HKB
seems to be to three-quarters starve him on the chance of his surviving to be weaned. Then, in due course, he becomes an ox--the chief pillar of the Indian Empire.
And in no merely rhetorical sense, for the stress of agriculture, the more urgent strain of trade, and the movement of a vast and restless people, are on his strong shoulders. The cultivator is the backbone of the country, and depends on the ox for working the land, while the bullock cart in a great variety of forms is the main factor in Indian traffic. Hence, one of the most pleasant and vivid sensations of the returned Anglo-Indian is the sight of the superb draught horses of Britain, perhaps the most striking impersonations of the dignity of labour that the world can show. Necessity is a hard task-master for the man, but it is on his beast that the worst strokes fall. Loads have to be carried, and even if the carter were so minded, he cannot always contrive that they shall be proportioned to the strength of his animals. A load that travels easily over the hard roads of a town becomes impossible along the deep-mired village tracks. And when the overloaded wain is stuck fast there is dire trouble for the cattle. Even a father chastising his child sometimes forgets how hard he is striking, but in their excitement carters never think of the live sentient animal under their blows. The cattle are but a machine whose motor is the stick. Then, a poor man cannot afford to lay his animals up in idleness when their necks are galled or they go lame. They wince from the yoke at first, but seem to forget it as they grow warm. So does the carter, who is a marvel of apathy and indifference, especially since he is often a hireling. Weak and tired oxen can be made to work better with a free use of whip, stick, or goad, and in judicious and merciful hands such incentives are useful. But there is no precept to protect the ox from abuse of them, save perhaps that enunciated by a Bombay Police Magistrate in deciding a case of cruelty. "There are," said this authority, "fair goads and there are severe goads. The only question is whether in this particular case the goad is a fair one or not." The weapon in court was a sharpened nail three-quarters of an inch long at the end of a stick. "In my opinion," the Magistrate went on, "this is longer and sharper than it ought to have been. A goad of half its length would have done quite as well." So the accused was warned and discharged. But the real question before the Magistrate was whether the carter had used his goad too freely. For needless pain can be inflicted with even three-eighths of an inch of sharpened iron at the end of a heavy male bamboo, if used often enough, and it is certainly sufficient to drive into any of God's creatures. Carters who know their business thoroughly, and are to be trusted with whips and goads three-eighths of an inch long, are everywhere scarce, and most of all in India. But the whip and the goad are not the only means of stimulation at the carter's disposal. He sits low so that he can kick freely, and he kicks hard. And when other means fail he seizes the tails of his team and twists them so that the last four or five vertebræ grind on each other. Immense numbers of Indian oxen, probably the greater part, have their tails permanently dislocated by this practice, and bob-tailed bullocks are often seen who have entirely lost the lower joints of the member, including the necessary fly-whisk with which it was originally furnished. Bullocks are probably less sensitive to pain than human creatures, but their pitiful efforts to keep their tails out of the way, and the prompt effect the brutal trick has upon their pace show that they also can feel.