. The various attempts that have been made to enforce the reduction of such expenses are well-meaning, but have not achieved much success, nor do I think they are ever likely to do so. The root of the evil lies deeper, and it is that which has to be attacked. Make the general aspect of life more attractive, and there will then be less desire to smirch it with crude blotches of colour.
The recent advance in the general prosperity of the district has been faithfully reflected step by step and year after year in the annual Criminal Returns; for in India, as in England, to use the words of Tennyson's Northern Farmer, 'Tisn't them as has money that breaks into houses and steals." But anomalies of all kinds, however gratifying may be the exceptional circumstances which they indicate, are always per se displeasing to the compiler of statistics at head-quarters; for he has no
