Whether the rugs were made in those jails or in a jail at all is irrelevant. The importance is that a group of rugs of Indian manufacture were brought together to establish the nature of rugs of this period. Many of these rugs are not only beautiful, but also well woven. In today's market many of them compete with the Serapi and Bakshaish as highly desirable decorative carpets.

As Bennett points out in the text, "There is probably no other type of contemporaneous weaving about which we have so much contemporaneous information - although in a decidedly inaccessible form - and yet about which we seem to know so little." The weaving industry in India was carefully recorded by bureaucrats of the the British Raj and others. Much of this information has been overlooked by most rug book writers, perhaps because many of the studies documenting the industry had limited distribution.

One such government study of carpet-making in India in our possession is Monograph on Carpet Making in the United Provinces by K. J. Prasad, published in 1907. The United Provinces are today known as Uttar Pradesh. Reprinted here is Chapter II which gives a general description of the carpet industry at the time.

The Moghals no doubt imported weavers from Persia and other places. We have the testimony of Abul Fazl for it. But it is unlikely that the women-weavers would consent to leave their homes; perhaps they even thought that, as members of a superior race, it was improper for them to undertake manual work in the midst of a conquered people. There would thus be no women among the newcomers. An equally strong prejudice in the subject population against allowing their women to associate with the foreign weavers probably soon crystallized into a custom, and it may serve to explain why women, who are such expert weavers in other parts of the world, are rigidly excluded in India. However, it is not an unmixed evil. The employment of women would probably mean a further lowering of wages, and - what is worse - it would increase the opportunities for the men to sit idle.

It is in many respects similar to that in Persia, Turkey, and other parts of India. The owners of the looms receive advances from the firms, and engage their own workmen. The weavers do not deal directly with the firms. The system of giving money in advance to the weavers is almost universal. Its effect on the carpet industry will be discussed in the chapter dealing with wages.

The looms are widely distributed, and generally one man doesn't own more than a few looms. The whole household is engaged in the work, the women and boys assisting in the preliminary processes of opening the yarn, spinning the warp, &etc. However, the firm of Messrs. Otto Weylandt & Co. at Agra, and in a slightly modified form the European carpet firms in Cawnpore, are worked on the factory system. On the whole, it is fortunate that this system is not common in these provinces. The industrial home has not yet been completely replaced by factory hands.

The majority of the weavers are settled in towns, but in Mirzapur. the industry is chiefly rural. As, however, the largest number of woollen-pile carpets are made in Mirzapur, it may be said that the woollen-pile carpet industry is rural, while the cotton-pile carpet and dari (dhurry) industry is urban. The weavers in towns are mainly dependent on weaving for their livelihood, but in rural tracts agriculture is also combined with weaving. This is a very desirable combination. The work is less monotonous, and is carried on under healthier conditions than in cities.

This has had great influence on the question of wages, on design. and on industrial organization. It has meant the decay of the trade guilds, and in place of a medieval form of industry with regulated wages, has come in the modern spirit or cut-throat competition.

The guilds have greatly declined in influence, and in many districts they have altogether disappeared. They served a very useful purpose in regulating wages, in checking the quality of the goods produced, in limiting supply to demand, and in settling trade disputes. They are still active in places where the industry is comparatively small, and exercise their influence in confining the industry to certain classes and in enforcing the payment of debts. They no longer exercise any control over wages or production. There is at present no organization to take their place, and there seems to be a decline in the spirit of co-operation and communal responsibility amongst the weavers. There are not sufficient materials to give a correct estimate of the number of men engaged in making cotton-pile carpets and daris. However, approximate figures can be given for those engaged in the woollen carpet industry. There are between five to six thousand weavers in these provinces, of whom there are about four to five thousand in Mirzapur, including the family Domains of His Highness the Maharaja of Benares, about 600 in Agra and the rest distributed over the other manufacturing districts.

No figures are available for cotton-pile carpets and daris. but the figures for woollen-pile carpets are given in Appendix I. It is estimated that woollen carpets to the value of about seven lakhs of rupees are exported every year from these provinces, out of which Mirzapur exports nearly six lakhs of rupees worth of carpets. More than ninety percent of these carpets are sent to Europe, chiefly from the port of Calcutta and to a very much smaller extent from the ports of Bombay and Karachi.

Two to three annas a day may he taken as the average wage of a weaver. The money wage has not altered much during the last ten years, but the real wage has gone down on account of the rise in the price of food stuffs. The profits of the small owners of looms are about six pies (1/2d.) to onc anna {ld.) per square yard, and those of the big contractors are from four annas to eight annas per square yard in ordinary carpets. The profits are very much higher in carpets of superior quality, as there is very little difference in the rate of wages paid for superior and inferior carpets.

It is difficult to determine why the industry is carried on in particular places. Its distribution often appears to be capricious. There seems no apparent reason why excellent carpets should be made in Jewar, an obscure village of the Bulandshahr district, or in the Fateh- pur tahsil of the Bara Banki district.

Taking a wider view, it is noticeable that most of the carpet-manufacturing towns are situated outside of Oudh. In the Ayin Akbari not a single place is mentioned in the Subah of Oudh where carpets were manufactured: perhaps the absence of large towns in Oudh, and their distance from the imperial cities of Agra and Delhi, may throw some light on the subject. Even to this day Fatchpur tahsil in the Bara Banki district is the only important seat of carpet-manufacture in that province. It would thus appear that in some cases the industry is due to economic, in others to historic, causes and in some to pure accident, and that the structure of Indian society tends to perpetuate an industry when it is once started.

