Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/65

SHROFFS. they are seen all over India, there are the same small piles of cowries and of pyce, and their owner sitting above them.

Where the caste of Shroffs may be different, some Brahmins, some Vaisya, and some Sudra, it is impossible to give any definite description of religious belief, as they follow their own caste rules, whatever they may be. Shroffs are needed in public treasuries, and often rise to the rank of native treasurers and head accountants. They do not enter into competition for other civil appointments, and, as a rule, prefer their own profession to service of any kind. If they attain wealth as bankers. Shroffs are generally very liberal, open-handed, if not, indeed, ostentatious; especially on occasion of marriages and social entertainments. They give largely to Brahmins, and more especially to those classes of religious devotees who belong to their caste; though none are refused portion of the daily dole of meal and pulse which is given at the door, or of cakes of bread which are set aside from the family heap. With the Bunneas and other mercantile classes, the Shroff in British territories feels perfect security, and is thankful for it. In native states his position most likely was insecure, and a perpetual straggle how to avoid and escape exaction. He had also to protect himself against dacoits and robbers, until he grew rich enough to hire soldiers of his own, which, if a heavy tax upon his industry, yet afforded means for the coercion of debtors, with which the native state did not interfere, nor with the practice of "dharna" upon emergency. This dharna was a last resource to recover money from a powerful debtor, and was exacted in various forms. The lender sat fasting at the door of his debtors house, or he made cuts in his arm or breast at stated periods, defiling the threshold with his blood; or he seized a son or a brother of his debtor, and kept him in durance, with many other ingenious devices of annoyance and positive torture. These are impossible in British territory now, under the provisions of special acts; but in native provinces, where there are no courts of justice, the Shroff, or Mahajun, has often to take the law into his own hands, and get his money as he can.

The Shroff, or, more correctly, Suraff, is known all over the East; and from the solid phlegmatic Turk with the large turban, sitting gravely in the midst of his piles of small coin in a Constantinople bazar, to the shrewd Copt of Egypt, and the keen Hindoo of India, his occupation and aim in life are precisely the same.