"ghens" (a mixture of buttermilk and coarse flour cooked into a sort
of skilly, or gruel) and bhavtu or bajari bread, or "Sângru." The
buttermilk is given to them by the village landowners, in return
for their labour. They are expected for instance to do odd jobs, cut
grass, carry wood, &c. The grain they commonly get either in harvest
time in return for labour, or buy it as they require it several
maunds at a time. Occasionally they get it in exchange for cloth.
Living in the cheapest possible way, and eating the coarsest food, I
don't think they could manage on less than one annas' worth of food
a day."

One of our European Officers, Staff Captain Hunter, who has lived in the
same style for about four years among the villagers of Goojarat, and who
has been in charge of some 30 or 40 of our Officers, confirms the above
particulars. He says that on two annas a day it is possible to live
comfortably, but that one anna is the minimum below which it is
impossible to go in order to support life even on the coarsest sorts of
food.

He tells me that the weavers have assured him that when husband and
wife are working hard from early to late, they cannot make more than
four annas profit a day by their weaving, since the mills have come into
the country and then they have to pay a commission to some one to sell
their cloth for them, or spend a considerable time travelling about the
country finding a market for it themselves. A piece of cloth which would
fetch nine rupees a few years ago, is now only worth three and a half or
four rupees.

Bearing in mind, therefore, the above facts, I should consider that if
India's submerged tenth are to be granted, even nothing better than a