The umbrella in India; now universal; carried by the police. The boycott of foreign goods. Political excitement. Resentment in the Plague Refuge Camp; how it was overcome. The agency of the Church. An improved type of Hindu schoolboy; how they dress; their manners; their interest in religion. Moral teaching in schools. Conceit of some young students.
The umbrella always has been, and is still to some extent, an important feature of life in the East. Its importance is derived more from its recognition as an emblem of dignity than from its practical utility. It was one of the prerogatives of kings and nobles to have a gorgeous umbrella borne over their head by one of their retainers. It is only the gradual levelling up of classes that has made umbrellas almost universal. Even up to quite modern times there were certain parts of Poona City where Brahmins live, in which a low-caste man would not have dared to walk with an umbrella. To do so would have been regarded as an act of insolent presumption.
But when the barrier of prohibitive custom had once been levelled, umbrellas came in with a rush, and they are now used to an almost ludicrous extent. A mason may be seen sitting at work on a wall with his umbrella in one hand and his trowel in the other. Farm labourers out in the country, seated on the pole of their bullock-cart, or men perched on the top of loads of wood in great cities, will enjoy both the dignity and the shade of their outspread umbrella in the hot season. That it is assumed in some cases more for dignity than for actual need, is shown by the readiness with which it is discarded when convenient, and its bearer sits cheerfully bareheaded in the blazing sun.
The Bombay police are given umbrellas during the rainy season, and as the rainfall in that city is very heavy, they are a necessary though not a convenient burden for a policeman to bear. In Calcutta they go a step farther, and the umbrellas are served out during the hot season also, and the police are provided with an arrangement which looks something like braces worn outside, on to which they hang the umbrella when they find that it interferes with the discharge of their duties. Whether the Calcutta policeman really needs this protection from the sun may be doubted, when the majority of the people in the Calcutta streets are, by their own choice, entirely bareheaded. But the appearance of dignity which the umbrella conveys is no doubt an advantage to the policeman, even if he does not actually need it as a protection.