THE SERVANT PROBLEM IN CALCUTTA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2079, 14 May 1907, Page 4

THE SERVANT PROBLEM IN CALCUTTA.

The lower and menial classes who

lire by ministering to the luxury of the rich are getting in a sense demoralised (says the “Englishman”)- “Calcutta servants are unwilling to take up regular service with people of moderate means. They prefer to haunt the hotels in the hope of picking up ai wealthy tourist. They rob him without shame for the few months of winter, living on their gains during the summer. The gharri-wallali, of course, is in the winter a hopeless person «o far as residents are concerned. The cab ranks in the residential quarters aro almost deserted, the gharris being brought to the vicinity of the lug hotels, where fares will bo given an extraordinary bakshish can be picked up. If it were not for the irajpwa.y service, residents would in the winter be obliged to walk t\u all occasions. A worse annoyance has cropped up in the shape of the native boys who hang about the hotels iji the liopo of getting large tips for running small errands. These boys are a perfect mfjsance, demanding money for calling a gharri already drawn up at the kerb, for opening a carriage door, for picking up parcels they have themselves deftly knocked out of the

hands of the unsuspecting passersby, and so on. One of the policeproblems of Calcuta is the growing number of street arabs, who are growing up with the intention of neyer doing an honest day’s work in their lives,’*