CALCUTTA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 664, 29 April 1914, Page 6

CALCUTTA.

WHERE NO ONE IS OLD. What a strange medley Calcutta, contains ! Such crowds of Bengalis as seen more than the sands of the sea in number ; our Eurasian cousins ; the business community ; tb.3 various ecclesiastical establishments; the officials and lawyers ; and, crowding the large hotels, the strangers who come from the four quarters of the globe for the winter season. Dominating this cosmopolitan city stands Government House at the end of the long Maidan, where the statues stand of the greatest Governors of India. And who dare say that the spirit of the past has failed to survive in that gigantic building, which they rendered illustrious by their lives, and where their high ideals are st'ill exemplified. Calcutta, in which the business element largely preponderates over the official, is a mental holiday. Cno lives so constantly in public in Sim-, la that the solitude of unknown crowds is a pleasant change. The streets filled With the tall grey offices of business men, the multitude, of well set-up shops, the sight of tho river lined with ships of many countries, remind me of so much of Glasgow, that if I heard the thud of the mighty hammers of the Clyde it would not seem wholly inrongrous.

The business community speaks of Calcutta as if it were a living personality. "Calcutta has a heart" is an oft-used phrase, the truth of which one can already endorse. Calcutta is genial and hospitable, and has some little social traditions which are all its own. Your host, for instance, meets you in the entrancehall when you arrive to enjoy his f'burra khana," and, offering his arm, conducts you up his palatial staircass. to his capacious drawingi oom. On the following Sunday your hus--1 and pays his respects to his hostess, {•.nd w'ithin a week you follow his example alone. Sunday, after mornrig pervice, is the day and hour dedicated by the male population to calls. I "our in a cab, tall hats displayed fjr the nonce, and for the sracc of ','. e minutes they remain-, when their . ace is taken by another batch of c.illers, who often protest they have i een impatiently waiting below in < vder to borrow the hats ! If you leave Calcutta by an evening train, however late ths hour may i \ if a Calcutta "habituec" is one (u the passengers, you will see the cjor of her carriage surrounded by r. group of her kindly friends, men tud women in full evening-dr:ss, i rmed with magnificent bouquets and 1 arting gifts.

No one is old in Calcutta ; every--1 ody is of the same age, and that is rbout twenty-five, and one is entertained by young creatures playing practical jokes on th:ir friends (whose hair, purely by accident, is white) as if they had been only yesterday together at the same school. -From Lady Wilson's "Letters from India."

NEW VERSION. Tlary had a little lamb, Its fleece as white as snow ; Its tragic fate I now relate, Perhaps you may not know. It followed her to school one day, According to the book ; But at the school where Mary went, They taught her how to cook.