We saw the prisoners working the celebrated
Agra jail carpets and rugs, for which there is such demand that
orders given to-day cannot be filled for many months. A new
building has just been erected and filled with looms to increase
the supply. Native dyes and materials alone are used, and one can
thus rest assured that a carpet obtained here is genuine
throughout. France takes the finest qualities, and we saw some so
fine that the day's task of men sitting as close as they could the
entire width of the web was only one inch per day. These carpets,
which are really works of art, cost here $10 gold per square yard,
and certainly not less than double that when retailed in Paris. Of
the inmates about one hundred were women, their special crime
being that of child-stealing, which is very common in India, the
ornaments worn by the little ones being a strong temptation. We
saw two young lads sentenced for life for this crime. They had
stolen and robbed a child, and afterward thrown the body into a
well. We left Messrs. Walker and Tyler strongly imbued with the
feeling that we had seen the model prison of the world in Agra
jail.
India gives us valuable hints upon the land question. There is no
private tenure; at least it is not general, for when one speaks of
a continent with two hundred and fifty millions of people
possessed of different customs it is unsafe to say that anything
does not exist.
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