There are ayahs of various castes. The Portuguese ayahs (Roman Catholic Christians, born in the country) are no doubt the most intelligent and useful; but they are more expensive than the Mussulman and Lall Beggies, and are therefore not so frequently employed: indeed, it is only in the neighbourhood of Calcutta that they are procurable at all. As the Hindostanee women neither knit nor sew, they seem to devote their energies exclusively to their infant charge. The bâbâ is their work and their play, the exercise of their thoughts, the substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only expansion their minds know is from the unfolding of the pages of his character. They are proud of that bâbâ, and proud of themselves for being his. What a sight it is, the ayah coming in at the dessert, in her rustling silks and transparent muslinsso stately in her humility, so smilingly self-satisfiedsurrounded by the children, and holding in her dark, smooth, jewelled arms the son and heir of the family, whom she presents to papa to get a bit of cake or sweetmeat!
This is a grand moment for the ayah. Are not the children hers ? Have they not lain upon her bosom all their little lives? And have not the charms which she detected with the first glance of her glittering eye, been developed under her care into the marvels now before the company? But the more tranquil and permanent happiness of the ayah is enjoyed while she is watching alone the opening of her buds of beauty, and steeping their slumbering senses in the sweet wild music of her country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleepalthough many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, from the musical, melting Hindostanee:
I have said that our ayah sometimes comes home with her chargescomes to our home from her own. It is a bad exchange. She awakes slowly from her dream, as she sees the rosy cheeks, full pouting lips, and round wondering eyes, that are turned upon the dark stranger and her pale, thin, little ones. The comparison is painful; these cherub children have no sympathy with the lonely Hindoo; and the servants of the house, although awed at first by her foreign aspect, and calm, stately air, have no permanent respect for one who ranks neither with their superiors nor with themselves. The climate, too, is as chilling as the manners around her; her heretofore bâbâs are lords to nobody but herself; and so, with one thing and another, she grows home-sick, her heart yearns for her own sunny land, and she is gladsorrowfully gladwhen at last the announcement is made, that an ayah wants to go back to India with a family.
And in India once more, what then? Why then, the great ocean is between her and her fledged nurslings, and she looks round for some new objects of love and devotion. These she probably finds in another home, another mistress, another bâbâ; her heart begins its course anew; and the ayah lives a second life in the young lives of her children. No joyless existence is hers, no cares without ample compensations; but yet when I see in my own country one of these solitary, strangely-attired, dark-skinned women, I feel attracted towards her by an almost tearful sympathy, and have ever a kind look and a warm, gentle word for the poor ayah.
SMALL INVESTMENTS
The purchase of forty-shilling freeholds has lately been put forward as a method of investing money by the working-classes. It is beyond our province to speak of the political aims of this form of investment. We can recognise a certain good in giving to a working-man the feeling, that he is the proprietor of a house or small portion of land yielding (along with the franchise in England) a rent of forty shillings per annum; but, at the same time, we recognise a corresponding evil, and we should be shrinking from our duty if we did not mention it in distinct terms. In those localities where operatives and others can reckon on constant remunerative employment, it may prove a real service in many ways for them to buy a house instead of renting one; indeed, we should highly recommend them to become the proprietors of the dwellings which they occupy. But in places where workmen possess no such assurance or reasonable prospect of employment, we would as earnestly dissuade them from taking a step of this kind. The capital of a working-manthat on which he must place his dependenceis his labour; and this labour he ought to be in a position to dispose of to the best advantage. On this account, he requires, as a general rule, to hold himself in readiness to go wherever his labour is in demand. Of all men, he has the most cause to be a citizen of the world. He may find it his interest to remove to localities hundreds of miles off; and therefore