I Have Already
Described Our Troubles With The Lions; And No
Sooner Did The Beasts Of Prey Appear To Have
Deserted Us, For The Time Being At Any Rate, Than
Other Troubles, No Less Serious, Arose With The
Workmen Themselves.
After I had discovered
the stone for the bridge, I sent down to the coast
for gangs of masons to work and dress it.
The
men who were sent me for this purpose were
mostly Pathans and were supposed to be expert
workmen; but I soon found that many of them
had not the faintest notion of stone-cutting, and
were simply ordinary coolies who had posed as
masons in order to draw forty-five instead of
twelve rupees a month. On discovering this
fact, I immediately instituted a system of
piecework, and drew up a scale of pay which would
enable the genuine mason to earn his forty-five
rupees a month - and a little more if he felt
inclined - and would cut down the impostors to
about their proper pay as coolies. Now, as is
often the case in this world, the impostors were
greatly in the majority; and accordingly they
attempted to intimidate the remainder into coming
down to their own standard as regards output
of work, in the hope of thereby inducing me to
abandon the piece-work system of payment.
This, however, I had no intention of doing, as
I knew that I had demanded only a perfectly
fair amount of work from each man.
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