The Jeweller’s Window

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30947, 31 December 1965, Page 5

The Jeweller’s Window

implications as has the opposite “Negrophobia,” 1833, also such forms as “Negrophobiac” and “Negrophilist.” The political and social animosity which stands out so strongly in most associations with the Negro that it is very pleasant to recall the delightful description of the Negroes by Thomas Fuller, 1661, as “images of God cut in ebony.” Co-operation T NEVER quite understood L why manual labour in India and Kashmir was so often shared in what seemed to be an unnecessary manner. For instance, a man on road work in Kashmir is shovelling gravel to be deposited on a near-by road. Some effort is needed to push the shovel into the pile of gravel. Two men stand opposite the shoveller each holding a cord attached to the shovel just above the blade. The shoveller pushes, his two assistants pull and I suppose they share the pay. A porter carries luggage from road to station platform at a fixed rate of about a farthing each unit. He carries suitcases, one in each hand, and as many as three of four on his head. An assistant, or two, walking beside him, keep hands on the boxes etc to maintain the balance, and 1 suppose the halfpenny or so is shared.

A strong man on roadwork, showing off, carries a very heavy stone for several yards on his head. All his energies are required to perform the feat A friend walks beside him and does all he can to help by grunting for lhe athlete. Again, a gang of men are on a job and one of them does no work at all. He is called the “shabash wallah.” What he has to do is to stand (or sit) by and shout from time to time “Shabash!” which means “Go it” “Into it!” and that sort of thing. He gets his pay with the others.

1 used to wonder how so infinitesimal a wage could be shared at all but that was because I was not accustomed to such minute units of value. Actually I have outlived the farthing which was still a live coin in my boyhood; you could buy a “farthing dip” with it and other trifles too. In India the lowest live coin was somewhere about an eighth of a penny in our coinage at the time I speak of. By the year 2000 I suppose that a box of matches will cost £1 or the equivalent of that in decimal coinage.