3-065-764 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Famine in Bengal: grain-boats on the Ganges, 1874. 'Our Illustration of native boats...has a certain interest connected with the present deplorable state of that populous country [ie India]. The Ganges reaches the sea by a number of mouths, and, flowing through Bengal, it will give a means of sending relief to many parts of the district by means of these boats...What strikes one on first...is the torn condition of the sails of the native boats, and "Why don't they mend them?" is the natural question. The answer to this would most likely be something about "is moolk ke dustoor," or custom of the country. Custom is a tyrant everywhere, but in India it holds a sort of imperial sway. In fact, famines, and many evils there, are to a certain extent owing to this evil power. The natives are helplessly under its sway, and its influence on them has a tendency to paralyse the good intentions of the Government. It requires a mutiny or terrible famine in India to get quit of some ridiculous habit or caste usage. One may often hear the English Government officials, after a calamity of this kind, congratulating themselves that some wretched "dustoor," or custom, which had long stood in the way, has been at length got rid of'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.