The years that have passed bringing in their train many
altered conditions, the most important of all, perhaps, being the
replacing of a natural vegetable dye such as indigo by chemically
produced substitutes.
Probably in a few more years the still remaining features of the
Bengal indigo planter's off duty life as depicted by Ali Baba will
have quite disappeared, unless the substitution of sugar planting for
that of indigo now receiving considerable attention in various Bengal,
and more particularly Tirhoot, districts prove a success.
Anyway, the Macdonalds, the Beggs, and the Thomases, names now, as
formerly, prominently identified with the great indigo industry, have
been assured of continual remembrance. So prominent, in fact, has the
Scotch element among planting families always been that it is said
that if any one present at a race, polo, or Christmas week gathering
were to shout out "Mac!" from the verandah of the Tirhoot Club, every
face in the crowd would be simultaneously turned towards the speaker.
The bantering allusion to "Mr. Caird and _The Nineteenth Century_,"
applies to that great authority on many and very varied agricultural
subjects, the late Sir James Caird, who died in 1892.
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