Great Numbers Of The Poorer Classes Seem To Be Ill-Fed, Ill-Lodged,
And Worse Clothed; Yet Scantiness In This Particular Is Certainly Not
Always The Result Of Poverty, As The Redundance Of Precious Ornaments
Above Mentioned Can Witness.
Neither does the wretched manner in which
many belonging to the lower orders of Bombay shelter themselves from
the
Elements appear to be an absolute necessity, and it is a pity that
some regulations should not be made to substitute a better method
of constructing the sheds in which so many poor people find a
dwelling-place. The precaution of raising the floor even a few inches
above the ground is not observed in these miserable hovels, and their
inhabitants, often destitute of bedsteads, sleep with nothing but a
mat, and perhaps not even that, between them and the bare earth.
At this season of the year, when no rain falls, the palm-branches with
which these huts are thatched are so carelessly placed, as to present
large apertures, which expose the inmates to sun-beams and to dews,
both of which, so freely admitted into a dwelling, cannot fail to
produce the most injurious effects. Were these houses raised a foot or
two from the ground, and well roofed with the dry palm-branches, which
seem to supply so cheap and efficient a material, they would prove
no despicable abodes in a country in which only at one season of the
year, the rains, very substantial shelter is required.
As it may be supposed, conflagrations are frequent in these hovels;
they are fortunately seldom attended with loss of life, or even of
much property, since the household furniture and wardrobes of the
family can be easily secured and carried off, while the people
themselves have nothing to do but to walk out.
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