BYGONE DAYS IN INDIA.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17633, 9 December 1922, Page 3

BYGONE DAYS IN INDIA.

HEAVY DRINKING BY ENGLISHWOMEN. Old diaries, quaint local handbooks, and half-forgotten travels have furnished much interesting material which Mr Douglas Dewar has woven into his "Bygone Days in India," recently published. So scarce wero European tradespeople in Calcutta in the eighteenth century that one Martin, who went out to India as ship's tailor in the Lord Clive,. Indiaman, in 1763, refused an ensigncy. Captain George Hadley, who wrote one of the earliest handbooks about India, adds: "In ten years he gave his friends a dinner off plate and brought home two lakhs of rupees (£25,000)." Discussing the number of servants required by Europeans in India the same authority says: "So little arc they acquainted with these matters ia Leadenhall street (whore the London offices of the Hon. East India Company wore stuated) that an order went out limiting the Commander-in-Chief to fifty coolies, when, in fact, he can hardly carry his luggage with three times that number."In Calcutta the rent in 1789 of "an upper-room house . . . consisting of a hall and two small rooms was monthly 166 rupees (about £18)'; and Hadley declares that "none but the poorest people live in ground-floor houses, they being very unwholesome, the saltpetre running down the walls, which often occasion fevers, etc." Memaahib, "presumably a corruption of ma'am sahib," as Mr Dewar notes, "was never heard in the early days of British rule, but English ladies were often spoken of by the surname with 'beebee" affixed"—Johnson beebee, or Smith beebee, for example, bibi being Hindustani for a lady. An Englishwoman who visited Lucknow in 1805 describes the splendour of the Nawab's hospitality, to which all the English of any rank were welcome. "On his table," she says, "were always three distinct dinners, one at the upper end by an English cook; at the lower end by a French cook; and in the centre (where he always aat) by a Hindostanee cook." Hog-meat, wine, and turkeys being forbidden by the prophet Mohammed, 1 he allowed himself the latitude of seeking substitutes; accordingly, a bottle of cherry. brandy was placed on the table by him, from which he pledged his European guests, and called it English syrup; while the hams on his table (which all came from England) he called English venison, and therefore ate with impunity. Col. Low, our Resident at the Nawab's Court, lived in great state, even-for those days. "The howdah of his elephant was a wonderful affair, shaped like a pair of swans, cut in silver gilt, set off by imitation diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, which hung loosely on it and jingled as the great quadruped moved. Whenever Low went abroad he was accompanied by a dozen horsemen." > A young Frenchman named de Warren has described English life in India at this period. "If you are French," he says of a visit to Madras in the 'thirties, "you are surprised at the enormous quantity of 'beer and wine absorbed by young English women, so pale and delicate in appearance. . . ." My gentle neighbour calmly disposed of one bottle and a half of very strong beer, alternately with a certain amount of Burgundy. She finished up at dessert with five or six glasses of champagne, very light but very strong. The convivial woman was not in tho least overcome by theße potations. ''The only effect this appeared to have on her," tho astonished traveller observes, "was to loosen her tongue and give vivacity to her eyes."