This may seem a rash assertion, and of course it is
one that it is impossible, as far as I am aware, to
prove. But the fact that there is not a poor-house
from one end of India to the other, seems to me a
significant and satisfactory circumstance; and the
only way I can account for there being no need of
such a thing is,[42] that caste feeling must often
come in where all other aids fail. Nor are we
in this country without instances of the value of
caste feelings, and both the Jews and the Scotch may
still be pointed to as illustrations of what I mean.
A Scotchman still has a sort of caste feeling for
a Scotchman, and would do things for a man, as a Scotchman,
that he would not do for people of either English
or Irish descent. This principle may now have
lessened, and is, no doubt, daily lessening.
But when I started in India, I very soon experienced
the benefit of this caste feeling; and, as one illustration
to the point, I may mention that, before my estates
came into bearing, I was attended in a long and serious
illness by two Scotch doctors (one of whom attended
on me for six weeks incessantly), both of whom resolutely
declined any remuneration whatever. I cannot,
of course, positively assert that these gentlemen
would not have attended me on the same terms had I
been an Englishman, but, from my general experience
with other doctors, I am sure that these gentlemen
must have been not a little influenced by caste feeling.
And I have no doubt whatever that the way the Scotch
get on, wherever they go, is to be attributed, in
no small measure, to the existence of the same feeling.
It may seem to many of my readers that to use the
term caste as a principle which impels one Scotchman
to help another is not exactly correct; and I must
admit to having some doubts on the subject myself.
The case of the Jews, however, admits of none; and,
if ever there was a caste of people in the world,
in the strict Hindoo sense, they are certainly an
unmistakable example. And what are the results
of caste feeling with them? As to other parts
of the world I have no precise information; but in
England I have ascertained from the best authority
that caste feeling has produced some extremely favourable
results. In the first place, Jews are seldom
or never found in our workhouses; and all cases of
poverty are carefully investigated by a visiting committee,
or board of guardians, and relief or employment is
always afforded to every Jewish pauper. Then,
again, no Jewish child ever was, and no Jewish child
is now, without the means of obtaining elementary instruction;
and it would be difficult to find an English Jew unable
to read and write. Means are taken to secure
the attendance of all poor children, and a sound middle-class
education is afforded, while the study of the Hebrew
language is compulsory. There were only, when
I obtained my information on the point, about twenty
Jewish (principally foreigners) convicts in England,
and no female convict was to be found.