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on the telephone and tell him that the servants must cease work or to ask whether he "preferred his rice hot or cold" (a euphemism for whether he would rather be alive or dead). The servants would then leave en masse.
Frequently a man would come to the servants' quarters of a house with a similar message. In no case
apparently did the servants inform the master of the house of such visits until long after the man had left.
The experiences of my own household are worth recording. My servants told the Aide-de-Camp on March let that they were afraid they would have to strike though they were most anxious not to (This was probably true as they are overpaid and underworked). Arguments and promises of gratuities appeared to have some effect and it looked as if they would stay when on the morning of the 2nd one of them went out to market. On his return, practically the whole body declared that they must leave that night. So far as could be ascertained all that had happened was that some person in the street had said "You are not allowed to work" or something of the sort.
Promises of protection were useless as they were met with the answer "Yes, we shall be safe while the strike lasts as we needn't go outside the ground; but what will happen afterwards. We shall be killed then".
The argument that it was impossible for the strikers to kill everybody if everybody remained at work did not seem to appeal to them. They admitted the fact but obviously thought that some people would be killed and didn't care to take the risk of being among the number. All of them except four house coolies left that night.
These four remained for a day or two, when one of them (an old house coolie who had been here for over 30 years and was induced to stay by the argument that he was so old that it really wouldn't make much difference to him
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