WASHING IN INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

WASHING IN INDIA.

In India most of the laundry work is done by men called) dhobies. The dhobies go from house to house collecting the bundles of soiled clothes, and their great strength enables them tc carry so many that before they turn towards the washing pools they appear like huge animated clothes heaps._ Their collections done, the dhobies pile the clothes in a long stone trough, where they soak them in water mixed with a bit of their native soap, a product whicl a white man would call putty. A long rod is- placed above the trough just higli enough to. touch a. man's waist when he stands in the great long tub. Takinj hold of the pole, the washermen jumj into the trough and tread on the clothes until the water ceases to grow black The dhobies then carry the garments tc a neighbouring rain pool or river, when they whip them on broad stones witl such ferocity that hardly a button sur vives. At the end of this treatment thf clothes are hung on the branches of trees to dry.