Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1875 — Civilization in India. [ARTICLE]

Civilization in India.

“ The natives of India,” remarks the Pall .Wall Gazette, “show a remarkable proficiency in acquiring the habits of civilization, and in the art of adulteration appear to be making such rapid progress that they will soon put even the British trader to the blush. Am ingenious practice is, it is stated, now common among the ctoth-sellers of Jubbulpore. Bales of English piece goods are carried to the Oomtee rivulet and washed, with the object of thickening the texture of the cloth, and thus getting a much higher price than that current for tnem as they arrive from Manchester. The pieces are one by one opened out at the river’s brink and washed in the running water. This takes off the English sizing; they are next rerolled and well ifenten with wooden clubs, dipped and beaten again and again, and so on for hours; the threads then begin to swell and thicken the cloth, so that the weaving appears close and tough. They are then reopened and partly dried, dipped into a tub of well-boiled rice-water (such as is used by dhobles for starching) and carefully hung out to dry. When dried each piece is carefully refolded, pressed and placed in the shop for sale. The change the cloths undergo by this process is represented as ‘ astonishing.’ A coarse, long cloth, worth say four annas a yard, is transformed to a close-textured fabric rivaling one of Horrocks’ best. The cloths so improved are chiefly sent out to villages and outstations, where they are readily sold as Manchester goods of the stoutest and best quality." ”■ « ♦ * “ I suppose I can buy everything in New York,” said a Chicago woman to an acquaintance she met on Broadway. “ Oh, no! you can’t buy some things, even in For instance, I arrived at the dignity of a grandmother yesterday, and at once went out to get ‘an old lady’s lk>nnet,’ but no such article was for sale.” The other day, when a Detroit gracer spelled sugar “ s-h-u-g e-r," a friend pointed out word and remarked: “ That word isn’t spelled quite right.” “Ha! I see,” laughed the grocer; “one would think I had no education.” And he crossed it out and wrote s-h-u-g o-r." — Free Press “I have ceased,” remarked ablaze cynic, “to care enough about my species to take any pleasure in saying disagreeable things.”