Thc modern facility of communication and the copying of designs from certain standard works, such as the Vienna Museum Book tend to obliterate local peculiarities. However, differences of material, design, shape, and workmanship still exist. It is possible to distinguish the woollen-pile carpet of Mirzapur made to meet a popular demand from the more expensive carpets of Agra. Similarly the stiff, closely woven daris of Aligarh, and the elegant daris of Agra, differ from those made in the other districts.

The usual period of apprenticeship is from six months to two years. Boys of from eight to nine years of age become apprentices, and either receive no wages at all during tho period of apprenticeship or get about one anna a day. The formalities that are observed when apprentices are admitted are given in the chapter on Customs and Traditions. Fewer difficulties are placed now in the way of imparting knowledge than in the old days, when an apprentice was also a household drudge of the master. On the other hand, the great demand for labour makes the instruction less thorough and, very often, raw workmen are turned out. There does not appear to be any demand for Technical Schools in the industry, as under the present system, the workmen are taught all that they require in their trade, and though mostly illiterate, are very well versed in the technical part of their work. The ambition of every workman is some day to become a master-weaver.

The Indian firms have no regular system of advertisement on modern lines. They have generally business houses (arhats) in differ- ent places, which supply them with commercial intelligence, but no effort is made to give publicity to goods by any organised and scientific system of advertisement. However, the great religious fairs help, to some extent, to make goods known to the public, but we are yet very far from the pushful methods and cunning devices of travelling agents, nor is the insinuating grace of free samples thoroughly recognised. The Indian firms spend practically nothing on making their goods known and are considerably handicapped in competing with their European rivals. The Indian traders and merchants have yet to learn that unadvertised goods, like most other things, are apt to be neglected and merit to be recognised must be loudly proclaimed. The policy of dozing over goods in an obscure shop in an unknown street of an Indian bazar is obsolete and not in keeping with this age of self-advertisement.

At present the scope for advertising goods is necessarily limited by the general want of education among the masses, and by the prevalence of bargaining. An advertisement to be effective must be read, and before a customer can venture to order goods, he must have some assurance that he is getting good value for his money. The ingrained habit of the Indian trader of claiming a big price and of being content with a small one, must be rooted out. Fixed prices appear to be almost an antecedent condition of successful advertising. With the more general spread of education, it will be possible to reach a larger circle of customers, and when Indian traders have learnt to issue more reliable price-lists we may hope to see much improvement in the present unsatisfactory state of advertising goods.

Daris and cotton-pile carpets are made mostly for the Indian market; being largely exported to Calcutta, Bombay, the Punjab, and even as far as Burma and Assam. Daris are also sent to Europe from Cawnpore. The woollen-pile carpets are exported mostly to England. Carpets of superior quality are sent to America and Germany from Agra.

Munj and aloe-fibre matting, printed floor cloths, and chattais are frequently used as coverings for floors, in place of cotton and woollen carpets. Aloe-fibre carpets are also being made in the Bareilly Central Jail, and their larger use seems only a question of time. The use of carpets in India is further restricted by a change in the mode of living of the upper classes.

With the spread of a pseudo-western culture, the Indian gentleman, like the modern Persian, prefers to live in what he considers to be European style. The votaries of this style ignore the highly artistic industries of India and show a marked weakness for all that would be considered intensely vulgar by the very persons whom they are so anxious to imitate. The walls of a palace will often be hung up with glaring German prints, and the floor strewed with chairs and sofas in all styles. Rarely will one find an Indian carpet in the house of the wealthy and so-called enlightened classes. This depravity of taste has bad a very disastrous result on tbe carpet industry. There is practically no Indian demand for expensive carpets. The weavers look to Europe for the sale of their goods and have to adjust to all the vagaries of taste of their foreign customers. They are no longer bound down by the canons of tastc prevalcnt in India.

The charge is often laid that the Indian weaver is slow to adopt new processes, and that his methods are conventional and old-fashioned. Convention in Indian art has been a great regulating force.

The artistic experience of centuries and the religious ideas of the people are embodied in these conventions. While taking his inspiration from nature, the Indian artist has found in the traditional convention of his art, what are, according to many competent authorities the true principles of surface decoration.

The attempt at imitating Western models has been far from succesful. The conservatism of the East preserved for it a pure tradition in Art. This is being gradually lost. The real danger does not lie in tbe want of adaptability of the Indian workman, but in the bewildering rapidity with which he follows every change of fashion. The experience of the past has been sacrificcd in the hope of satisfying the fickle taste of the modern European customer.

Designs which were the heritage of a family and were regarded with jealous care are now being replaced by concoctions that can suitably be named only by numbers. The modern designs sent out from Europe are labelled and numbered. The scheme of colour is mapped out. Paid agents supervise the work. Skill lies in imitating these designs, and it must be confessed that the Indian workman is an expert imitator. With perfect impartiality he copies the most worthless design and the finished product of art. And he can hardly be blamed for this. The need for daily food is greater than the pursuit of an artistic ideal that will lead to bankruptcy. It rests with the Indian public to create a demand for good carpets, and there seems no doubt that the modern workman will not fall very short of his predecessor of the Moghal era.