Madras City

“ Madras is the third city in population of India, or next to Bombay, with 452,518 souls, by the census published last year. It is on the Coromandel coast, which is nearly the whole of the Madras Presidency. It is nearly the entire western shore of the Sea of Bengal, including the bay, as the northern part of it is called in modern times. There is scarcely a single safe harbor for large vessels. ”

“ Yet there are times and seasons when Madras is very enjoyable: just after the south-west monsoons, when all nature is clothed in verdant beauty, and a delightful coolness pervades the air, the Neilgerie Hills cannot be surpassed by those of Mahableshwa or any other sanitary station in India, even the Capital itself, whose shores are washed by the boiling surf from over the triple reefs of rocks during the rainy season; but that time being past, a more tranquil state of things pervades the ocean, and cool sea breezes waft over the city. ”

“ The nearest Indian towns were a good many miles away, and the Portuguese merchants in the neighbouring settlement of Mylapore were commercial rivals, who might have been supposed to have absorbed all the trade that was to be had. Yet Madras is now a large city, with more than half a million inhabitants; and its commerce and its industries have been so successful that its population is still increasing rapidly. Houses are being built everywhere, yet the demand increases. ”

“ Spending but a single day in Madras—an inferior Columbo—I passed on to Calcutta with a pleasant remembrance of the air of prosperity that hangs about the chief city of what is still called by Bengal civilians “The Benighted Presidency.” Small as are the houses, poor as are the shops, every one looks well-to-do, and everybody happy, from the not undeservedly famed cooks at the club to the catamaran men on the shore. Coffee and good government have of late done much for Madras. ”

“ A few days after my arrival I proceeded with my friend to town. Madras, or Fort St. George, is a fort and town of the peninsula, on the coast of Coromandel. It is the principal settlement of the English on the east side of the peninsula, and is a fortress of great extent, including within it a regular well-built city. It is close to the sea shore, from which it has a rich and beautiful appearance, the houses being covered with a stucco, called chunam, which, in itself, is as compact as the finest marble, bears as high a polish, and is equally as splendid as that elegant material. ”

“ The growth of Madras is a remarkable testimony to British enterprise, energy, and perseverance, and also to Indian appreciation of the new-comers and of their methods; and it is a matter of satisfaction that many illustrious Indians have played an energetic and conspicuous part in the development of the city and the promotion of its welfare. In many respects the conditions were altogether unfavorable for the foundation of a maritime city. There was no [112] natural harbour, and the breakers beat continually on the shore ”

“ The different territories comprising the Madras presidency were acquired by the British at various dates. In 1763 the tract encircling Madras city, then known as the Jagir now Chingleput district, was ceded by the nawab of Arcot. In 1765 the Northern Circars, out of which the French had recently been driven, were granted to the Company by the Mogul emperor, but at the price of an annual tribute of £90,000 to the nizam of Hyderabad. ”

“ The chief educational institutions in Madras city are the Presidency College; six missionary colleges and one native college; the medical college, the law college, the college of engineering, the teachers’ college in the suburb of Saidapet, all maintained by government; and the government school of arts.
The foundation of Madras dates from 1640, when Francis Day, chief of the East India Company’s settlement at Armagon, obtained a grant of the present site of the city from a native ruler. ”

“ Madras is now a seaport of considerable repute; but it is interesting to recall the fact that less than forty years ago the city was without a harbour, and that ships which came there had to anchor out at sea. In the days of the Company, passengers and cargo had to be landed on the beach in boats; and, as the waves that chase one another to the shores of Madras are nearly always giant billows crested with foaming surf, the passage between ship and shore was not without its discomforts and also its risks. ”

“ A day's journey northward by railroad brings us to Madras, situated upon the Bay of Bengal. The city is spread out over a very large territory, with a number of broad, open fields and squares, designed for drilling of troops, some for ball-players, and some for ordinary parks. There is an abundant and handsome growth of trees all about the city, lining the main streets and testifying to the judicious attention given by the authorities to this species of ornamental shade so necessary in a warm climate. The wide streets are admirably kept, and are all macadamized. ”

“ There is a second city, called Black Town, nearly four miles in circumference, separated from Madras by the breadth of a proper esplanade. Madras, in common with all the European settlements on this coast, has no port for shipping, the coast forming nearly a straight line, and being incommoded with a high and dangerous surf. The citadel is situated in the middle of the White, or English Town, and is one of the best fortresses in the British possessions. ”

“ Scotchmen in Madras, as in other parts of India, apart from Scottish soldiers, have been many; and the names of a number of Madras roads and houses—such as Anderson Road, Graeme's Road, Davidson Street, Brodie Castle, Leith Castle, Mackay's Gardens—are reminders of the fact that not a few of the Scots of Madras have been influential; and at the time when a second Anglican church was being built in the city it was suggested to the Directors of the Company in [103] England that the numerous residents who were members of the Church of Scotland ought to have a church too. ”

“ A tourist who goes the round of Madras must surely be impressed with the numerous signs of its educational activity. Apart from the multitude of juvenile schools in every part of the crowded city, the number of academic institutions is large, and educational buildings are amongst the most prominent of its edifices. Our tourist, putting himself in charge of a guide at the Central Station for a drive along the beautiful Marina, sees a number of academic buildings on his way. ”

“ Not only Chintadrepettah, but the whole city, is rapidly increasing in population. Rather more than two hundred years ago, (in 1639,) a company of English merchants received the grant of Madras, as a spot of ground upon which to build a fort and factories, from the Rajah of Chandgherry, a petty prince of the interior. ”

