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Show BEGGARS IN" INDIA. Fast Disappearing-, There Being- Only About 5,000,000 Left. Tho beggar nuisance Is a very common one In India, and the endeavors of tho police In the largo cltlc to put It down havo met with only a limited measure of success. This Is no doubt duo to lho fact that Indian opinion Is romarltably tolerant toward nlurdy beggars, beg-gars, especially If they wear the gulsa of religion. But thcro la reason to ho-Ilovo ho-Ilovo that a wholcsomo change is coming over tlm public sentiment In title ns In so many other matters. There wore about flvo million of beggars In the country at tho tlmn of the last censtiH. and nearly one-fifth of th number wero clnasnd a3 rellgloue mendicants. Tho number, num-ber, largo as It Is, represented a decrcaso of about " per cent from that at tho previous pre-vious census, and tho decline has been attributed In part to tho comparatively heavy mortality among them during the famine years. But, says tho report, it Is also partly attributable to tho spread of education and tho consequent weaker hold which lho so-called nscetlra hnvo on tho Imagination of tho people" it being be-ing much loss easv than It was formerly for tho members of tho various bogging communities to unloose tho purso strings of lho people. , , . There Is happllv. reason lo bcllcvo that tho chnnged fooling nmong the educated classes Is filtering down to tho lower levels lev-els Thlft ovll Is not confined lo ono particular par-ticular community or religion. It la as rampant among tho Mahometans as among tho Hindoos. Tho "Sar Jadld. an ablv conducted vornnculnr paper, published pub-lished "in upper India, dealing with questions ques-tions of social reform among Mahometans, Mahome-tans, hns been forcibly calling tho attention at-tention of its -co-rollgionlstM to tho necessity nec-essity of a reform in their notions of charilv. Our contemporary shows by a reference to the Police Gazette that tho number of Mahometan beggars under sur-volllanco sur-volllanco has boon rising every week. I cite Instnnces from tho records of criminal crim-inal courts to prove that Homo of Jo men who pass for religious teachers have boon convicted on charges of fraud and Immorality committed on the Proper t and persons of men and women who nnu been misled by their religious appearance. From tho Times of India. |