Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/61

Rh go or not? you lazy widower, you son of a widow." These are the sounds the ear continually catches, interspersed with whacking sounds, twisting of tails, cutting of flesh, &c. Broach badly wants a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

But for its ginning factories, mostly under Parsi management—besides the large one of Messrs. Greaves and Co.— Broach would be an unspeakably dull place. Dulness is the prevailing characteristic of most Gujarát towns; at least, to one who has lived in Bombay] it feels so.

Broach was recovering from the effects of the Gujarát famine at this time. It was piteous to see hundreds of villagers—men, women, and children—begging from door to door, and swallowing anything that came in their way. Some of these famished wanderers were, I was told, substantial farmers only a few years ago, but successive failures of crops and the inexorable demand of the Sirkár had driven them into voluntary exile. In the document I give below, a copy of which I picked up at Broach, and