“ The history of Madras is not a story of aggressive warfare. The settlers were gentle merchants, whose weapon was not the sword but the pen, and whose only desire it was to be left alone to carry on their business in peace. But the rising city was a continual mark for the hostility of commercial and political rivals, both European and Indian. It was a storm-centre, and the storms were often fierce; and the merchants were often compelled to meet force with force. Moreover, the merchants were men, and their doings therefore were by no means always without reproach ”

“ The Black-town of Madras is not, as friends at home seemed by their dread of it to suppose, the Black-hole of Calcutta, but the walled part of the city, and takes its name from the fact of its having been the residence of the natives when the English lived within the walls of the fort. ”

“ There has been a big quarrel on among the high-caste families, one trying to run the other out; but as all the temple offices, even the keepers of the oil, are hereditary, only civil suits and criminal imprisonment ever oust them. Each steals a little from the god himself, but does not want any one else to do so."
When we arrived at the great railway station of Madras, the largest and oldest city in southern India, with a population of half a million, there were no European vehicles to be had—only bullock-carts and the bandbox jutkas, or native pony-cabs. ”

“ Scattered about in the neighbourhood there were other rural villages, such as Egmore, Vepery, and Triplicane, which are crowded districts in the great city of Madras to-day. In Triplicane there was an ancient temple, a centre of pilgrimage, dating, like many village temples in India, from very distant times; this was the Parthasarathy temple, which is the 'Triplicane Temple' still. A little fishing village called Kuppam, lying directly on the seashore, sent out, even as Kuppam does now, its bold fishermen in their rickety catamarans in perilous pursuit of the spoils of the sea. ”

“ MADURA, a city and district of British India, in the Madras Presidency. The city is situated on the right bank of the river Vaigai, and has a station on the South Indian railway 345 m. S.E. of Madras. Pop. (1901) , 105,984. The city was the capital of the old Pandyan dynasty, which ruled over this part of India from the 5th century B.C. to the end of the 11th century A.D. Its great temple forms a parallelogram about 847 ft. by 729 ft., and is surrounded by nine gopuras, of which the largest is 152 ft. high. These ornamental pyramids begin with doorposts of single stones 60 ft. ”

“ There is still a 'Coral Merchants' Street' in Madras, a continuation of Armenian Street, and it is a living reminder of the old Jewish colony. The Golconda mines eventually ceased to be productive, and Jewish diamond merchants are no longer to be seen in the city, and the Jewish colony [21] has long since disappeared. Jews are notorious all the world over as money-lenders, and it may perhaps be wondered why none of them survived as money-lenders in Madras ”

“ His inscribed tomb is to be seen in the churchyard of the Anglican Church of St. Matthias, Vepery, which in olden days was the churchyard of a Roman Catholic chapel. Within the last half-century the Armenian community in Madras has been rapidly declining, as the result, probably, of inability to cope with the hustling style of commercial competition in these latter days; and only a very few representatives of the race are now to be seen in the city. ”

“ It was the first beginning of Government education—the laying of the first stone in what is now such a vast edifice.
[4] In modern Madras the great majority of the Hindu residents are Tamils; but in the beginning there were very few Tamil immigrants, and the Hindu residents were nearly all of them Telugus (Gentoos) .
In appointing a schoolmaster, the Directors meant to do their best for education in their rising city; for they had [90] engaged no mean dominie on a menial's pay. In choosing Mr. Ralph Orde they chose a good man, and they paid him accordingly. ”

“ Stokes,” Miss Dora asked,
“'Where every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile'?”
Mrs. Thurston told them that the people in India do not live on farms as many do in this [Pg 170] country, but crowd together in towns and villages, going out from there to work in the fields. She briefly described the large city of Madras, with its mingled riches and poverty, its streets crowded with all sorts of people, some of them with hardly any clothing on, its temples and bazaars, or shops. Then she spoke of Madura, where her home had been so long. ”

“ Khudā terī ḳudrat, 'God is thy strength!' Another mentioned by Capt. Baldwin is very like the truth: 'Be quick, pay your debts!' But perhaps the Greek interpretation recorded by Athenaeus (ix. 39) is best of all: τρὶς τοῖς κακούργοις κακά 'Three-fold ills to the ill-doers!' see Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. xviii. and note 1; [Burton, Ar. Nights, iii. 234, iv. 17] .
BLACK TOWN, n.p. Still the popular name of the native city of Madras, as distinguished from the Fort and southern suburbs occupied by the English residents, and the bazars which supply their wants. The term is also used at Bombay. ”

“ The collector of customs and the port doctor are coming off to-morrow morning at 7 o’clock to pass the coolies. I expect the captain will want me to go with him to Calcutta.
Off Saugor Light-house, River Hooghly, April 21st, 1871. “My Dear ——: I hope you have received a note informing you of my coming on here from Madras. I will now endeavor to follow my own footsteps over again on paper. On the Tuesday morning I landed at Madras. It is a large city, built right on the sea-beach, facing the rolling surf ”

“ Most of the public buildings in Madras, such as the Railway Station, the Government Offices and the Law Courts, are of red brick, and their architecture an ingenious mixture of East and West.
Maimed and deformed beggars seem to {99} abound. They come up to you shaking their quivering limbs, showing you sores or touching your arm softly with uncanny hands to draw your eyes to see some monstrous horror of a leg. ”

“ A crowd attracts a crowd; and when once a town has begun to grow, it goes on growing of its own accord; and ten years after the acquisition of Madras, the population of the town was estimated at as many as 15,000 souls. The Fort itself, moreover, had to be enlarged; for the growth of the Company's business meant that more and more factors and writers had to be brought out from England, and more and more warehouses had to be provided for the multiplied wares ”