Supposing that a similar percentage be allowed for India, we are face to
face with the awful fact that the "submerged tenth" consists of no less
than _twenty-six millions of human beings_, who are in a state of
destitution bordering upon absolute starvation! No less an authority
than Sir William Hunter has estimated their numbers at fifty millions,
and practically his testimony remains unimpeached.

Indeed I have heard it confidently stated by those who are in a good
position to form a judgement, that at least one hundred millions of the
population of India scarcely ever know from year's end to year's end
what it is to have a satisfying meal, and that it is the rule and not
the exception for them to retire to rest night after night hungry and
faint for want of sufficient and suitable food.

I am not going, however to argue in favor of so enormous a percentage
of destitution. I would rather believe, at any rate for the time being,
that such an estimate is considerably exaggerated. Yet do what we will,
it is impossible for any one who has lived in such close and constant
contact with the poor, as we have been doing for the last eight or nine
years, to blink the fact, that destitution of a most painful character
exists, to a very serious extent, even when harvests are favorable and
the country is not desolated by the scourge of famine.

Nor do I think that there would be much difficulty in proving that this
submerged mass constitutes at least one-tenth of the entire population.
No effort has hitherto been made to gauge their numbers, so that it is
impossible to speak with accuracy, and the best that we can do is, to
form the nearest feasible estimate from the various facts which lie to
hand and which are universally admitted.