Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/58

BUNNEA. Although the Bunnea is a very useful, indeed indispensable, member of society, he is rarely a popular one. He is strongly accused of false weights, or, if the weights be true, of a peculiar and dexterous knack in managing the wooden beam of his scales, which have no centre pivot except a cord fastened to the beam, as shown in the Photograph, by giving it a cant in weighing, which is not detectable even by the sharp-eyed customer, and may make a difference of an ounce or two in the weight. He is considered an adept in sanding and watering sugar, and also in sanding flour, which has a peculiarly unpleasant effect upon his customers' teeth, and, not unfrequently, produces violent subsequent altercation. In short, he is suspected of adulterating, more or less—but in all cases as far as he can—everything that he sells ; and the amount of white pebbles in rice, and of dark stones in horse gram, are best known to those who have to sift them out.

The Bunnea also lends money, and exacts usurious interest: three per cent, a month compound interest is not, perhaps, extravagant, and is sometimes increased to four or five; except in case of pledges of gold or silver, when the rate may be as low as twelve per cent, per year, or even less. He also lends money upon lands and houses, and is even ready to give advances upon crops, which he is to buy in payment of the mortgage when they are ready. On these points, indeed, he has the population of his village pretty well under his thumb, and poor folks dare not complain of sanded sugar, or rancid ghee. He is the purchaser in general of all the thread spun in his village, or buys what he can at fairs and markets. This he sells to weavers, and takes their produce in cloths pretty much on the same terms and conditions as he takes the produce of land. In this respect he exerts a particularly sharp influence on the Mahomedan weavers, who are more simple in general than Hindoos, and more easily cheated. In fine, the Bunnea wherever he is, in Bombay or Bengal, in Delhi or Madras, is essentially the same character, with very little variation of his business.

But if he has cheating propensities and indulges them to the utmost of his power, the Bunnea is a useful person, and contributes very largely to the furtherance of the general trade of India. If he gives usmious advances to cultivators, he is agent to some one else, in a large mart, for the purchase of local produce of all kinds, grain, cotton, hides and horns, ghee, and condiments; and, having stored these, he forwards them as the season opens, or as often as he can. He little thinks perhaps that his bags of oil seed will go to Marseilles, or his madder, cotton, and sugar to Liverpool; but they have yielded him a good profit, and he passes them on to others, who will make more than he has, in their progress to their ultimate destination.

It might be supposed, from the exclusive nature of their dealings, that the Bunneas would be a wealthy class; but, as a class, they are on a mere average in this respect. Losses on produce and on bad loans may be heavy, and gains upon