This is of less moment, perhaps-it
only sends up the local death-rates-than the fact that the public
interest in municipal elections, never very strong, has waned, and
is waning, in spite of careful nursing on the part of Government
servants."
"Can you explain this lack of interest?" said Pagett, putting aside
the rest of Orde's remarks.
"You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every
thousand af our population can spell. Then they are infinitely
more interested in religion and caste questions than in any sort of
politics. When the business of mere existence is over, their minds
are occupied by a series of interests, pleasures, rituals,
superstitions, and the like, based on centuries of tradition and
usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to conceive of people absolutely
devoid of curiosity, to whom the book, the daily paper, and the
printed speech are unknown, and you would describe their life as
blank. That's a profound mistake. You are in another land, another
century, down on the bed-rock of society, where the family merely,
and not the community, is all-important. The average Oriental
cannot be brought to look beyond his clan. His life, too, is naore
complete and self-sufficing, and
less sordid and low-thoughted than you might imagine. It is
bovine and slow in some respects, but it is never empty.
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